Howdy All,

Before I left town last week I took the opportunity to take a few preliminary photos of some of the ingredients of my Recovery / Engineering Campaign entry. Namely the Bluetank M8A1 Cargo Tractor.
I read (from a couple of sources) that the tank itself was supposed to be based on the M48 Patton tank chassis. So, curious as to whether this was true or not I broke out one of my Tamiya M48 lower hull pieces. Below is a pic of the two side by side........


Now, am I being too 'technical' here or, do these two look nothing alike?

Tread.

The M8A1 was based on the T41 light tank (M41 Walker Bulldog) chassis.

Howdy Rob,

Thx for the clarification sir. I probably should have knocked on your classroom door in the first place....huh?
But I could have sworn I read M48......maybe it was a typo.....or maybe it was a synapse. Either way, my failing.

But, since the M41 is so......dimunitive. I'm assuming this is a stretched M41 chassis? Possibly evident in the lengthier spacing between the 5th and 6th road wheel mountings?
Also, does the M41 hull bottom look anything like the Bluetank hull? (I don't own an M41 ).
tia.

Tread.

Oh!!........I don't suppose you have one of THESE things sittin' out in the Motorpool you could take pics of......do ya huh?

Tread,

Yep.... streched hull!! you'll need about 1.5 sets odf the AFV Club track to replace the Lovely rubberbands in the kit..........

Howdy fellow wrench jockeys,

Before I left for the great over-populated East, I was able to assemble some pics of the (pre) early stages of my Rec/Eng build up. This is mainly for my 'Compadre in Pain' Plasticbattle since he is building the same kit as I for this Campaign. With any luck I can save him some heartache regarding this build, and with a wee bit more luck attract someone else's attention so that the 'Pain' can be shared.............

Very quickly, the instructions are for sh!t. Without going into detail, I could have written better instructions without my reading glasses!
Anyway, the running gear is something I have been trying to salvage because it looks passable, and more importantly I'm trying not to drop a small fortune on this wee bugger.
The road wheels have a small amount of 'flash', but nothing to complain about. My only input (to help Plasticbattle trim some time off his build) is that a small amount of 'adjustment' is necessary to make the suspension parts fit right, and align with themselves properly.
The supplied suspension arms, and the road wheel 'caps' are both a tad too long. Below is a photo of both 'Before', and 'After'. As you can see, just a small amount is to be removed, but the difference in fit is significant .

Here is the pic......


Tread.

Howdy fellas,

You 're going to have to excuse me, but I'll be slowly posting pics of my progress (for those crazy souls who are interested in the first place ). I will have to work on doing a better job of assembling my photos in a nice, comprehensive manner like my compadre' 'Roo does, but for now, this is it.

Here is a quick pic of my first steps in completely scratchbuilding the kit supplied cargo 'stake' sections. I didn't necessarily want to scratch thses, but these are one of the fairly prominent features of the vehicle, and the kit supplied pieces are completely out of scale IMHO (actually, according to my C.T.T. ruler).
I have used the kit pieces as templates. The wooden planks themselves will be of correspondingly sized strips of Bass wood, the wide flat support sections will be of brass strip stock, and the reinforcing 'angle' iron backing (to the main strips) will be of styrene rectangular stock.
Here's a ganger of the first shot.....


Tread.

O.K. gents, next up.....

Here's a shot of how I've laid out my ingredients for recreating the M8A1 stake bed fence sections.
As you can see, I've got a metal working surface with an inlaid semi-transparent grid layer that helps me with alignment of the pieces. The upper piece is the kit-supplied original 'fence' section. below is the started piece I am scratching. I have all the Bass wood sections glued to the brass verticals, and I've just begun to glue the rectangular styrene back supports to complete the first portion of the 'look'. The three little vertical square 'buttons' with small holes inthe middle of them are magnets (for those of you who don't recognize my setup). They are used to hold all of the pieces together and aligned.



If you loook along the bottom of the vertical pieces, you can see that the ends are still ragged. These will all be trimmed and aligned when all pieces are glued together.
I am also considering (there goes that catchy AMS again) adding micro bolt heads behind each plank........haven't decided if I'm going to be that An@l yet....................

whadaya think?

Tread.

Oh, oh...before I forget. My good pal Gunnie gets credit for turning me on to the use of my little 'grid and magnet' system. The man's a genious......

Im rubbing my hands gordon. All the work is being done for me!! :-) :-)
I´ll be joining you in the build shortly. .... promise! Ihave a few things I need to sort out first!
Cant wait to start as well. Cheers!

Howdy Frank,

...I understand pard', no worries. I'm just tryin' to work my saggin' tussy overtime so that my entry has at least a shot at looking as good as yours is going to......that's all.

Besides that, I'm trying to become as good a 'chronicler' as our good 'Roo. Tough assignment to be sure!
Got another pic coming soon......

Tread.

Tread:

Not sure if this is of use, but I found it while looking for some military loads on flat cars. It is an M8A2.



John

Howdy John,

"Tread:

Not sure if this is of use,

Many thx for posting the pic! It definitely helps, but now you've added to my research duties........ya bugger!

I can see a couple of difference's, but not much. There is a nifty little lifting system on the vehicle at the rear that seems to have been removed from this 'A2' version, but since I plan to depict mine 'in action', I suppose I'll have to stick with the 'A1' version.
I'm also trying to determine whther the vehicle saw service in the Korean conflict, as well as the 'Nam.

thx again sir.

Tread.

In fact, here's just about the only other pic I can find of this apparently rarely photographed 'beastie', and it's almost identical to yours......but if you look a little closer you will notice that my photograph shows that the lifting system is still in place at the rear of the vehicle, and apparently has been 'upgraded' (?) with a full length main steel I-beam Rec/Eng assembly of some sort. Add to that the armoured skirting that has been added as well, and you've got at least some interesting changes.........