In my Patton spares box, I found side-loading air cleaners from the Tamiya M60A3 kit I built around the turn of the century, because that kit also has the newer top-loading ones you're supposed to use instead. These may be crude by modern standards, but the basic shape is good. After sawing off the lumps that represent the inlet pipes and filing the front faces flat, I detailled them with plastic card, rod, strip, and punched bolts:

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I also rebuilt the hinges, because the parts have them the wrong way around. For reference, I used this picture I took in 2000 of the M103A2 heavy tank in Bovington:

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Attached to the model:

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All I needed to do here was remove the rear locating ridges.

I also started on the turret:

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I've said it before, and Takom does it again here: they want you to fit all kinds of small bits to large parts before adding those large parts together. Therefore, I immediately deviated from the suggested sequence

Incidentally, in step 29, Takom says to put part R13 between the lower turret part and the elevating bit. This is a travel lock, and if you want the guns movable, fit R13 downward instead, so it fits into lug R9 that's installed in step 27.

Moving right along! Nice work!

Thanks

Until yesterday, I had never realised that the M247's turret had a rear door for the gunner. However, I figure that it would get rather in the way for putting external stowage on the vehicle, so perhaps the Israelis would have modified the turret by welding up the door and putting a roof hatch in.

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The hatch is a leftover from a Hobby Boss M706 Commando armoured car kit, where it was unused. I had to file it down a bit so it wouldn't look like it's just completely on top of the turret. I copied the door shape onto 0.5 mm plastic card, as this was simpler than taking all of the details off the door and filling the hole for a vision block in the middle of it.

I also had to get the left rear periscope by the commander's hatch out, because with the hatch in place it wouldn't have much of a field of view. That was fun, I ended up wiggling it back and forth for quite a while until the glue finally gave way. I then fitted it back in from below, but upside-down so that more of it sticks up above the turret roof.

I've been removing track links from the sprues. This is all 245 links Meng gives you, and their track pins:

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Not cleaned up yet — I still need to remove four attachment points per link ...

And some progress on the turret:

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The radars are still loose, so they don't get in the way too much. I'll add their covers after spraying the model, as IRL these are usually not to be painted, so to make it easier I'll just paint them separately and add them afterward.

The filler is where I filled the locating holes for the American smoke grenade launchers and one of the ammo boxes for them. I'll be installing Israeli ones instead, so these had to go.

Coming along.

I am still debating regarding my old Tamiya kit of this.  Thinking a simple OOB build with alternate markings but I have to decide if I want any What If armor to be in 35th or my normal 72nd scale.  Decisions, decisions.

While I know the hull sits too high due to Tamiya getting their M48 data from an unladen version, at least it has rubber band tracks. 

Great stuff. Really taking shape

I'll take rubber band tracks any day!

Looking good!

Quote from: kerick on February 14, 2024, 10:06:29 PMI'll take rubber band tracks any day!

Looking good!

Me three!
And yes, it is. 

Are the track pins spaced approptiately, to enable you to assemble a run of links and then snip the pins off the runner? (like someone - early AFV Club? did, way back in the day)

Quote from: philp on February 14, 2024, 05:39:19 PMI am still debating regarding my old Tamiya kit of this.  Thinking a simple OOB build with alternate markings

If you can live with the engine deck and hull rear, sure I know I couldn't — I had the Academy clone of it for a number of years, intending to rebuild the back end to properly represent an M247, but never did find the courage to start. Then Takom announced this one about a year and a half ago, and I sold on the Academy kit.

Quote from: philp on February 14, 2024, 05:39:19 PMWhile I know the hull sits too high due to Tamiya getting their M48 data from an unladen version, at least it has rubber band tracks. 

I much prefer workable tracks these days. I find links you have to glue, as well as link-and-length, a pain because you either have to put them on before painting, making that difficult, or somehow have to glue the links together and to the tank when they're already painted. With workable tracks, you can get them to sit realistically around the wheels but still paint them (relatively) easily. At the expense of a lot more work, true — but that's largely a matter of picking the right make I very much didn't want to do the tracks that came with this Takom kit, as I had put together a very similar set from RFM for HVSS Shermans a few years ago, and feel that once was plenty. These from Meng, though, look quite reasonable.

Quote from: Rick Lowe on February 14, 2024, 11:15:24 PMAre the track pins spaced approptiately, to enable you to assemble a run of links and then snip the pins off the runner? (like someone - early AFV Club? did, way back in the day)

They are. You get a two-piece jig into which you put a number of links and can then insert a whole set of those pins in one go. At least, the instructions say that's how it's done — I haven't tried assembling any links at all yet. The AFV Club sets you're thinking of are probably the T97 and T142 track sets, sold for the M48, M60 and M88 (in fact, the T97 is only suitable for the M88 out of those three, and for the M103 heavy tank). Those have the end connectors on the sides of the sprues, spaced the correct distance apart for the links to go into them. I found that cutting them into sets of four made it easy enough to assemble those tracks.

Trumpeter's workable tracks with end connectors are much the same, the two sets of those I've built, anyway (for the M1 Abrams and the Leopard 2, though neither actually went on those vehicles ).

However, AFV Club's M26/M46/M47 track sets are much more troublesome. In theory they work the same way, but in practice the pins are ever so slightly too thin, so end connectors will drop off the track if you so much as turn it over to work on the other side ...

Quote from: Rick Lowe on February 14, 2024, 11:15:24 PM

Quote from: kerick on February 14, 2024, 10:06:29 PMI'll take rubber band tracks any day!

Looking good!

Me three!
And yes, it is. 

Are the track pins spaced approptiately, to enable you to assemble a run of links and then snip the pins off the runner? (like someone - early AFV Club? did, way back in the day)

I've just built a set of Rye Field Model Pz 4 individual link winter tracks which have exactly that feature.  Speeds things up wonderfully.

I dislike rubber band tracks BTW.  I can never get them to join invisibly.

If you want real fun then try assembling AFV Clubs Easy Eight tracks.
The pins on the track links are too narrow for the end connectors so you have to use very small pliers to gently squeeze every pin X 4 per link to get the connectors to stay on ..glue isn't a good idea as the pins are so thin they just melt and the tracks break cause the end connectors don't sit hard against the track blocks...also there's a seam along both sides of each track block and these must be removed or they won't sit flat against each other and won't sit flat...ask me how I know and then times that by 4 

Yep, those are exactly the same as the M26/46/47 tracks I mentioned, just the centre guides are different. They all suffer from the problem that the connectors just drop off half of the links. Oh yeah, and they all have ejector pin markings on the inside of each block (so two per link) and trying to file those off will probably result in the link shearing down the middle ... I gave up on them entirely after trying to assemble about three links. (Which is why I ended up building a set of RFM tracks instead, which are a lot more tedious but at least they stay together and don't break.)

Quote from: Wardukw on February 15, 2024, 10:06:02 AMIf you want real fun then try assembling AFV Clubs Easy Eight tracks.
The pins on the track links are too narrow for the end connectors so you have to use very small pliers to gently squeeze every pin X 4 per link to get the connectors to stay on ..glue isn't a good idea as the pins are so thin they just melt and the tracks break cause the end connectors don't sit hard against the track blocks...also there's a seam along both sides of each track block and these must be removed or they won't sit flat against each other and won't sit flat...ask me how I know and then times that by 4 

I'm thankful, then, that I managed to source a set of aftermarket rubber band tracks for my M4A3 HVSS conversion.

Quote from: Rick Lowe on February 16, 2024, 01:50:18 PM

Quote from: Wardukw on February 15, 2024, 10:06:02 AMIf you want real fun then try assembling AFV Clubs Easy Eight tracks.
The pins on the track links are too narrow for the end connectors so you have to use very small pliers to gently squeeze every pin X 4 per link to get the connectors to stay on ..glue isn't a good idea as the pins are so thin they just melt and the tracks break cause the end connectors don't sit hard against the track blocks...also there's a seam along both sides of each track block and these must be removed or they won't sit flat against each other and won't sit flat...ask me how I know and then times that by 4 

I'm thankful, then, that I managed to source a set of aftermarket rubber band tracks for my M4A3 HVSS conversion.

Rick you can get away with tracks like that on anything Sherman based as they worked best with tight tracks...and it's not easy to find a Sherman with loose tracks to the point where theres alot of sag.
Now if you look at things like the M26..M24 ..JS or KV family of tanks ..track sag is always there ..be it small ir large amounts.
I won't hesitate to use rubber band tracks on a Sherman..I have a Tamiya M51 and 2 Asuka Sherman's.. a easy eight and a jumbo ..I'll be using their rubber tracks I can tell ya 

Yup, aside from the fact I prefer them, IMHO 'live' (under tension) track never looks as convincing with individual links. (other opinions are available.)