Sherman V at Westkapelle, ca. 1947

[TIM FORSTER]

Jakko, I feel your pain...

I recently tried Masterclub Panzer III/IV tracks on my Stug - having helped one of my sons assemble his for an SU-I52 and being very impressed. But they had metal links and plastic pins. The all plastic III/IV tracks were a nightmare because the pins kept snapping.

So I went back to my old friend Fruil. All metal tracks with wire with no pin ejector marks and minimal clean up (because the excess white metal flash can be often be snapped off with a fingernail), they were a joy by comparison!

I love plastic, believe me, but some things are better in metal...

Anyway, glad you have some spares. Can't wait to see this Sherman with her tracks...

[Guest]

Neither can I, but I don’t really feel like putting together the other side at the moment I’ve been thinking of buying one of those new Masterclub Sherman sets for the other model, but I'm not convinced they’ll be any easier going by the review on PMMS, since they tell you to glue the end connectors to the links else they’ll come out. My other main option would be Panda, but I haven’t found where to buy them in Europe.

[Guest]

Ouch, has it been almost five months since I did any real work on this model? :sleeping: Those tracks really took the fun out of it, and though I continued building the second run a few days ago, I had only put together 10 cm before I had both aching fingers and enough of them in general for the moment.

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Luckily, an unexpected solution arrived yesterday:



Not the kit as such — I had ordered that myself — but it turns out to come with the same type of track, in Dragon’s glueable soft plastic (which I’ve never used before) instead of as three ill-fitting parts per link. However:—

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They’re far too long! Since the Dragon kit represents the same type of tank with the same hull length, this is a bit odd, but it’s better than too short. The excess length is about three links:

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All I had to do was remove three links from the track and I should be good to go. I took off the two links on one side that the tab from the other side glues onto, and one link on that side. This involved leaving the guide teeth on one side and making room for them on the other, but this was easy enough with a sharp knife. With the track put back together, it looks good to me:

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A simple butt join would never hold, though, so I needed a more secure way. What I did was cut away the centre of four cevrons on each end of the track and glue in a length of plastic strip that will be all but invisible with the model the right side up:

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Cutting this material is weird, though. You need a sharp knife, and cuts from above into the profile are best made with short back-and-forth movements of the blade. Cutting out the middle of the block was just about impossible because the material seems to move and resist the blade, until I flexed the track side to side — one finger on each side of the link, then squeeze so the link took on a curve. It was then suddenly very easy to cut out the block between the first two cuts along the face of the link.

One down, one to go

[Si Benson]

I do remember this build, good to see you’ve pulled your finger out :smiling5:

[Guest]

Hi Jakko
Nice work with the track very neat idea will remember that one :thumb2:.
Good luck with the rest of the build.
Pete.

[Guest]

Hello Jakko,
Good to see this fellow on the move again, enjoyed the film, became so interested I watched the whole film through.
Cheers, Mike.

[Guest]

Good to see this fellow on the move again

There were two things holding it back: my reluctance to continue working on the tracks, and the markings. I’ve solved one, and have ideas for the other that I need to do some enquiries for to see if it’ll be viable or cost more than I’m willing to spend

enjoyed the film, became so interested I watched the whole film through.

I must say I found it very interesting too. I knew it existed, and had seen parts of it over the years, but when I found the whole thing it made the fighting around these parts even more … well, real, I suppose. I think it’s also a pretty unique document in general: how many other Second World War films from in the actual British front lines are there, let alone of a large-scale Commando operation?

[Guest]

A picture is worth a thousand words:

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Especially if you add a little calculation.

• AFV Club set 35038, M4 Sherman VVSS T48-Track, contains six sprues; it must follow from this that for each side of the tank, three sprues should suffice.
• Each sprue contains 28 links (plus 56 end connectors and 28 end connector extensions, which I didn’t use).
• 3 × 28 = 84.

Then why, AFV Club, do I end up with a gap of about 1.5 cm in the track if I put it on my model after having used all the links in three sprues?! 1.5 cm is four links, my ruler tells me, so I’m eight links short for the whole tank.

The weird thing is that this is exactly the amount the M4A4 (and M4A6) required beyond the number needed on other Shermans, due to their longer hull, which must mean that if you build an M4, M4A1, M4A2 or M4A3, AFV Club provides exactly enough links for two tracks, with none to spare. My conclusions are that 1) the links in the set are too short, and 2) AFV Club prints the number of links used on the real tank rather than the number of links needed from their sets.

To be honest, knowing the above, I would expect there to be seven sprues in each set, as that gives plenty of links and a bunch of spares to put onto a model. Apparently, AFV Club feels differently about this, but I also suspect they never tried putting them on an M4A4.

Worst of all, I discover this after having had the great joy of building a (nearly) full track … First of all you have to file an ejector mark off the inner face of every link. Then you need to clean off the sprue attachment point on each and every end connector. After that, you discover that the track pins aren’t all the same thickness, so on some links the end connectors are firmly attached while on some, they come off if you breathe on them, and on yet others they stay on, but only just, so don’t handle the track too much. That in turn means you can’t build a whole length of track, paint it, and then wrap it around the wheels — you need to glue it before all that. (Painting them while on the sprue also isn’t really an option because it looks like you’ll be spending as much time touching up as it took to paint them in the first place. Still, this is probably to be recommended anyway since it will thicken up the pins and so keep the connectors on. I think I’ll try this for the other side.)

Now, I have a second set of these tracks so I can raid that for the eight links I need, but then what do I do with the rest? I really don’t feel like putting together another set of these tracks for the second Sherman I intend to build (which is why I have the other set in the first place), but if I take eight links from it I won’t have enough for that model anyway — and I’m also not likely to find many buyers for it second-hand with eight links missing … *sigh*

Jakko,
Looking at the box illustration it clearly states that there are enough links for the Firefly which was built on the longer hull Sherman as was the MkV so there should be enough to do the job. Did you get hungry building the track...?
Cheers, Mike.

[Guest]

Looking at the box illustration it clearly states that there are enough links for the Firefly which was built on the longer hull Sherman as was the MkV so there should be enough to do the job.

That’s what I’d read on photos of the box too, and one of the reasons I bought the set in the first place … somebody got something wrong, and I don’t think it was me. I’m glad I solved it with the Dragon tracks, though. On the next two Shermans I have in mind (the Dragon one and another Asuka, both to feature fairly extensive rebuilding) I’ll use Panda Plastics tracks, which should fit much better — or so I’ve read …

Did you get hungry building the track...?

Yes, I really enjoy chewing on plastic

[Guest]

… and another two and a half years on

As I’ve recently been building the other Sherman V that landed at Westkapelle (the one this model started out to be, before I changed it to the other one), I decided to finish this one at the same time. Should give a nice “before” and “after” thing that way.

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In the time since the last post I made in this thread, I realised I had made a number of errors and omissions. Things like the wrong flaps on the periscopes (they should be pointed instead of flat), not having fitted the base for the air inlet duct, discovering that the thing on the smoke launcher bracket is an aerial base, etc.

Removing the periscope flaps was not as hard as I imagined. Making the pointed ones proved difficult from plastic strip that I tried filing into the necessary shape. In the end I asked a friend of mine to make them on his 3D printer, and then all I had to do was stick them on.

I also decided to remove the oversize aerial base I had put on the glacis plate and instead fit one left over from another Asuka Sherman, that I didn’t have three years ago. This was more involved than expected, because I ended up having to file the whole top of the rounded projection on the glacis plate flat, then build up its rim again from a piece of plastic tube and putty.

The rear mudguards I had made from aluminium were nothing like the real thing, so when someone recently gave me a few plastic ones, I replaced them with those. The dented one was made by carefully heating it with a cigarette lighter and deforming it. It needed some scraping and putty to appear properly sheet steel after that, though.

Now, why did this stall for so long? Mainly because I couldn’t find a good way to apply the name to the side of the tank, if I’m honest. A solution presented itself unexpectedly earlier this year, though:

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These are two the same sets of Star Decals markings for vehicles on Walcheren that include this particular tank, Wolf of Badenoch. I only need one, of course, and had purchased the set at the top some years ago for this reason (among others). However, I discovered it didn’t include the name, which is the hardest bit to get right

When, some months ago, I ordered another set of decals from Star, for French Shermans for an entirely different project, I was pleasantly surprised that they had included the second set shown above for free — thank you, Mr. Lexell I suppose this was because I had supplied him with additional information on these tanks, resulting in this difference between the two sets:

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An extra sheet with Wolf of Badenoch and arm of service markings, giving me the decals I need to actually put a name on the tank

Oh, and here’s a shot of the two tanks together:

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[Guest]

On to painting (again ) I first sprayed the model with a mixture of Mig yellow olive and SCC 15 olive drab, in order to tone down the greenness of the latter — I think it’s far too green for an in-service vehicle, but it may just be OK for one that’s stood in the sun for years, because SCC 15 faded to green with age and exposure. The colour is still very green on the model, but not quite as bad as straight from the bottle.

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Once that had dried overnight, I sprayed blotches of Mig IDF green in the centre of panels and places that would be highlighted in natural light. This worked fairly well to tone down the bright green and make it look more faded:

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[Guest]

Next, a heavy wash of Humbrol HU1 Medium Green 1942 enamel from another 1970s tin. This went on a bit too heavily, so when it had had about two hours to dry, I scrubbed some of it off again with a wide brush moistened with white spirit, aiming for a downward motion so it hopefully makes some rain streaks on the model.

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Unfortunately, the Mig paint does not seem to stand up to white spirit very well:

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On several raised bits, I began to see the light grey primer I used underneath the Mig paint coming through even as I was applying the wash, and the scrubbing with plain white spirit of course made it worse. Now, on the one hand, this looks like good wear, of the kind you might actually see on a tank that has stood outside for almost three years. On the other, I think it’s too much, so I’ll probably cover much of it over again with things like the drybrush colour that will go over all of this once the white spirit has evaporated, as well as with the dirt wash and other weathering that will go over the whole tank after that.

Aside from that little glitch, though, I’m pretty pleased with how the green wash made the whole tank look much more battered

[TIM FORSTER]

Nice to you back with this great build Jakko.

And a nice bit of karma on the decals... what goes around sometimes comes around!

More please.

[adt70hk]

Looks like you put a lot of work into this Jakko at the start.

It's coming on nicely indeed.

Well done.

Andrew

[Guest]

Nice to you back with this great build Jakko.

Like I said, it had languished because I couldn’t think of a way to add the name and have it look good, which the decals solve. That, and I have motivation to finish this (as well as a few other kits) over the coming couple of months …

And a nice bit of karma on the decals... what goes around sometimes comes around!

Rather unexpected too, because I hadn’t heard anything more about it when I supplied Star Decals with the information some years ago.

More please.

I intend to finish this one soon now

Looks like you put a lot of work into this Jakko at the start.

It’s another one of those models that I want to do “right” Most of the work went into the engine, and if I’m honest, I’m not sure half of that was actually worth it, given how little you end up being able to see of it … but hey, it’s there and there is no good alternative, so it had to be done