Well, since I lost all inspiration (at least for now) to continue on my Emhar Mk.IV WW1 tank after Tacoms and Tamiya's recent news, I decided to go back to one of my favourite projects.

Also, since a new state-of-the-art M113 release is on the very top of my wishlist, and I know it won't come until I am done, I'd better get this one finished..! :-)

You can thank me later ;-)

Anyhow, the interior components are now all in place and painted, and the next step is weathering (dirt) and adding some stowage. I won't be piling the stowage in for two reasons:

1. I don't want to cover up all the work.

2. In the Congo, the vehicles were mainly used for day patrols and as such were not festooned with piles of stowage anyway.

I have fitted both red and white LED's for interior lighting effects (in the roof, not pictured) so soon it will be time to close her up and get started on the exterior.

Dare I hope that I can actually get this one done this summer/autumn? Who knows? :-)

One thing you will immediately notice in these latest pics is that the interior is much greener than in my previous pics. These ones are accurate. I have finally managed to capture the true colour of this model, I probably overexposed my photos in the past, or used too bright a lamp.

Thanks as always for looking.

Cheers,
Sven

WOW, that interior looks awesome. I really like your photography, keep the updates coming .


Kind regards, Sven.

That's one gorgeous interior.

Hello Sven and Matt,

Thanks so much for your very kind comments! I am really glad that you like the interior, its been a long road getting here.

More updates will come soon when the weathering and stowage is done.

Cheers,
Sven

Very nice job indeed Sven. Do you plan to add the rear ramp pulley and cable (unless you've decided to keep the ramp in the up position )?



H.P.

Absolutely fantastic work there! Any photos of how you installed and wired the LEDs?

thanks H.P and Thomas, very much appreciated.

H.P: haha, I have not forgotten the pulley, it will most certainly be added at a later time since I intend to have the ramp (and all other hatches) in the open position.

Thomas, no problem, I will post pics and a short description on the LED wiring.

I am keeping it super simple, no resistors or electronics, just a 3V button battery connected via a switch to the LED's.
The nano-LED's themselves are from DCC Concepts in Australia, they are absolutely tiny and the wires are like threads of hair (very easy to hide).

More on that in a future update :-)

Very nice work, looks more like a "labor of love" than anything....

Thank you Russel!

I have a couple of projects into which I try to put that little bit of extra love, this is definitely one of my favourites :-)

Well, its been a few weeks since I posted any updates.

The reason is ... stowage!

It has taken some time to decide what stowage I wanted in the vehicle, and how much/little to add, and then arrange it all in a way that I was satisfied with (I did not want a overly "piled up" look in this model).

After some lengthy and fruitful discussions on IPMS Stockholm's forum, discussing stowage, weapons etc, this is what I have come up with.

One of the discussions was regarding plastic water canisters, and if they were used by the Swede's in the Congo or not, so this is a little bit if artistic license on my part (however I HAVE checked to make sure that plastic water containers actually existed in the 60's!). :-)
There are some more minor things I will add (on top and under the bench seats), but after that the lid will be put on.

My thought process is to give the vehicle the look of having stood around for a little while, so not all stowage items are strapped down.

The massive Wriggleys chewing gum box (part of a beautiful Vietnam era set from Mec Models, just like the other boxes in the pics) is for the local villagers as part of the UN's "hearts and minds" campaign :-)

The pulley for the rear door has still not been added, but it will get there, I promise :-)

Thanks as always for looking!
Sven

Wow, that looks great. I like all the stowage and I agree it is not over the top... I just hope you will be opening all the possible hatches on this one so we can see the interior after you install the hull top.

Mario

Hello Mario!

Many thanks for your very kind comment, I am very pleased that you like it.

Absolutely, every single hatch will be open on this model :-)

Awesome work!

Looks amazing Sven... Looking forward to see the final result
Men som sagt kanonsnyggt...

Wow ... Speechless ! .... almost as perfect as myself

Carry on !
Christopher

Hello Rick, Roger and Christopher,

Please accept my apologies for this late response to your comments, I have been travelling the past few days.

Thanks to you all for your kind feedback, very much appreciated.

More to come soon, almost time to put the lid on and then it should be the easy bit left (I hope, haha) :-)

Every update surpasses my expectations. I thought the interior was finished and here you go making it even more realistic. You build inspires me to get back to work on my what-if M113. Where did you find the interior placards and stencils?

Hello Matt,

Thank you for those very kind words, it means a lot when my work can inspire. I look forward to seeing your M113!

The interior placards and stencils are from Archer, and are absolutely fabulous. The printed text is crystal clear and readable on almost all of them.

I can't recommend them highly enough.

Cheers,
Sven

Its been a while since my last update, life has been very busy all of a sudden and modelling time has been limited.

I am still working with fitting the LED's inside the vehicle, so that will be part of another update. I will also explain how I tackled it.

For now, I have been experimenting with different methods to see how I could depict the episcopes in a way that gave them depth and the correct "colour".

Photos of M113's of the period show that the inner glass faces are completely transparent and un-tinted, and very light since the light from the outside is reflected down onto the mirrors. The opposite is true with the exterior parts, they are quite dark (since they are reflecting the darkness from inside the vehicle). The outer parts also tend to have a slight yellowish tint, presumably because the mirrors are capturing the interior colour of the vehicle.

I have made many, many attempts to try and achieve a realistic look to the episcopes, and every time I have not been satisfied. Painting the moulded episcope faces with chrome silver and then Tamiya transparant blue did not satisfy me, neither did gluing small rectangles of transparent pc tinted with blue/green from behind directly on to the moulded faces work either.

So, in the end I decided to copy reality. I shaved off the moulded episcopes and scratchbuilt new housings, mounted a small mirror inside (on the sloping part) and glued a transparent rectangle of pc in front. I sprayed matt varnish on the back side of the "glass" since that gave a better effect, otherwise it was simply too clear (the scale effect was not good).

The effect is difficult to photograph, but here are a couple of pics which sort of show the end result (I prefer them in real life, though, since the glass faces change character depending on the light conditions and the viewing angle).

The second picture shows how the episcopes remain light even though the interior is relatively dark with the roof on.

Note that the pictures are extremely large compared to the actual parts, the flaws in the glass faces are not visible in real life.

Next challenge: try to make the exterior parts of the episcopes with depth and also that "dark" look.. :-)

Thanks for looking..!
Sven

I love the effect you achieved with the episcopes. Saved for future reference.

Well done,
Mario

Thank you for the very kind compliment, Mario! I am glad if you find this useful for your projects as well.

Thanks also for continuing to follow my build.

Well, I have finally, finally completed the work on the interior lighting. Actually, this is the 5th time I have completed it. Unfortunately, on several occasions during testing I managed to burn out several of the LED's and was forced to pull everything apart again.

The last time I destroyed the LED's (all 3 of the White ones) was the moment I was setting up the model for photography. I had forgotten to insulate the ends of a couple of the wires, and they inadvertently became crossed without me noticing. When I turned the switch on to take the pics.. BOOM... the three white LEDs were fed with the full 9 Volts and blew immediately. Once again I had to replace them (one of them is embedded in a scratch-built lamp housing) - my frustration level was at its highest level.

Anyway, now its done (again) and working, so here are some pics.

The lighting consists of 5 LED's, 3 white and 2 red (switchable) just as in the real vehicle. One of each colour is embedded in a scratchbuilt lamp-housing to enhance realism. Each circuit (red and white respectively) is fed with a 9V battery with potentiometers in series to allow adjustment of light strength. The LED's are connected in parallell to eachother in each circuit.

It was pointless to put LED's in the lamp housing on the other side of the vehicle (since it is hidden behind the radio), so I added a white "ceiling lamp" in front of the radio to provide a more even white lighting across the interior.

I have tried to place all LEDs in such a way where they are discreet and invisible when turned off, so the day they decide not work work, they will not be conspicuous.

The green interior green colour shifts a little between pics, this is mainly because of the nature of the different lighting conditions created by the LED's.

The white LEDs look a little blue in the pics, but are in reality perfectly white.

The pics of the interior lit up were taken in overall dark conditions in an attempt to capture the lighting effects.

Thanks for looking!
Sven

The hard work really paid off... this is by far the best M113 interior I have ever seen. And I have seen plenty.

Sven, you really did a magnificent job on interior lighting. I can see it was a frustrating experience, but the end result was well worth it. Amazing! I have a similar lighting project in mind with M88 from Nam, so I might pick your brains when I get to it.

Once again, WOW!

Mario

Wow, Mario, I am truly honoured by your comment. Considering the beautiful M113 interiors I have seen on this and other forums (your superb Vulcan interior included), I did not expect the word "best" to ever be used to describe my model. Thank you very much.!

I am glad that I kept battling with the LEDs, I don't give up easily, but I was very close to do just that when I burned the white LEDs (again) yesterday just before photography. So many hours of work destroyed in less than a millisecond.

I will be more than happy to share my experiences (bad and good :-) ) of lighting whenever you wish.

Thanks again!

Not just the best M113 I've seen, but one of the best builds I've seen! This is truly an exceptional build.