Some amazing results, Gary @garybrantley

Thank you Spiros @fiveten, John @johnb and George @gblair! 👍 Thank you guys for all your encouragement and support, I truly appreciate it. 👏 Sometimes it's not easy to get myself motivated around here and that sort of feedback really helps keep me slugging away on the plastic. We were working rather quickly, kind of like a couple of 10-year-olds, I guess! 😉 😁 The gun barrel is maybe the most atrocious part of the kit; one-piece but out of round, mold seam down two sides and the end molded solid. I drilled out the hole through the muzzle brake and smoothed the seams a bit, hopefully it won't look too bad. On his next visit, we'll start painting the rubber treads! Thanks again, my friends! 🙏🏻

Gary,
You and your grandson are doing a good job with your M-48. It sounds like you’re making some good progress too. I’m happy to hear that we have been a bit inspirational to you as far as getting back to work on your model building. This is a good thing.

Thanks for your kind words about my M-48. One of my former Platoon Sergeant’s was a tanker who was in Vietnam and was serving in the 48. He mentioned to me about “jungle busting” a few times. But he said that most of the time they spent their time on the roads because the jungle was too dense to operate a tank in without a lot of trouble or getting mired / hung up / saddle bagged on old tree stumps. Throwing a track was another big thing that happened when the M-48 was driven through the jungle.

Please keep us updated on the progress of your tank.

Thanks.

Hey David.

It’s good to hear from you. I say go for it with your Puma. It’s such a cool design and ironically I have been thinking about getting mine out of the stash and putting it on the build pile.

I have a 1/35 scale Dragon / DML Sdkfz 234/2 that has a turret on it. Looks really cool on the box cover. Not having tracks would be great too because it would likely be a little bit easier to assemble.

Lately I’ve been gravitating towards armor building and 1/35 is my preferred scale. Although I have built a few of the new tool 1/48 Tamiya kits and they are pretty amazing.

Take care everyone and please stay tuned.

I have an update coming up next.

The Pershing looks awesome, nice new figure, too, my friend @lgardner!

Nice work, Louis (@lgardner). Figures are a constant problem finding the right one, but having a stash with some figures is a great solution. Decals look great. I never heard of Braille Strike before, so I checked out their website. They have some nice stuff.

Here’s what I accomplished last night. I started adding the crew members personal effects and their equipment, plus I also started working on the main gun mantlet cover.

I went through the stash of equipment and gear that had been collected from my previous American armor builds. I also had a few boxes of 1/35 Tamiya WW2 gear that had some of these items in them. They come in handy when you’re trying to make your armor builds look like they’re operating in the field.

These are close up images that show how the camouflage net and the rolled up tarp look. I made these using Milliput two part putty. I’m going back and adding the tie down straps and painting them next. Then they will be done. You can see them in many of the photos of the original Eagle 7.

Going back to a skill that I learned from building balsa wood flying models, I used some eyeglass lens cleaning tissue paper and started working on scratching the mantlet cover. Eagle 7 clearly has one installed.

Here I have cut a section of the paper and I am gluing it to the turret using a clear Elmers Glue. Once it dries I will trim it off and then add the next layer. Once I get the base layer secured to the turret I will add more layers and wrinkles that are visible in the original pictures.

I will be using this technique to make the various tarps for the back deck and also the air recognition panel which would have been either a bright orange color or a bright pink depending upon what side was placed up.

There’s a TV documentary series called The Color of War. It consists of original WW2 color film and each episode is an hour long. I have seen several American tanks in this series that have the recognition panels displayed on them. They have the same colors visible on them as the ones that we used many years later when I was a tanker myself.

So I’m fairly certain that we used the exact same panels when I was serving in the M-60’s. I’m 99 percent certain about this. But there’s always a chance that something else could have been used.

Now I have to figure out what color I will use for this aerial recognition panel on the Pershing. It will probably depend on what colors I have available in my paint collection.

Then it was time to start adding the crew gear, helmet and various other items. I noticed that there was a water canteen connected to the spare track blocks next to the loader’s hatch. I included one and have positioned it in the same location as what we see in the photo I grabbed from one of the original Army films.

I’m going back soon and will be painting these items now that they have dried in position.

I’m making progress and hopefully I will make more later tonight.

As always comments are encouraged.
Thanks for stopping by.

Excellent progress and really great technique, my friend @lgardner!