Jakko’s Zvezda M4A2 Шерман, 1:35 scale

[Guest]

A start has been made:

[ATTACH]446634[/ATTACH]

Zvezda would have you begin with the turret and then they want you to fit the whole suspension before the sponson bottoms, neither of which makes much sense to me from a construction perspective. So, I built the lower hull with sponson floors first, dry-fitting the upper hull to ensure everything is lined up correctly. Fit is very good, though, and notice the little triangular braces between the floor and the side wall, which make it much easier to get them square than on some other Sherman kits whose lower hull is built up from separate plates,

For the nose, I intend to use the Italeri part, but though it fits very well width-wise, it sits too far forward:

[ATTACH]446635[/ATTACH]

This is because it’s too long on the bottom:

[ATTACH]446636[/ATTACH]

The reason there, is because on the real tank the final drive housing was attached by a series of bolts all around — bottom, sides and top — and Zvezda has moulded the bolts as part of the lower hull while Italeri made the housing part long enough that it would have included the bolts had they not been omitted. The solution should be simple enough: cut down the Italeri part to fit, because if you push it over the bolts, the front ends up where it should be. This will be out of sight anyway, so it doesn’t even have to be done very neatly

[Guest]

The work on the underside is easy enough: put the Italeri part against the Zvezda hull so that it overlaps the bolt strip and the front sits against the forward curve of the hull, then just score a line on the inside of it with a knife, along the Zvezda hull, and cut there.

The top is slightly more difficult, because Zvezda for some reason moulded a small part of the final drive housing onto the bolt strip, rather than have only the bolt strip as a separate part. I put the two housings next to each other:

[ATTACH]446656[/ATTACH]

and used the Zvezda part to mark how much to remove from the Italeri one. Just nick the latter with a knife on both sides, so you can connect them on the inside and cut through using a knife and a steel ruler.

The tricker part is that the Zvezda housing has a slight notch on each side that corresponds to a widening of the hull sides, which the Italeri part doesn’t, so you need to file away at it until it does fit the hull. It’s easy to check: put the two parts on top of each other and you can again score with a knife to indicate what to remove, and then just file away. Fit the parts occasionally, and you’ll know you’ve gotten far enough if the housing goes nicely between the lower hull sides while the upper hull is also fitted. If the housing is still too wide, it will push the sides out and the upper hull won’t go on neatly at the front.

Eventually, that gives you this:

[ATTACH]446657[/ATTACH]

The bolt strip needs a little flange cut off on its underside, as that is intended to fit a recess in the Zvezda part that the Italeri one obviously doesn’t have, but that’s all that still needed to be done.

All the parts are still loose here, as I want to apply some texture to the housing before I fit it. I think I’ll glue the bolt strip to the housing first, with a bit of plastic card behind it, so I can putty the joint at the same time.

[JR]

Nice alterations there , sure you'll make a good job of it .

[Guest]

Thanks. I’ve been investigating some of the other supposed problems of this kit, and I can report that the loader’s hatch is perfectly fine as it is, so that’s one less worry at least

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
Excellent surgery. As John says I'm sure you'll make a good job of this - right up your street.
Jim

[Guest]

In a way it is right up my street, but at the same time I kind of want to build this simply and fast … For which I should have bought an Asuka M4A2, it turns out

I added texture to the final drive housing:

[ATTACH]446801[/ATTACH]

This is putty that I spread all over it with a spatula (working in small areas, not the whole thing at once), and while still wet I put liquid cement over it to thin it and added texture with a stiff brush. That turned out to be far too rough, so once dry I sanded it down to what I think (hope?) will be a quite acceptable texture after painting

The turret has more problems than I thought. For starters, it has a strangely angular shape on its front face:

[ATTACH]446803[/ATTACH]

Those sharp lines on either side of the front opening should not be there, and if you look closely you’ll see what almost amount to corners just above them, where the light catches, as well as a sharp line at the bottom of the curve between the sides and the roof. A bit of work with a file takes care of all of those:

[ATTACH]446804[/ATTACH]

At the rear, the corners are too sharp, so I filed those round as well:

[ATTACH]446805[/ATTACH][ATTACH]446806[/ATTACH]

Harder to correct is that the loader’s hatch is wrong after all, it turned out over on Missing-Lynx. It’s slightly oversize, but I have no problem with that; what is an issue, is that its angle is very much off. Here is the angle the hatch on the model is set at:

[ATTACH]446802[/ATTACH]

That should be 34 degrees, but I make it 53 … but I have a hard time finding a good way to correct this without it being a lot of work.

[Guest]

The Sherman had a compartment on each side at the rear corners of the hull, in which track grousers were stowed (metal bars that could be bolted to the tracks for better traction in soft ground). On the M4, M4A1 and M4A4, there was a little air scoop on top (with a bolt so it could be removed for access) to draw in cooling air over the fuel tanks, but the M4A2 and M4A3 didn’t need that, so they had a simple plate instead as a lid on the compartment. Now, Zvezda moulded those lids as rectangles with rounded corners:

[ATTACH]446877[/ATTACH]

However, on the real tank they had semicircular ends. I cut some thin plastic card to the right size (4.5 mm wide by 8.5 mm long) and cut and filed rounded ends to them. After cutting the moulded-on lids off, I glued the plates to the tank and added a punched bolt head to the centre:

[ATTACH]446878[/ATTACH]

The engine deck, by the way, is mostly separate, except for the rearmost horizontal plate. You can pose the grilles open, but there is no interior detail to them and the engine bay is both completely empty and has internal bracings and things that aren’t on the real tank.

[Guest]

On the underside of the kit’s sponsons is a curious ridge that wasn’t there on the real tank, but which appears to serve as something to glue strips B5 and B6 to. Those are strips with holes that were welded to the real tank so that sand shields could be bolted to them, but Zvezda moulded the bolt holes wrong: they’re represented as large dimples in the middle of the strip, when they should be small holes just above the bottom edge. You could replace the parts by plastic strip and drill small holes in the correct places, but I used some Asuka parts instead (and cut away the ridge), as I had them spare from an M4A1 kit I built:

[ATTACH]446963[/ATTACH][ATTACH]446964[/ATTACH]

Though I had to replace the short front section by plastic strip because the Asuka parts had a narrower bit there that isn’t correct for welded-hull Shermans. I still need to drill the holes in them, and also drill through the holes Asuka moulded into the strips for better appearance.

The armour plates on the sides are also Asuka parts, because they’re better than the ones Zvezda provides. I added measurements for their placement in the pictures, because the diagram in the instructions has those of the rectangular plates wrong.

[Tim Marlow]

Still building out of the box then Jakko. It’s just that you’re using the spares box

[Mark1]

Probably best you don't follow my out the box build of the tamiya m4a3 75mm when I get started ,you'll be horrified I'm sure lol.

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
Neat work. As always you are raising this to another level of accuracy. Makes it interesting to follow as well :smiling:
Jim

[Mini Me]

Hi Jakko, looking good so far.........if I understand you correctly, there is a 19 degree discrepancy in the loader hatch orientation? That is a HUGE error, I'm wondering if there is even room on the turret roof to orient it correctly.....that is without reducing the opening to the correct dimensions as well.....your thoughts?
Rick H.

[Ian M]

This is a very interesting thread Jakko.
Regarding the loaders hatch angle, could you scribe and cut it out in a circle and turn the disc in situ thus change the angle. 34 to 53 is a big error, I thing someone twisted their figures when they measured it as 35. And noted 53 down.!

[Mini Me]

I think you are on to something there Ian....a 1 degree difference would be nothing to worry over. A circle cutter perhaps...... with a hatch opening styrene plug to center it on.....certainly worth a try. Rick H.

[Guest]

Still building out of the box then Jakko. It’s just that you’re using the spares box

I hadn’t thought of it like that, but yeah, you’re right

Probably best you don't follow my out the box build of the tamiya m4a3 75mm when I get started ,you'll be horrified I'm sure lol.

Nah, I’ve built those out of the box too, I know what to expect with them

Neat work. As always you are raising this to another level of accuracy.

To be fair, the kit is generally OK but benefits from a little work to make it much better. Some of the detail is a little wrong but not badly so — I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to someone who just wants to build a Sherman and have it look right. The only major problem is the loader’s hatch.

if I understand you correctly, there is a 19 degree discrepancy in the loader hatch orientation?

Yes, it is really very far out of true. See below for more on this

I'm wondering if there is even room on the turret roof to orient it correctly.....that is without reducing the opening to the correct dimensions as well.....your thoughts?

I think there is, based on placing the hatch in its proper orientation, but I suspect that if you do that, it will end up underneath the .50-calibre machine-gun barrel stowage. If you look at the turret roof, there are two rectangular depressions moulded in, one between the two hatch openings and another in line with it at the rear. Into these will go clamps in which a barrel can be stowed, when the machine gun is removed from the commander’s hatch, and on the real tank, of course, that barrel sits between the hatches. I haven’t fully measured it out yet on the kit, but it looks like the edge of the hatch would end up under the barrel …

Regarding the loaders hatch angle, could you scribe and cut it out in a circle and turn the disc in situ thus change the angle.

It looks like the front of the hatch, just behind the round opening for the loader’s periscope, is in the right place, so the hatch will need to be rotated around that. It should be possible, if you’re skilled enough, to cut and file a new opening oriented like that, and fill in the back of the old one. However, I don’t think I’m up to that

What I think I’ll do instead is to glue the hatch into place, fill the seams, file and sand it all flat, and scribe a new hatch outline into the turret roof. I will then either have to scratchbuild the hatch springs and hinge, which is fairly straightforward, or try and cut them off neatly beforehand so I can just glue them on in the right spot.

34 to 53 is a big error, I thing someone twisted their figures when they measured it as 35. And noted 53 down.!

What I suspect to be going on is this:

[ATTACH]446979[/ATTACH]

That’s a photograph of one of the drawings in the book Son of Sherman with the Zvezda hatch placed on top of the one in the drawing. The kit turret’s hatch opening is pretty much exactly the same size and is also angled as in the drawing, so I think Zvezda used this as the basis for their model. Compare to this original technical drawing:

[ATTACH]446981[/ATTACH] (via Kurt Laughlin over on Missing-Lynx)

… and you can see clearly that the hatch is set at a very different angle than in the book. As the technical drawing also has the hatch opening’s dimensions, measuring up the kit part showed it to be slightly too large, but not enough that I would have cared about it. The angle just looks wrong, though, especially now that I know about it

Son of Sherman is a really good book to own if you’re interested in the details of Sherman tanks, but I learned from this that while its drawings illustrate the changing features of the tanks very well, they aren’t usable for building accurate models from.