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| M1A2 Abrams with TUSK2 upgrade | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: May 13 2010, 01:59 PM (6,821 Views) | |
| f4sooty | May 13 2010, 01:59 PM Post #1 |
Advanced Member
  ![]](http://z1.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)
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After along break from doing a build thread, i thought i would return with my first attempt at a conversion. First the kit i woill be using which is the Dragon M1A2 SEP. The box is stuffed fill of parts, from the usual plastic to a section of turned aluminium that makes up part of the barrel.  The conversion kit is by Legend productions and contains resin and pe to enable you to add the TUSK2 armour upgrade to the Abrams. For those of you who don't know TUSK stands for Tank Urban Survival Kit.  First part of the build covers the running gear. The drive sproket is made up of three parts...  The parts fit together nicely  The wheels are also made up of three parts and as you can see from the picture below for some unknown reason the centre is made of clear plastic  Moving on to the front suspension arms which is made from five parts  though fiddly to get everything lined up, the parts do look good when in place  More later..... |
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| phantomdriver | May 13 2010, 02:33 PM Post #2 |
Fox Mulder's soul brother.....
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Glad you explained TUSK- I was about to ask........ :lol: |
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| MemberOne | May 15 2010, 08:15 PM Post #3 |
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Newbie
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I'll be watching this with interest 
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| f4sooty | May 17 2010, 02:10 PM Post #4 |
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I have carried on working on the running gear area and the underside. First of all I sprayed the suspension with Xtrarcylix US gulf war armour xa1812. Then the tedious job of any armour build....the wheels. Each wheel was in two halves, then a clear centre was added. Yet again i sprayed the wheel with XA1812 and then the rubber part was hand painted with Vallejo Model color 70862 Black grey. I will weather the wheels at a later stage. For a bit of interest I also sprayed the odd wheel green to represent the fact that the wheel was a replacement from another Abrams.  The center of the wheels has been left clear. I was wondering why Dragon had moulded the centre of the hub in clear plastic, so i did some research. In the photo below you can just make out the clear hub on an actual Abrams. Hats off to Dragon for getting this detail right.   As for the drive sprockets I have decided to replicate the wear and weathering of the one in the picture above. Here is my work in progress efforts 
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| f4sooty | May 17 2010, 02:31 PM Post #5 |
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Next up are the tracks, in their wisdom Dragon put the track teeth on a seperate sprue which meant each one had to b glued on seperately. In total I stuck on approx. 160 teeth to both tracks, a rather tedious process though the end result look good  Wjilst on the underside I added the first parts of the TUSK upgrade, the belly armour. This consisted of two large peices of resin. First they had to be trimmed and casting blocks removed (the areas in red)  Each piece was then fitted in place with CA glue. The belly armour only covers the crew compartement. I have yet to find out if the belly armour on the actual Abrams was made of either one or two pieces, therefore i will leave it as too until i can find that information out.   I then turned my attention to the upperside and started with the headlights. The kit provides pre-formed metal rod to act as the power cable to the lights. This was held in place with some metal brackets, also included in the kit.  For the headlight glass I used Little-lenses which I bought from Little-cars.co.uk at the Cosford model show. The lenses are an excellent product and come in all shapes and sizes as well as colour.  The lense was placed in its mounting  and finally the light in place on the Abrams  more to follow shortly..... |
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| phantomdriver | May 17 2010, 02:39 PM Post #6 |
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Fox Mulder's soul brother.....
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Bring it on matey!!! 
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| f4sooty | May 20 2010, 01:48 PM Post #7 |
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The next stage in the instructions has you moving to the rear section of the hull. The first job was to add the brass grills to the upper hull above the engine. The brass that i used was included in the kit. The first grill section was made up before adding to the main body.   the rest of the brass panels were then added.  Also some plastic panels had to be added to area above the engine. As you can see in the piture below, Dragon have done a good job simulating the non-slip surface and have also moulded the panel number onto each panel. To make the panel number stand out I have rubbed on some pencil graphite.  Next I moved to the rear of the Abrams and the exhaust area. To get more detail into this area the grills have been made up of several parts  These were soon glued together and attached to the back of the tank. I also added the rear lights and various boxes to the back. Here is the finished rear section  |
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| MemberOne | May 20 2010, 01:55 PM Post #8 |
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Newbie
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Lovely work Steve
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| f4sooty | May 20 2010, 02:06 PM Post #9 |
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Now onto the side panels which before i could put them on i had to add the tracks. The method I used to paint the tracks is 1. Spary the tracks with a base coat of a very dark grey. 2. This was then given a light spray of Lifecolor UA019 sand, the aim was to give the tracks a slight dusty look. 3. I then dusted on some Mig pigments Gulf war sand. 4. the rubber areas on the tracks were painted with Model color 70862 dark grey. 5. I then went over the metal areas with a graphite pencil Also the wheels were given a light dusting with the Lifecolor sand paint and a wash mixed up from various Mig oil paints   As you can see from the picture below, only the rear 2/3rds of the kits side panels were added as the front section will be replaced by parts from the Conversion kit. The fit of the kit parts needed a little trimming in places in order to get them to fit  The front section of the side panels was made uo of three parts of pe fret.  The parts were folded using my "Hold 'n' Fold" photo-etch bender, they were then glued together with CA glue and fixed into position.   From now on things will become interesting as the armour upgrade has to be added to the sides. More on that later. all comments and advice most welcome. |
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| copey | May 20 2010, 06:38 PM Post #10 |
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Coming along nicely... Steve. Mark |
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| f4sooty | May 23 2010, 01:45 PM Post #11 |
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Advanced Member
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Now for the fun bit, the installation of all the side armour. The instructions for the TUSK upgrade are made up of colour pictures and are a little vague in places. The first stage is to add the rear PE end piece. This is made up of three parts of pe.   The endpeice was then added to the side of the Abrams.  The next stage is to add the additional large armour side panel, which was attached to a large casting block. the area in red was removed.  The side panel was then glued in placed, again with CA glue. Then the front end piece was attached.  Then I needed to attach brackets to the additional side armour. this picture shows the brackets on their casting block, in total 34 brackets were used.  The brackets installed  The next stage was to add the outer layer of the side armour. The panels   Once they were removed from their casting blocks, each panel had to be glued on to the side panel. I started with the top row.  then the lower row was glued in place. If I remember correctly there is 34 panels on each side of the Abrams' Hull.   The hull is now complete and i can now move my attention to the Turret |
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| f4sooty | May 25 2010, 12:25 PM Post #12 |
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With the wwork on the hull done, i started work on the turret. First of all is the construction of the barrel which needs to be in place before the two turret halves can be join together. I was orginally going to use an aftermarket barrel from armourscale, however Dragon provide a turned aluminium barrel so i thought i would use that instead. The barrel went together in stages. Parts for stage 1 and 2   The parts added to the barrel.  The spring enables the barrel to simulate the recoil of the barrel when fired. next was the parts for the breach, as they will not be seen i decided not to paint them.  the finished breach.  More tomorrow. |
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| MemberOne | May 25 2010, 01:30 PM Post #13 |
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Newbie
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Lovely work Steve
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| f4sooty | May 27 2010, 03:02 PM Post #14 |
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Advanced Member
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Here we go with the next installement. First up is the commanders hatch. I started by getting all the kit parts of the sprues. \the parts were assembled. The glass parts were painted with Tamiya clear red. On a lot of refence pictures the visors appeared to be red, however i may tinker with the colour at a later date. When it comes to painting the tank i will use masking fluid on all clear parts. Here is the finished turret prioir to adding the upgrade parts.  Now for the upgrade parts, first is the protective screens that go around the turret. Even the glass provided by Legend Productions is to scale so they included a piece of perspex from which you cut the glass from.   Once the perspex is in place, PE is used to frame the windows. Here is finished turret minus the .50cal which will be added at the end. Also attached to the turret is a small PA tannoy, to this i added a length of copper wire. i wrapped the wire around a small drill bit to get the spiral effect   Another major feature of TUSK upgraded Abrams is the .50cal mounted directly above the main barrel. First I had to make the .50cal which was made up from numerous parts. The detail is superb.  Here is the 5o cal made up and installed on the Abrams    The loaders machine gun was slightly easier to build.   All comments appreciated and thanks for looking |
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| phantomdriver | May 27 2010, 09:57 PM Post #15 |
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Fox Mulder's soul brother.....
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JHC on a bike- slow down! |
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| Phreak | May 27 2010, 10:15 PM Post #16 |
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Simply amazing stuff.
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| MemberOne | May 28 2010, 03:12 AM Post #17 |
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Newbie
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Great stuff Steve
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| f4sooty | May 29 2010, 02:53 PM Post #18 |
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One of the final jobs I had to do on the turret was to install the additional armour plates. first I had to make the two frames on to which the armour plates would be glued. The frames was made of a large piece of PE and some resin brackets.   The frames were the fixed in place on the sides of the turret using CA glue  The plates were then added, the top row first then the bottom. Some of the plates required 1mm spacers to be added to raise them up slightly.  Here is Abrams with all the armour plates on and the turret fully made up apart from a couple of machine guns and there sheilds.     Now for the fun part, the painting and weathering. |
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| Mike W | May 29 2010, 04:10 PM Post #19 |
Hook down, wheels down... call the ball
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Bloody hell Steve  , there seems to be an inordinate amount of work gone into this so far, but you seem so nonchalant about it.Watching with interest. |
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| phantomdriver | May 29 2010, 04:43 PM Post #20 |
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Fox Mulder's soul brother.....
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Mike, you've no idea..... you wanna see his workbench... 
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4:49 PM Jul 13
