discussion Why on Earth would you scratchbuild an M113 in 1:35 scale?

[scottie3158]

jakko, the great detail continues. As to the copper wire try heating it to bright red then quenching in water this should anneal it and make it easier to work.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the suggestion. I had had that thought too, but by the time I did, I had already formed the “pipe” to the shape I needed Good thing to keep in mind for the future, though.

 

[Guest]

I’ve added lots of cables to the vehicle now. First I made a wrapped cable by taking a few strands of thin copper wire and wrapping a thin strip of masking tape around them, like on the real thing:

View attachment 404248

It goes behind the bilge pump pipe and through holes I drilled in the remains of the firewall, where I then cut them all off. This because the four things I fixed it in, represent the sockets the cables plug into on both sides. I randomly bent the other ends, to represent them having been torn from whatever they were fixed to, and also added some more random cables draped over and around the engine:

View attachment 404251

Basically, this is half trying to represent the real thing and half gizmology for the overall appearance.

On the right-hand side, I added some cables as well, because the battery box sits at the very rear here. One cable ran forward into the engine compartment, the other earths the electrical system on a bracket welded to the hull side:

View attachment 404249

I won’t be including the battery box or the batteries, but above it on the rear wall are some more fixtures that I suppose would have remained.

All that done, I decided I want to have the radiator next to the wreck. It hangs from a duct that is normally attached to the roof of the engine compartment, and Tamiya provides both parts. However, if the radiator came down to the ground from some height, the duct would surely get deformed, and that’s not possible with the plastic kit part, which is far too thick. So I copied its dimensions onto apiece of aluminium sheet (a printing plate) and bent it into the shape of the duct:

View attachment 404250

 

[Guest]

I added some straps to a few of the tie-downs:

View attachment 404400

These are just 0.1 mm plastic card cut into strips of random length, then folded, scrunched up and otherwise mishandled before glueing into position.

And all the main parts posed on the base I made earlier:

View attachment 404401

Missing is the trim vane, which should sit on the bow. Someone promised he would mail me one, but hasn’t so far Anyway, next, I sprayed Vallejo white primer from a rattle can onto all the parts:

View attachment 404402

This needs a second coat tomorrow, because some of the pencil lines still show through. Then the real fun begins, because I need to decide which colours the interior actually was after the explosion that blew the whole thing apart. I can’t figure out what exactly is visible in the photo of the real vehicle: why are the lower hull sides light in colour, but the upper sides and floor, dark?

The interior of these M113s was painted white (the more familiar green finish came once the M113A1 was already in production), so are the light areas white paint, or perhaps bare aluminium, or even aluminium oxide resulting from a fire? Are the dark bits on the interior scorched paint? If not, what else might have caused them to be that dark? Speculation would be appreciated

 

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
Primer means the end of building and onto the next stage. That's a big achievement on its own. All the cabling looks good and the radiator duct has worked well.
Jim

 

[Guest]

Yes, it certainly felt like getting somewhere finally

 

[Neil Merryweather]

I added some straps to a few of the tie-downs:



These are just 0.1 mm plastic card cut into strips of random length, then folded, scrunched up and otherwise mishandled before glueing into position.

And all the main parts posed on the base I made earlier:



Missing is the trim vane, which should sit on the bow. Someone promised he would mail me one, but hasn’t so far :sad: Anyway, next, I sprayed Vallejo white primer from a rattle can onto all the parts:



This needs a second coat tomorrow, because some of the pencil lines still show through. Then the real fun begins, because I need to decide which colours the interior actually was after the explosion that blew the whole thing apart. I can’t figure out what exactly is visible in the photo of the real vehicle: why are the lower hull sides light in colour, but the upper sides and floor, dark?

The interior of these M113s was painted white (the more familiar green finish came once the M113A1 was already in production), so are the light areas white paint, or perhaps bare aluminium, or even aluminium oxide resulting from a fire? Are the dark bits on the interior scorched paint? If not, what else might have caused them to be that dark? Speculation would be appreciated :smiling3:

Looking great,Jakko.
I'm preparing a scratch-built project of my own with limited information and I feel your pain. But it's also very enjoyable searching out every last little anomaly.
Looking forward to the paint

 

[Guest]

Looking great,Jakko.

Thanks

I'm preparing a scratch-built project of my own with limited information and I feel your pain. But it's also very enjoyable searching out every last little anomaly.

I wouldn’t use the word “enjoyable” … “Frustrating” is more like it, at least until I get a decent mental picture of what things are and how they go together. Once I can wrap my head around that, it’s usually easy enough — until I run into things I thought I knew but turn out not to. Quite often with this model, I was sitting on the sofa or something and had a flash of inspiration, went to my hobby room and then found I still didn’t quite have it clear enough yet.

Looking forward to the paint

I’m not I’ve got one week left to finish this thing, and I have no idea yet what colours I should/will use anywhere except the outer surfaces (namely, OD).

 

[Mini Me]

just had a catch up.....you have made a lot of progress and it is looking very nice indeed. Hope you make your deadline. Rick H.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, and I should be able to do it, if I can think of plausible colours to paint it in.

 

[Guest]

Following the second coat of primer, I masked off the edges where I would be spraying the outside of the model:

View attachment 404605View attachment 404606

It doesn’t need to go all the way around, because when spraying the sides, as long as you’re not aiming your airbrush into the model, you’ll be OK

That done, I sprayed Vallejo Model Air olive drab onto the exterior surfaces:

View attachment 404607

The wheels aren’t done overly neatly on this side, because that will be facing the ground anyway After it had dried, I mixed some sand-coloured paint into the OD and added lighter patches in the centres of panels on the front and rear:

View attachment 404608

Now to tackle the interior …

 

[Guest]

Details have now been painted in their basic colours:

View attachment 404865View attachment 404866

I put olive drab onto the engine block, with brown rusted exhausts, gun metal on the transmission and other details in white, black and aluminium. Pretty much, this was guesswork, because I couldn’t find any good references about the real M113’s engine, other than a few poor-quality shots of the engine and black-and-white photos in a book.

In addition, I applied a wash of really old (1970s) Humbrol Subframe Grey enamel paint over the white parts, to give some shading.

The next step will be to add dirt, oil stains, etc. to the model, and only then the stains from the explosion. I figure it will be best to add these in the order they would have happened in real life too.

 

[Andy the Sheep]

The interior of these M113s was painted white (the more familiar green finish came once the M113A1 was already in production), so are the light areas white paint, or perhaps bare aluminium, or even aluminium oxide resulting from a fire? Are the dark bits on the interior scorched paint? If not, what else might have caused them to be that dark? Speculation would be appreciated :smiling3:

Sorry for being so late, Jakko but I will try to give a possible answer to those dark interiors: my guess is that before exploding, the M113 interior was engulfed by the thick and greasy smoke of burining fuel, plastic and mechanical fluids and smoke, being hotter than air, wuold have filled the upper part of the troops area first, thus the almost neat separation between the darker and the whiter areas; the final explosion gave the last touch.

Sherflock Holmes

 

[adt70hk]

Looking very good Jakko. Wouldn't know where to start with this sort of thing.

ATB

Andrew

 

[grumpa]

WOW!...Such dedication! Absolutely mind boggling attention to and fabrication of such minute detail is....I can't find the words.

Bravo!

Jim

 

[Gary MacKenzie]

Missing is the trim vane, which should sit on the bow. Someone promised he would mail me one, but hasn’t so far

PM me your address and i will send one i have in spares
View attachment 404928

 

[Guest]

my guess is that before exploding, the M113 interior was engulfed by the thick and greasy smoke

That does sound like a plausible theory … let’s see if I can shoot holes in it M113s are made of aluminium, which melts when there’s a major fire, so there would likely be pools of re-solidified aluminium visible, probably from the roof because that has disappeared entirely. A thick layer of soot would also require the vehicle to have been on fire for at least some time before it exploded, which means somebody wold have had to throw a satchel charge into a vehicle that was already obviously destroyed by a fire.

Hmm … not sure … but it’s as plausible as any other idea I’ve been able to come up with I think I’ll airbrush the upper sides black with dark grey and brown bits to represent soot etc., and leave the exact cause open to the viewer’s speculation

Looking very good Jakko. Wouldn't know where to start with this sort of thing.

Thanks, and starting is actually the easy bit, I must say in retrospect. The hull is simple, it’s all those little details you only discover once you’ve gotten somewhere that make this difficult.

WOW!...Such dedication! Absolutely mind boggling attention to and fabrication of such minute detail is....I can't find the words.

Thank you

PM me your address and i will send one i have in spares

Thanks for the offer, but someone else supplied me with one today already (Not the person who originally said he would, but another who came to the rescue.)

 

[Guest]

Next, I dirtied up the engine compartment with a black wash (Tamiya Flat Black plus water) and spots of more black while the wash was still wet:

View attachment 404979

On the base, I added all sorts of junk:

View attachment 404978

This consists of stuff like AFV Club ammo boxes; bent and twisted pieces of plastic card, aluminium plate and pipe, copper wire, paper; some equipment from the spares box; and assorted other junk. It’s not really meant to represent anything in particular (except the ammo boxes and stuff), but is just more gizmology to suggest crap thrown out of the exploded vehicle. I only painted the ammo boxes, because the plan was to not have them entirely covered by burns.

Those burns I sprayed with my airbrush:

View attachment 404980View attachment 404981View attachment 404982View attachment 404983

I began with pure matt black (more Tamiya), then mixed in dark grey to spray spots and swirls, added in medium grey for more and smaller spots, and finally some khaki for even smaller ones. Again, the idea is to suggest the aftermath of a major fire, which I think worked fairly well, but still needs some work. I’m thinking of washes and drybrushing to enhance the effecf, but not sure yet how, exactly.

 

[outrunner]

That looks very good, doubt if I have the imagination to tackle something like that.

Andy.

 

[Guest]

Thanks The imagination mainly comes in in trying to make sense of one black-and-white photograph, I think. I really wish I had been able to find more photos of this, or even of similarly destroyed M113s, but I can’t even find anything relating to the place where the action is supposed to have happened.