OK, I may be out of my leauge here, but I have 2 projects planned as of right now. One is a recreation of the tank I served on while in Iraq, that will be no problem at all. I will be using the Dragon M1A1 AIM kit for both.

The other however will be a real challange, and is based on the photo below.




I am hoping that the Dragon M1A1 AIM kit suspention detail will let me work this out. Please let me know if I am right about this because I have not gotten my first AIM model yet to see if it will work. I was also wondering if anyone could help me come up with where I can get a model that looks like the car in this photo. I have seen a resen blown up car made by MIG, and although I could use the car, I don't think I could use a resin kit for it.

I would like any comments and/or advice that you may have.

Thanks a lot
Mike

Yup Mike, the Dragons new AIM kit has seperate road arms and they have little teeth so you can adjust them. Even the ideler wheel is slightly adjustable.

Mike, you might have to compromise on the car. I can't think of anything that will work in plastic except getting a WWII VW and using just the front part, like in the photo, and making the rest out of whatever for the crushed parts.

Is there any civilian car in 1/32? That would work. Maybe a cheap die-cast car if they make them in 1/32?

Bob

They do do diecast cars in 32nd scale though not real common and will take a bit of an effort to find. Much more common are the 43rd scale. As you are going to crush it, you might get by with the different size. Just beat it flat at one end with a hammer.

There is this kit by Mig Productions....but may be difficult to "crush" as it is comprised of resin bits...

I can't see the photo because the firewall that I'm sitting behind blocks the popular photo sites.

Would this kit be an option:

https://ssl3.world4you.com/scaleshop/shop/product_info.php?cPath=65_33_28&products_id=82

I recently ordered this kit. It looks to be pretty well done. The wheels and tires will need a little help though as the tread detail is pretty much non-existant and the interior detail is very simplified. I think the vacuform format would lend itself rather well to being crushed.

Cheers - Dan

I just checked out the link, and that looks like what I will have to use. Don't get me wrong, this will work wonderfuly, the back of the car is getting crushed, so it won't matter that it is a hatch back, and it mostly crushes the passenger compartment so the interior detail will not be a huge deal. As far as the tire tread deal, again no matter, as the back 2 are under the tank and the front 2 are heading that way. Also most tires on Iraqi cars are bald. If you could let me know what the engine looks like, again this is not that big a deal b/c the hood is for the most part down, and just buckled in some area's.

Thanks alot for that web page man.

Mike

The car under the Abrams is a Chevy Captice. Monogram/Revell does one in 1/32 snap as part of a rescue combo set with a fire engine. It has also been by itself over the years as a police car and a fire chief car. I have used it, and it will work great.


Here's one on eBay.

Ok well what I am now going to say might be a bit harder then trying to get a plastic or resin car to look like crushed metal. Still it will end up with a better looking result.... In my opinion.

Basically what you do is buy a kit of the car you want to be featuring crushed by your tank... prefferably a cheap kit. Go to your supermarket and buy a couple of the largest aluminum oven trays... The thin flimsy type. This will deliver you with a sufficient amount of aluminum to do the job and it is cheap.
Ok built the kit of the car you purchased. ( in the case it is a diecast skip the building of it) Now cut out big parts of the aluminum oven trays and form them on the different sections of your "master" which is the car itself. So make the roof by pressing the aluminum sheet onto it... do the same with the hood, the wheel wells etc. etc. Scratchbuilt a rudimentary interior. Not much will be visible after it is crushed. Try to make the windowframes also from aluminum foils. scratchbuilt some seats from soft easy to bend material. try to make a bumper from soft material. etc. etc. ...... basically what I'm trying to tell here is to scratchbuilt a whole car with aluminum sheeting. try to replicate features of the "master"
Then glue everything together.
When everything is glued together and the glue has cured take a piece of wood that is about the width of the tracks of your tank and start crushing the vehicle. The aluminum will do in scale what 1:1 metal does when it get's crushed it will bend, crinkle, fold... etc.

Not the easiest of methods but in my opinion the best looking result


just an idea

with friendly greetz

Robert Blokker

Thanks for the link, some interesting Vac-u-form kits there.

The Revell "Night Crawlers" series SnapTite in 1/32 are on shelves now for about $6. USD. The Pontiac GTO looks closest of this series. Then use the pressed on foil method described by FAUST.

Great dio idea!

PiperDan--thanks for providing that link! I've been looking around for a 1/35 scale kit of the Mercedes Benz G500 to no avail, and you've just given me my best lead! These folks make a kit of the Puch G - LF, which appears to be close enough to what I need.

Mike--That picture will make for one very cool diorama. I'm sure many of us would love to see pics of the build and the finished product.

Faust's idea is the best. Plastic won't look like twisted metal and banging the bejeezus out of a die cast will simply shatter the metal. Some years ago, Scale Auto Enthusiast did a cover story on ""King" Richard Petty's car smashing into the wall. The effect was quite convincing. (Trivia piont: the magazine was featured in Clint Eastwood's In the Line of Fire as Clint's character is looking to learn about resin casting and searches a newstand's hobby magazine section.)

Well as soon as I get the money / kits / and stuff for all the details together, I damn sure will be posting pics of it all. I'm thinking that it should take me about a month to get everything together for it. I'm just tring to get all my "ducks" in a row right now




I'm thinking about using both plastic and Faust's idea i.e. melting the plastic to make it look some what crushed, then using the pans as like an over plate for the fine detail and that crushed metal look and feel. Its gonna take alot of practice. Thank god for cheep ebay models

from my car modelling days, when I built a model of a NASCAR stock with cruppled fenders, I slightly heated the plastic over candle flame and used the eraser end of a brand new pencil to create the damage. the method is very controlled, so long as you don't hold the model over the flame too long.