1/16 Tongde M24 Chaffee Modifications

[rb67mustang]

Before I began to attach the lifting rings onto the mantlet, I watched a couple more M24 videos on Youtube, and I did more screen shots of the details of interest. I watched the 4 year old Tank Museum video, and The Chieftain has a series of 4 video that are 12 years old. Both of the m24's in these videos have a small mesh basket mounted on the back of the upper hull instead of the folding shelf Tongde supplied. The folding shelf makes me think of the M4 Sherman, and not the M24. I wish I'd watched these videos before I attached the paperclip lifting eyes on the back of my upper hull. In fact, I might remove them and do a bit of plastic surgery to remove the folding shelf mounting points, and reinstall the lifting eyes in the correct position. Then I'll see what I can find to scratch build the mesh basket. Here's a couple of screen shots from the videos.

Tank Museum


The Chieftian at the Museum of the American GI in Texas.




To me, this basket looks more like what the M24 had during WW-II.

[rb67mustang]

Some of the war time images that were shared in the Tank Museum video really interested me as well. I know some M24's had multiple antennas during WW-II. I'd like to keep my M24 simple with one antenna. This is the type mount I'll make to mount the antenna. I wish I could find a nice representation of the spotlight in 1/16 scale to mount on my M24.

[rb67mustang]

Here's another screen shot from the Tank Museum of a simple line drawing of the top of the M24. After seeing this image, I removed the 50cal gun shield, and I made a template I taped onto the turret to reattach the shield at the proper angle. Note: This image shows the small basket at the rear of the tank, it also shows the simple antenna mount, and the smoke launcher that I'm in the process of making. The image even shows the lifting eyes on the mantlet which are symmetrically mounted as I'm in the process of doing.

[rb67mustang]

Here's the gun shield correction I made yesterday, I think it looks much better. Images and a video.

[rb67mustang]

Here's what I decided to use for the mantlet lifting eyes. They are split jump rings that are used to make jewelry items such as, necklaces, ear rings. Images and a video.

That's it for now. I have a small bit of Bondo to apply on the mantlet, and the required sanding as well.