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

[Jakko]

No, but you’re getting warm

 

[Jakko]

M113s had a number of strengthening ribs on the floor, and these will be visible on my model, so I had to replicate them. Unfortunately, they each have four rounded holes in them, so the top is flat but the underside is only welded to the floor in five places. That poses some headaches, and when I tried filing gaps into a length of plastic strip, I just couldn’t get it to look right, aside from that being a lot of effort.

After pondering on it, I mentioned the problem to my father, who came to the rescue by making a punch for me on his lathe plus a few offcut bits:



The small thing on the right is a fastener from some exposition material, with its outside turned town to 10 mm; the gap was already in it, and the centre is hollow. The large round thing is a piece of steel with a 10 mm hole drilled in, plus a bit of angle aluminium and a little spacer (not visible) to get the distance right.

I put the things into a vice:



I put pencil marks at the centre points of the gaps, and also made one on the aluminium, aligned with the centre of the hole. The plastic strip is against the aluminium and goes through the slot, and then it was just a matter of whacking it with something to ounch out a semi-circular bit from the strip. After doing that four times and cutting it to length, I ended up with:



Then all I had to do was make four more and glue them all to the floor:

 

[Jakko]

I’ve not done much on the model in recent weeks, but I did make a base for it:



This is just some 6 mm MDF with decorative edging around it and some spacers underneath to keep the board up:



There isn’t one on the fourth side because my hobby is not woodworking That is, I had cut four pieces but I couldn’t get them all to fit together around the board, so I glued three on and cut a new fourth piece. That was also too short, so I had to cut one more still, which was about the right length, but I still had to file some material off the board to get it all to fit more or less properly. I decided to not bother with a spacer on that side, as the rest is solidly glued together.

 

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
When you hit the floor pan I thought, like Gary, it ran over a mine. Ribs looks good thanks to Dad's help. Drive housing & sprocket is well done. A real mix from Hasegawa, AFV and Tamiya. All you need now is some Italeri and Airfix bits to have a real Frankenstein
Jim

 

[Jakko]

When you hit the floor pan I thought, like Gary, it ran over a mine.

I am making this after a photograph, but I don’t think the real one in that ran over a mine.

Ribs looks good thanks to Dad's help.

It’s quite handy that he learned metalworking in school and then went on to be an engineer, I must say

Drive housing & sprocket is well done. A real mix from Hasegawa, AFV and Tamiya. All you need now is some Italeri and Airfix bits to have a real Frankenstein

I’ve got Italeri roadwheels and Academy idler wheels ready, all I need to get round to is making mounts for them …

 

[Jakko]

After about two months, I finally got round to some modelling again.



The AFV Club M113 kit has some spare suspension arms, because it’s clearly designed to cater for different variants that have two or three shock absorbers per side. This left me with six arms, four with shock absorbers mountings and two without. I put the former at the front and rear stations and added shock absorbers from a punched disc and a bit of plastic rod, then added the other two arms on one side. The wheels are the Italeri ones I mentioned, used inside out because the detail is better on the outside, and I made simple axles for the four wheels that I had no suspension arms for before gluing them to the hull.

The drive wheels are Tamiya, so now all I need to add here is mountings for the idler wheels (to be patterned after the AFV Club parts) plus those wheels, and the tracks.

 

[Jakko]

Now with idler wheels! I made their mountings from plastic card and some sprue, with the adjustment cylinder from more rod and some punched discs and bolts, which I also added to the shock absorbers. The wheels themselves are from Academy, again used inside-out. (The Tamiya idler wheels are useless, they are obviously designed for motorisation and therefore have a very strong inner half, that looks only like the real thing in that it’s circular. Academy has put spokes on both halves, at least.)

 

[Jakko]

Tracks on:



These are from an Academy M113, but I only needed half a full set (one sprue instead of the two supplied in the kit) for what you can see here.

 

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
Nice to see this back. A most enjoyable project to follow.
It's really looking good and all the scratching, planning and mixing and matching is paying off.
Jim

 

[Jakko]

Thanks Next, with a bit of luck tomorrow, I’ll have to start on the ground work, but I’m not overly looking forward to that because it’s kind of critical to having everything look right and I’m not all that confident about how to do that yet. OTOH, actually doing it is probably going to provide the necessary insights in itself, so it’ll probably turn out fine after all

 

[Jakko]

I started on the ground work, but decided I had to build it up first. I cut some 5 mm and 3 mm foam board to the shapes I had in mind for the ground and glued them to the base:



I put a sheet of MDF over it and clamped it to make sure the foam stuck down well, as the sheets I used were curved a bit. Next, I trimmed the edges of the wood trim to match the contours, using a sharp knife:



I took a little bit too much off at the low side, because the wood split that way. No big worry, that’ll get covered up with filler later.

Here’s the model posed on this raw groundwork:



The rear ramp at the top is a Tamiya part I had long ago cut the door from, so I could pose another M113 with its door open. I can use it here if I cut off that bit and put it on the edge of the base like here.

 

[Jakko]

Next step, wall filler:



I taped off the edges of the base with painter’s tape and trimmed it to the level of the wood edging. Then it was just a matter of putting non-shrinking (supposedly) filler over it with a putty knife, which I textured with a big, short, stiff brush for most of the base, and by dragging a bigger brush over it for the raised road area in the lower left. Both of these brushes I had moistened with water, because else I ended up tearing too much of the filler off the base. It’s been ages since I made a diorama, so I kind of had to re-learn the skills The bare area in the middle is where the floor will sit, so no need to put filler there too.

That done, I covered the whole base in cling film (it’s just small enough that I only needed one piece) and put the M113 parts in position. I also took an M113 track from the AFV Club kit and pressed it into the road a few times to give the impression of tracked traffic there recently. Luckily, after I removed everything and pulled the cling film off, nothing came up along with it, so now it’s sitting somewhere safe to dry.

 

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
Hope the filler doesn't shrink. Nothing worse than it all looking fine until it dries and cracks appear. Looks good.
Jim

 

[Jakko]

It said non-shrinking on the tube, so I suppose I’ll just believe that until I see otherwise

 

[Jakko]

It indeed didn’t shrink, I’m happy to report

Once it had dried, I removed the masking tape along the edges to get the groundwork nice and square, then painted the frame with a medium brown, translucent furniture paint. I then applied some more masking tape and painted the whole base with a sand-coloured acrylic craft paint (much cheaper than modelling paint, the chief reason I used it ). I had to water it down a little to get it to paint easily over the rough terrain, using a large brush because this doesn’t really need to be done overly neatly — it just needs to cover everything.



When it had dried, I added an overall wash of a somewhat darker and browner sand colour of the same make, and while that was still wet, also some local washes of even darker brownish modelling paints that I blended into the “main” wash. All this added some shading to make the terrain look better.



After leaving this to dry overnight, I applied some artist’s pastels in a pale sand colour to some raised bits, especially the road area, and rubbed them in with my finger. Of course, most then promptly flew off again when I blew over the base, but enough stuck that it was worth the effort After that I drybrushed everything with Army Painter Skeleton Bone, another pale sand colour, to add more highlights and blend the colours together a bit.



I think I may have to repeat this with an even paler shade, though. After that, I’m not sure how to proceed yet. Much of this needs to be covered with grass, but I think my usual static grass is a bit short to achieve the effect I’m after. Suggestions are welcome

 

[Jakko]

Grass added:



The usual way, really: I brushed slightly thinned PVA glue to the areas of the base I wanted to cover, then sprinkled static grass over it with a tea sieve, and after letting it dry, I shook off the excess (both on a piece of newspaper, so the grass didn’t go everywhere and I could recycle the leftovers) and sprayed the base with artist’s fixative. I think I’ll airbrush the grass once everything is properly dry, though, as I feel the current colour is too light.

 

[adt70hk]

Great work Jakko!

 

[Jakko]

Thanks

 

[Jakko]

Front plate of the hull:



I cut this earlier, but only now out the detail on. I first scribed a circle for the access hatch, using a simple circle template and a steel pin-type scriber tool. The rest is just some plastic strip, punched bolt heads and spare parts from M113 kits. The tan lamps are Academy, as are the spare track links, the indicator light between them is AFV Club from their M548, the rest is Tamiya. I didn’t space the lights correctly, I think, so the hooded light didn’t quite fit. As a quick fix, I just put it at an angle, as if it’s been dislodged by the blast that ripped the vehicle apart.

 

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
That base has come out well. The grass may benefit from some darker patches but looks good as is. Front plate is nice - lucky you have a well stocked spares box.
Jim