A Little M-113 Fun

[tmanthegreat]

About a week ago, I went to a model railroad show and while the vast majority of the stuff there catered to the railroad hobby, there was a smattering of small scale military stuff for sale. One vendor that had a bunch of parts and kits of armored vehicles in a variety of scales basically in small piles across his table. Looking through the junk, I came across a gem - a diecast 21c M-113 in the desert tan OIF scheme! The vehicle was nearly complete save no figures and .50 caliber MG, the mount for which had snapped off the commander's cupola and was nowhere to be found. The guy sold it to me for $10, which considering the price the same vehicle goes for on eBay, seemed to be a steal.

I've since done some restoration work to bring the vehicle back to original condition, including swapping the turret from my original M-113 so it would have the proper MG. I know the stowage sucks, but it's nice to have a diecast M-113 in its original condition since these are rare items...



As for my first vehicle, I had customized it back in 2005 (my first custom project) to get rid of the toyish stowage and wound up giving it a few more additions this past week... Using some plastic sprue, I customized a new MG mount on the cupola and then added Pickelhaube's turret shields. It now looks even better



Customized MG mount & shield detail


Actual M-113s in Operation Iraqi Freedom with green turret shields

[Razor17019]

Tman,
Nice find. 10 bucks is a Fantastic deal!
I like the turrent shields. Are they hard to put together?
Is there a instructions sheet somewhere?
I have a set for my Vietnam M113.
Nice job and thanks for sharing with us.
Razor

[rschaap]

Outstanding find. I like the conversion. Where did you get the extra storage gear, it gives it more of a realistic look.

[slogan]

Great work. Same question about the stowage items.

[tmanthegreat]

Thanks everyone for the kind comments

The stowage on the customized M-113 was from Build-a-Rama: http://www.build-a-rama.com/catalog_1_18.shtml I used a combination of their regular, modern and pack stowage sets. This M-113 was my first custom project from 11 years ago and I revisited it last week. Back then, Build-a-Rama made the sacks, tarp rolls, etc. out of cloth. Somewhere along the line, they changed their formula and now the stowage items are all cast resin. Still, they're quality items and I highly recommend Build-a-Rama's products.

The turret shields were from Pickelhaube. They're pretty easy to assemble... Basically you trim off the plastic flash, sand the parts, wash in warm soapy water, fill in any bubble holes or irregularities with putty, sand more as needed, then prime and paint. Each half of the halves of the turret shield are a single piece. They fit right on the turret over the viewports. I think Pickelhaube initially intended them to be screwed in place, which would require drilling a hole and placing a small screw, but it was easier for me to simply glue them using CA glue.

[skorzeny]

looks cool