Medium Tank M3 from MiniArt — not a Sherman for once!

[minitnkr]

Beautifully executed. PaulE

[Guest]

Thanks all I have one or two variants of this tank in mind that I want to build, but I think I’ll try a Takom kit for the next one … and if I buy a MiniArt M3 medium again, it won’t be with interior

[Tim Marlow]

Looking good mate. All those small details build up the effect.

[GerryW]

Thanks all :smiling3: I have one or two variants of this tank in mind that I want to build, but I think I’ll try a Takom kit for the next one … and if I buy a MiniArt M3 medium again, it won’t be with interior :smiling3:

Why ever not? You've made a really great job with this one, and a second one would be more straightforward :thumb2:

[Guest]

Looking good mate. All those small details build up the effect.

Thanks. The good part is that just about all of those small details are already in the kit, so anyone with a bit of experience should be able to build a convincing model with not that much effort

Why ever not? You've made a really great job with this one, and a second one would be more straightforward :thumb2:

True … but it also means I know how much work that second one would be, and that alone puts me off Last week I was looking at some reviews of the Takom M3s, and the difference in what the sprues look like, compared to the MiniArt version, is the main thing that jumps out at you. Takom’s version is clearly intended to be a quick and simple build, whereas MiniArt’s seems more intended to be complete rather than simple to make.

But the number 1 reason I’ll be going for Takom is that I saw a photo of an M31 armoured recovery vehicle that would be cool to build, and only Takom has that variant in its range

[Guest]

With the interior done, I taped up almost all of the openings:

[ATTACH]417936[/ATTACH]

Then I put the 75 mm gun in place, without glue, and glued the roof on:

[ATTACH]417937[/ATTACH]

This makes it all a little tricky in that I have to be careful not to touch the tape, as it’s got the sticky side out, of course. I’m thinking maybe I should just paint it to get rid of that.

[Isitme]

Still more great work, well done.

[Guest]

Thanks, Mike.

I began adding tools and stuff to the outside, for which all the brackets and tie-downs are etched brass. The brackets are doable, but the tie-downs … maybe for other people, but not me.

[ATTACH]418036[/ATTACH]

There’s a bend line on the other side as well. You’re supposed to bend them so the middle, straight part is raised up above the level of the rounded ends. The real thing is a piece of bent steel wire welded to the tank, and the round bits represent the welds. I tried making one (as you can tell from the fret) and found it exceedingly awkward to even hold, never mind bend like it’s supposed to, and then one of the ends broke off. Rather than mess around and waste more, I fell back on the method I tried and found workable on my blown-up M113.

I first punched 0.6 mm discs from 0.25 mm plastic card and glued them in pairs where the tie-downs go:

[ATTACH]418037[/ATTACH]

You’re on your own as to where they go, by the way: MiniArt shows it in the instructions, but not in a way you can accurately work it out, and there are no locating marks moulded onto the engine deck for these (unlike for the other etched bits).

After that, I glued lengths of stretched sprue over the pairs of discs:

[ATTACH]418038[/ATTACH][ATTACH]418039[/ATTACH]

I used Tamiya Extra Thin for the discs, because it remains “wet” for a fair while and the fine brush let me put a dot of it pretty accurately. However, I found it melts the sprue too easily, so for that I used my normal glue, the degreaser I’ve mentioned before. This evaporates far more quickly, so it doesn’t have the opportunity to melt the sprue much.

[Graeme C.]

Just had a catch up, the interior & engine are really good, but MiniArt kits do seem to have a lot of small, fiddly parts.

[Guest]

Thanks, and though this is my first MiniArt kit, I would say you’re probably right about their parts …

[JR]

Brilliant work Jakko.
Gives me hope when I read that modellers such as you don't all use all the PE !
The engine wirings is great, 99.9,% of people looking won't have the slightest idea what it is let alone know the wiring sequence.:smiling3:

[outrunner]

Thanks, and though this is my first MiniArt kit, I would say you’re probably right about their parts …

Having built a couple of MiniArt kits you are right about the plethora of small parts. I also found that most of the PE was way too small to work properly and did not really add anything to the model.

Andy.

[Guest]

Brilliant work Jakko.

I wouldn’t go that far, but thanks

Gives me hope when I read that modellers such as you don't all use all the PE !

I don’t like photoetched parts much, especially when they don’t really have added value. Like I said in another thread recently, many etched sets have a whole bunch of parts that just replace existing kit parts with flat equivalents that are less accurate. This kit doesn’t suffer from that problem, luckily — MiniArt have used etched parts where they really do make a difference, but as I mentioned, it would have been nice to also have plastic equivalents.

The engine wirings is great, 99.9,% of people looking won't have the slightest idea what it is let alone know the wiring sequence.:smiling3:

Very true. My philosophy, though, is that if it’s glaringly obviously missing, I want to add it Things you can’t see, I generally don’t bother with, but with that clearly visible plumbing on top of the engine, I think it should be there on the model too.

Having built a couple of MiniArt kits you are right about the plethora of small parts. I also found that most of the PE was way too small to work properly and did not really add anything to the model.

I can manage most of what’s in this kit, and like I said, I think it does actually add something to the model. However, a few spare tie-downs would have been welcome — for practice putting them together, if nothing else.

[Guest]

The finished engine deck, with tools, tow cable and straps to hold them down:

[ATTACH]418234[/ATTACH]

I made the cable from copper wire from an electrical cable and the straps from thin plastic card, but everything else came in the kit.

While I was working on that, I also finished the front of the hull:

[ATTACH]418235[/ATTACH][ATTACH]418236[/ATTACH]

The cabling to the headlights isn’t supplied, but MiniArt does tell you where the cables go, so I drilled holes to put in some thin copper wire before adding the etched headlight guards. I had to replace the right convoy light by one cut from a Sherman headlight, because one moment I had the kit’s part in my tweezers, and the next moment, I didn’t

After also adding the side doors, driver’s vision port, etc. I think I’m done with construction:

[ATTACH]418237[/ATTACH]

… other than the tracks, which I haven’t started on at all yet.

[Guest]

I made a jig to assemble the tracks:

[ATTACH]418505[/ATTACH]

It’s just a strip of wood with three slats of 3 by 6 mm glued to it, so that there is 13 mm between the outer two. This lets me assemble the track with the inner face (and thus the guide teeth) down, while the high sides prevent the end connectors from slipping out of the link half before the other part can be glued over them.

On to the tank itself. I primed all the metal parts and their surroundings with grey Vallejo Surface Primer from an aerosol can:

[ATTACH]418506[/ATTACH]

Once that had dried overnight, I sprayed the whole model with Gunze Sangyo … sorry, Mr. Hobby H52 olive drab. Here’s just the main pieces:

[ATTACH]418507[/ATTACH]