Jakko’s Sherman BARV

[A_J_Rimmer]

That's certainly a very interesting project Jakko and I'll be watching with interest.

[Guest]

Now the M247 and P.34 are finished, I’ve finally started on the BARV. You know you have AMS when the very first thing you do with the very first part you remove from the sprue, is to cut bits away:

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This is necessary so that the Resicast superstructure will fit onto the Asuka upper hull. Here trial-fitted without glue:

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I also built the basic shape of the lower hull, to ensure it will fit correctly into the upper:

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This is not normally a problem with Asuka Shermans — things just fit as they should. But better safe than sorry.

[A_J_Rimmer]

Great start Jakko.

Now where's the popcorn....?

[Neil Merryweather]

I'm really looking forward to this

[Guest]

I continued work on the plastic hull:

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That is, I built the transmission housing (the nose) and glued it to the lower hull, then added the upper hull. The two pieces of plastic strip at the rear are because I’ve also been working on the resin superstructure to get it to fit, and it wants to skew to the left at the rear a little. The strips are there to hopefully guide it into its proper position, but I won’t know until the glue has fully dried, tomorrow.

So I went on to the wheels. They have a seam down the middle, which is far too big to represent the one that was there on the real thing, and in any case that would wear down soon enough on the real tank. You can scrape it off, as I’ve done lots of times, but I decided for this one to take the luxury option:

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My father’s shed, with his lathe. To put a wheel into it, I put a long M2 screw through the hole in the wheel, with a nut on the other side, tightened using a screwdriver and pliers because hand-tight is not tight enough:

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And then some turning later:

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Before and after:

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Once I found how far to turn the first wheel down (see the upper left number on the electronic display gizmo in the first lathe photo) I could just do all the others in one go rather than layer by layer. However, sometimes the chisel would bite into the wheel and stop it, requiring me to remove it, tighten the nut, and try again. Here’s the end result:

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Notice the one in the front, with the rim on one side. That one did not want to cooperate, so I eventually gave up and grabbed a thirteenth wheel from my spares box. I mean, it’s not like I’m wanting for them:

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And that’s without the two sets of alternative wheels you get in this kit!

[vizenz]

How many Shermans have you built in your life? :tongue-out3:

[Guest]

I tried adding that up not too long ago, and the truth is that I don’t quite remember all of the ones I built decades ago But these wheels are really just from the last five years or so … Build one Asuka Sherman and you will have at least one set of spare wheels, but more commonly two:



You get two of the sprues on the left and three of the middle one (ignore the one on the right here ) so that’s six drive sprockets, four idlers, and 36 roadwheels in just this kit … Not counting this one, I’ve only built four Asuka VVSS Shermans, but those account for most of the green wheels in that box! (The grey ones are some Dragon, where sometimes also get two sets of wheels in a kit, but I only made one Dragon Sherman, and from a MiniArt set of wheels that I bought before I had realised how many Asuka ones I would accumulate anyway.)

[Guest]

After a lot more fettling, the superstructure fits reasonably well:

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With which I mostly mean that it doesn’t have a pivot point at about a third of the way along from the back anymore. There is still a bg gap at the front:

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I’ve glued it down anyway and will fill the gap once that glue has had the time to dry.

And on to the bogies:

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The wheels and suspension arms are already built (two parts per wheel, and an inner and an outer arm), and the rest is almost everything you need to build six bogies, Asuka style. The only part missing is the skid that goes on top. The bogies built:

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The suspension arms still work, as that will help to get everything level later on, and the wheels turn to make painting easier too.

[Neil Merryweather]

Jakko that's one hell of 'high tide ' line on your bench. I bet you'll find loads of bits you thought had gone to the carpet monster there :tears-of-joy:

[Guest]

That’s where I put all of the offcuts and stuff, and that I sort through whenever I need to make something small For example, you can see the Tyrell P.34 front spoiler there, that had to be removed from the plastic body to fit the etched one.

[adt70hk]

That's us something very different Jakko. .... Will try to keep up with this.

ATB

Andrew

[Guest]

That will get easier as I get to the detail bits, which always take me far longer than they should

For now, I completed the six bogies. Here’s one to illustrate:

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Basically, I filed the front face flat and drilled four holes into it, then added the skid on top and glued a bolt head (punched from card) next to it on the outboard side. There should also be one inboard, but once the track is on, you can hardly see that at all, so I’m saving myself half the work here.

I also glued the back plate on, but it has large gaps, worse on the left than on the right:

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This is why I did that now, BTW, before filling all the other gaps that the superstructure leaves There’s also a piece underneath that covers the exhausts on the real BARV:

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As you can see, it also leaves big gaps but the instructions mention nothing about those at all, and I can’t find any parts that will cover them later on. I think I might just fit a piece of plastic card over the sides to close these.

Oh, and specially for Neil:

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All of the bits-and-bobs pile

[Guest]

Next step is filling all those gaps …

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Resicast says to do this with epoxy putty, but I used car body filler from a tube, because it says it’s also suitable for polyester car bodies, so I hope that means it also sticks to the polyurethane resin of the conversion set’s parts. Resicast also says to fill the turret ring with epoxy putty, but I instead glued a bit of thin plastic card over the opening on each side, because on the real vehicle, there was a piece of sheet steel there, according to this walkaround of a real one. It’s intentionally oversize, so I can trim it to size when the glue and putty have dried — much easier than trying to make it to shape and size first and only then glueing it to the model.

[vizenz]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n[/ATTACH]

All of the bits-and-bobs pile :smiling3:

Now, that's the completely opposite from what Brian showed us on his thread about the 1/48 U-Boat. :tongue-out3:
I think I'm somewhere between with a tendency to chaos! :tears-of-joy::tears-of-joy:

[Guest]

I’m not one to keep everything neatly stored away, but I do keep everything in its proper place This is the area for the offcuts and stuff, for example. Worst I’ve ever seen was someone I used to play WH40K with — he had a garden shed with a workbench that was completely (and I mean that literally) covered in tools, parts of not just 40K kits but all kinds of other non-modelling stuff as well, half-built models, half-disassembled models, paperwork, and more. There was not even a clear area in which he built the models, he just did that on top of all of the junk. That was about fifteen years ago, though, and I haven’t seen him in years, but I kind of wish I had taken a picture of it when I could.