On a Sherman trip … M4A3E2 now

[JR]

Great that you found the missing part, quite evident that the carpet monster didn't think much to it, and was waiting for a juicer morsel.

[Guest]

The worst part of it is that I don’t even have carpet in my hobby room, but linoleum …

[Guest]

The turret is very well reproduced, with great casting texture over most of it. Of course, it’s in two halves and made in a multi-part mould, so there are some lines to clean up. Asuka also didn’t add texture to the rear sides, probably due to moulding limitations, so out came the putty, thinner and a cheap brush (the great double-sided one from the starter set group build ) to let me add the missing texture:

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For the Shermanophiles, the turret is the type with the rounded lower sides, not the straight ones that were also produced.

I also built the suspension:

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It has mostly the dish-shaped wheels, that don’t come in this particular kit but I had almost two full sets spare from other Asuka kits. These wheels appear on M4A3E2 tanks in photos (as well as other Shermans) so it’s entirely plausible for the model to have them: they had hubs with larger-diameter, stronger bearings, which helped with the added weight of this variant of the Sherman. For variety, I also added a regular spoked wheel, which is common on Shermans later in the war when damaged wheels were replaced with whatever type was at hand of the two, three, or even more types available at the time.

Into the fronts of the bogies, I drilled four holes using a home-made template (thick plastic card with four holes in it and some “ribs” to allow me to position it on the bogie). These are because the bogies on both sides were identical, with the return roller and track skid on top being bolted on differently depending on the side of the tank the bogie was on. I also added a bolt head on the top of the return roller bracket. This should be on both sides, but I left it off on the inside because it will hardly be visible.

[Guest]

I see I forgot to mention that I used a lathe to turn down the wheels, in order to get rid of the central moulding seam. This, unfortunately, didn’t work for the spoked wheel: every time I tried, the wheel slipped on the screw I used to hold in into the lathe, and stopped spinning. This happened with every wheel I tried (I have even more spares of those than the dish-shaped ones — every Asuka Sherman comes with three full sets of wheels ) no matter how tightly I tried to get it onto that screw, so I gave up and did it by hand instead. I also had to do the idler wheels by hand because they don’t have a hole going all the way through them, making it almost impossible to put them into a lathe and have enough surface exposed to actually turn them down.

You can do all of them by hand, of course, but this will leave you with a very sore thumb, is my experience. The best way, I found, is to clamp the wheel in a modeller’s vice with about half the tyre exposed, then scrape it down with a knife; release and repeat until the whole tyre is done.

Also, I was intending to damage the tyres by taking chips out of them. I decided to take a good look at photos of Shermans in the field first, and noticed that they usually appear to have had virtually undamaged tyres — at least in Europe. The only pictures I found showing badly damaged tyres were on US Marine Corps tanks in the Pacific, which probably shows they were rather further down on the list for receiving spare parts than the US Army was.

[Jim R]

so I now have the fun prospect of scratchbuilding a replacement.

..... and that is when you'll find the original part.
Jim

[Guest]

Luckily, I found it before I started

[Guest]

The turret is now (just about?) finished:

[ATTACH]408208[/ATTACH][ATTACH]408209[/ATTACH][ATTACH]408210[/ATTACH]

Most of it’s straight from the box, except the commander’s cupola is from Tamiya (the Clearfix on the vision blocks was easily cleared off — it just breaks away from the plastic), though the hatch is Asuka. I decided not to use the Tamiya part for some reason I don’t quite understand myself, but by the time I had started on installing the periscope, it was too late to go back to that You hardly ever see a Sherman kit with a periscope in the one-piece commander’s hatch, and the flap for it is usually moulded shut. Thus, I had to file it away and then enlarge the opening for it so that one of the kit’s periscopes actually fit. I put a flap made from plastic card over it, in the open position as it can’t be closed when the periscope is all the way up in its mounting bracket. Without a periscope, there should be such a bracket on the inside of the hatch, which is missing entirely on many Sherman kits.

And I just remembered I need to add the hatch lock, which is missing on the kit part. Oh yeah, and the guard for the loader’s periscope is from Tamiya as well, because Asuka only provides them as etched parts, but they were made from steel wire on the real tank and so wouldn’t be flat.

I also had to add a few details, like the rounded thing in front of the commander’s cupola and the casting numbers. The latter are from Tamiya sprues: those of the last 20 years or so have long ID numbers on the side opposite to that with the parts’ numbers, so I shaved them off with a sharp, chisel blade and glued them to the turret. The number on the roof is the part number for the turret, 7067400; the 157 on the sides is the serial number of this particular turret. In all 254 were made, but by two different foundries; in a book, I saw 152 in photos of a turret with a rounded lower edge, so 157 looks plausible to me.

[Guest]

Almost done building …

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On the turret roof, I had to replace the commander’s sighting device (the L-shaped thing next to the gunner’s periscope) because, as you can see in earlier pictures, I had managed to break it — though I only noticed that after taking those photos. Luckily I had some spare from previous Shermans that didn’t need it, so I could just cut the base off one of those and glue it to this turret instead.

I also added straps to the tools from thin plastic sheet, a tow cable (twisted copper wire with Asuka ends), and the drivers’ hatches as well as a few other details, and built the machine gun for the turret top:

[ATTACH]408441[/ATTACH]

This is a very well-detailed item, almost a kit in itself and a very impressive moulding. I decided to leave the top cover open, as if the gun is being reloaded (or just unloaded after action), because as you can see, Asuka has also moulded details on the insides so it would be a shame to hide all of that away

Pretty much, I’m ready to paint this one now, I think.

[Steven000]

Looks all good to me! :thumb2:

[Tim Marlow]

Looking good from here as well!

[Guest]

Thanks As the Royal Model figures I ordered for this model came in, I assembled two of them:

[ATTACH]408657[/ATTACH]

The man in the loader’s hatch is actually intended as leaning out of the co-driver’s hatch of an M26 Pershing, but I’ve decided to use him as the loader who’s just bringing out boxes of .50-calibre ammunition. I’ll probably need to replace his right hand for that, though, as it’s holding a cigarette between two extended fingers at the moment.

I still need to do the driver, but will have to find a way to get him into the hull after painting first, as he’s rather more than just a head and shoulders which would fit through the open hatch.

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
Great progress. Turret is very nice. I do like the odd spoked wheel. Figures fit well - always nice to see figures added. Good luck getting the driver in.
Jim

[Guest]

I’ve been trying to figure out how to do that, and I think I’ll need to build a base that fits underneath him, then when the time comes to glue him in place, first stick the driver through the hatch from underneath, then glue the base into the model and finally glue the driver onto the base. That might just work …

[Guest]

This kit comes with impressive jerrycans, which Asuka apparently also sell separately. Here are the sprues:

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The bottoms of the cans themselves are moulded hollow, and the sprues contain two each of petrol and water cans. Built up, you get this:

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The design is very good, everything fits perfectly and you can’t put the tops on the wrong bodies — or the wrong way round on the right body. The petrol cans on the right have a G moulded into the sides (for gasoline, I suppose) while the water cans don’t, but have WATER in the tops, underneath the handles.

I’d definitely recommend these if you’re looking for good American petrol or water cans.

[Guest]

When I decided to glue the suspension on my other current Sherman build before painting, because of the intention to just spray the whole area with a dirt colour, I figured the same would apply to this one, so I did the same here:

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The track is the Asuka one that comes with the kit, two-piece, soft plastic T-48 rubber chevron track with extended end connectors and is still loose.

I also put some stowage onto the tank:

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The bags on the turret are all from the Tamiya Allied Vehicles Accessory Set, with a bit of thread as a rope they hang from. These are also attached already before painting as it makes glueing them down easier. The stuff on the rear hull is still loose, and may therefore change still The jerrycans are those I showed earlier, the roadwheels are simply Asuka spares and the rolled-up tarp is a resin one I sawed off from a piece that had two such rolls together. I think it’s an old Verlinden part, but I’m not sure because someone once gave me a plastic bag with a bunch of this kind of stuff in it.