Hello,

The very first armor model that I completed was the Tamiya Sgt York. I've always liked the look of this vehicle. However, I don't like the M48 hull as much as I like the turret. I'm thinking about buying a Sgt York kit on eBay and mating it to a Tamiya Abrams hull.

My question is how do I go about this? I've never done a kit bash before. I know I can just glue the turret to the hull. However, I'd like to retain the ability to rotate the turret freely once the kit is complete. It may be silly, but I like to "play" with my models once they are complete.

Maybe I shouldn't have said the last part. Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that I may need to cut out the turret ring on the M48 hull and attach it flush to the Abrams turret ring area. Any tips or alternative methods will be appreciated.

Thanks,
Bill

Bill,
I've built both kits but can't remember the York one much.
If the York has a flat circle around the hole with the notches cut into it for the turret attachment, maybe you could scribe along the outside circumference and then glue the new 'ring' into position on the Abrams.
Any M1 hull that gets in the way under the new turret ring simply cut away, but leave a good 'lip' to fix the new ring to.
Hope this makes sense.
Tom

I hear ya
i ones did this with a sargent york turret on a old M60 hull I had lying around It looked pretty cool.

Bill
A SIMPLE SOLUTION ---
Make a ring out of 0.030"sheet at(scale-)104" (pic 1)and fix to inside of ABRAMS turret ring--cut hole (scale-)44"in centre (pic 3)....York turret will now sit on this ......to lock it in on "cut-outs"will require a ring of (scale-)67.5" (pic 2) to be glued to existing Abrams ring then cut out lug access to suit(pic4 /5....spare odd ring to show only)












If in doubt --e-m me ---btw have a spare unbuilt turret for Sgt York -(bagged)...I only build recovery an engineering vehicles so 90 % of my turrets are in a large spares box
aye
BARV
(GOSMG)

The above method will work perfectly. You can also ask Sabot how he did it. He built an M1 DIVAD a while ago.

I started with the original Tamiya M1 Abrams kit. I cut the base of the Abrams turret ring off and affixed it to the underside of the York turret. Fit like a dream.

I detailed out the turret to make it look like it was an "in service" vehicle by adding smoke grenade launchers, spare road wheel, TC's M60 machine gun (or was it the loader's M240?) for close in suppression. I added stowage (duffle bags, ruck sacks), a couple of 5 gallon cans and racks and other sundry items.

The hull had a set of Trumpeter M1A1 tracks added and I detailed out the hull using M1IPs I had at work as reference. I also used the old Eduard PE set to detail the hull.

Unfortunately, the photos were hosted on the old Armorama.msn group site that got shut down. I don't think I saved the photos when I changed out computers.

I renamed the vehicle the M247A1 Sgt. Major York and painted it in overall desert sand.

Thank you VERY much!!! I would not have thought of either idea.

I think I'll use Sabot's method, but will keep barv's method in mind for future projects.

Thank you both.

Regards,
Bill