M48 - Finished

The tracks are bare and there's no weathering, but I'm at a point where I want to declare this little project finished. I'm quite happy with the "chipped paint" experiment, using AK Interactive "Heavy chipping".

I left the front idlers detachable, so removing and painting the tracks at a later stage remains an option.

Originally made to be 1/35 scale, it turned out to be rather off-scale, so later re-issues were called 1/40. You can't really blame Revell, since this kit was made in 1959, when the M48 Patton had only been in service a few years. I can imagine information wasn't as readily available as now and perhaps the blueprints even still classified?

If you want to use the bridge only in a diorama or something, that part IS compliant to 1/35.

Price : €21

Number of parts : 252

Time spent : 15.5 hours

Project completion time : 40 days

Paint : (Vallejo)

• Black primer
• Olive drab (71.043)
• Dark seagreen (71.053, the planks on the bridge)
• Natural steel (70.864, details + layer underneath chipped planks)

Other : 

• Vallejo gloss varnish (used a thick coat on the pistons, so there would be no friction at all)
• Alclad II klear kote (semi-matte) as a varnish
• AK Interactive "Heavy chipping"

Below is a video demonstrating the kit to be fully movable. The bridge halves are pulled open by a spring, that appears to have just about the right force (it could have been a tad stronger, but I'm not complaining). Remembering that this kit is over 50 years old, that's quite an impressive feat.
Important to know : there is NO piece of white string. /waves hand like a Yedi/

I found a nice video of the real thing in action. These are on the M60-chassis, but it's basically the same thing. Seeing these in real action, again brings to mind : impressive!

A few more shots from various angles :

Below a series of pictures showing basically the same as my video.