I've got the Academy M60 dozer blade and I'm fairly sure it will be close enough to use on an M48, What I'm looking for now is how the blade mounts to the hull, is it similar to the M60 mounting system? ( I've got amazing refence for that, thank -you Andy), but since the front of the M48 hull is a compound curve and the M60 is flat..what can I do?, any tips would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Joker

Hi Joker,
I've had the same idea for some time and I think I'd just fill the gaps between the hull end the dozer. In my gallery there's two pictures of the m8 dozerblade. It's a bit hard to find good reference on this one

Hth
Mark

There is a detailed dozer blade set for 1/35 M48 & M60 Patton kits manufactured by Academy #1374, it cost about 2,50 USD but I am not sure that it is still available.

The M60 used the M9 dozer blade and the M48 used the M8 dozer blade. The Academy kit is the M9 dozer sprue from their USMC M60A1 w/ERA kit.

Thank you Robin for your explanation about Patton's dozer blades. I got the information from Great Models:



I have to looking for a M8 dozer blade.

"Others followed after the war. The M3 blade was designed for the M47, the M8 series for the M48 family of tanks, and the M9 for the M60 series tanks. The M9 was identical to the M8 series except for the mounting fittings that connected the blade and its associated control hardware to the front of the tank. The M8s differed in where the hydraulic lines for operating the blades attached to the hull; early models attached to the top right rear of the tank, and later models ran their lines down an armored cover to a connector at the left bottom rear of the hull. The M9 used the same system as the late M8 series blades."

Cookie Sewell

http://www.missing-lynx.com/reviews/modern/academy-1-35-1374.html


Hunnicutt's book on the Patton tank goes into more detail on the evolution.

Thanks for all the good gen, I'll be going ahead with the conversion, as I've got a fair bit of info on the M9 blade and hose layout, and where I don't know, a little of that Vietnamese red mud will be just fine... Thanks again
Joker

Thanks for the info on the hoses for the dozer. I had seen pictures of the fender mounted hoses and was looking out how to scratch it, now I won't have to, just run the hoses underneath and look at ways to depict an armored cover