Back to the Eighties with a Sherman (or two)

[stillp]

Oh, that’s a good idea, though not really practical unless you use a lathe, IMHO. And even though I do have access to one, I didn’t want to use it because it would have turned a quick, fun build into more of an actual, serious model :smiling3:

I found a Dremel and a sanding stick worked quite well.
Pete

[Guest]

The same person who gave me the turret, also had some Italeri periscope guards that he was willing to donate to a good cause, so after they arrived in the mail today, I could stick them on. I also decided on an extravagant addition, opened periscopes from a genuine Verlinden set for the drivers’ hatches:

[ATTACH]496459[/ATTACH]

Cutting away the closed periscopes was fun with the model completely assembled, but going slowly and carefully did the trick.

Next, I sprayed the whole model Tamiya XF-62 olive drab followed by some random clouds of XF-58 olive green (though those aren’t very visible, so I guess the contrast isn’t big enough):

[ATTACH]496460[/ATTACH]

This in an attempt to emulate Verlinden’s way of painting, as described on pages 66–69 of The Verlinden Way volume 2, though he uses Humbrol HF 1 khaki and MC 21 French artillery green instead. My trusty Humbrol colour chart (with real paint samples) doesn’t show a modern (for the late 80s) equivalent to HF 1, only for MC 21, so I couldn’t really be sure of the colours he used, but that’s not too important as in the late 80s, early 90s I mainly used Tamiya acrylics for spraying anyway, so I just took the colours I used back then, too.

[Guest]

One wash and three drybrushings later:

[ATTACH]496573[/ATTACH]

Verlinden says to make a wash of burned sienna oil paint and some Humbrol black to make “a chocolate colour”, but I don’t have burned sienna paint (oil or otherwise) and no desire to go into town to buy a tube just for this — but I do have a tin of Humbrol 98 Chocolate paint, so I used that instead To be honest, I don’t think the wash did all that much, but I suspect my basic colour is darker than Verlinden’s preferred Humbrol HF 1 Khaki.

In any case, once the wash had dried overnight, I drybrushed the model with first Humbrol HB2 Dark Earth (Verlinden says to use 29, which is just the more modern number for the same paint), then with 86 Light Olive instead of Verlinden’s MC 21 French Artillery Green, and finally 72 Khaki Drill (again, the same colour as Verlinden’s recommended HM 8). Though the book doesn’t explicitly say so, I drybrushed each of these more lightly than the last, so the effect of that wouldn’t be lost.

And yes, these are absolutely ancient tins I bought them something like a decade ago at a model show, where someone had a box full of these and even older tins, most of them already used. As soon as I saw them, I said, “How much for the whole box?” Not a decision I’ve regretted, though I only use them very sparingly because I really don’t want them to run out.

[JR]

I'm in, have to admit never built one as of yet .
So there always a chance

[Guest]

You’ve built an M10 tank destroyer, though — that’s a Sherman up to the top of the tracks

[Jim R]

Looking fine Jakko. Interesting to rework the Verlinden Way. Enamels are in many ways very useful, versatile paints. Just fallen out of fashion.

[Guest]

They’re much better for drybrushing than Tamiya acrylics, that’s for sure Though other acrylics with a lot of pigment, like Vallejo, work well too, I don’t think I know any that are as good for drybrushing with as these old Humbrols. Even the newer Humbrol “Super Enamels” aren’t as good, IMHO.

[Guest]

Slowly making progress …

I found it interesting that Verlinden essentially recommends what today is known as a pin wash a few decades before (AFAIK) that name had been thought up, using thinned raw umber to simulate the build-up of dirt around detail. I do have raw umber oil paint (a tube I bought probably thirty years ago, and it’s still almost completely full), so I followed this step too. However, it didn’t come out that well, probably due to again my darker base colour and lack of experience with the technique.

[ATTACH]496978[/ATTACH]

I also painted the tools, again using Verlinden’s method: matt black (Tamiya XF-1) followed by drybrushing with a mixture of raw umber and silver (Humbrol 11 from a tin I bought new myself, long ago) in a few shades. He says to paint the wooden parts with burned sienna oil paint, but as mentioned, I don’t have any. However, burned sienna is a deep red-brown colour, so I just substituted Tamiya XF-64 Though he doesn’t say, I then drybrushed the wood with Humbrol 62 Leather to highlight it.

While I had the matt black out, I also painted the rubber tyres and the spare track links, but these still need to be drybrushed grey.

You may also noticed the white bit on the left engine deck. I had added this earlier, but it apparently broke off without me noticing, and I couldn’t find it anywhere anymore, so after painting the tow cable, I just made a new one. It’s not been painted yet because I also want to paint some of the stowage in olive drab, so I might as well do all of it at the same time.

Talking of stowage:

[ATTACH]496979[/ATTACH]

The figure is Italeri, minus his feet because I couldn’t find them and he won’t need them anyway standing in the commander’s hatch. The stowage comes from trawling through some of my spares boxes for “period-correct” bits. The resin bedrolls are Verlinden, the big wooden box and the ammo cans are Tamiya, and everything else is Italeri — all of this would have been available in the mid–late 80s. The Tamiya box is from the M4A3 kit, the green bedroll from Italeri’s M4A1, so you would be likely to see one or both of them on a 1:35 Sherman model at the time

[Scratchbuilder]

Looking really good Jakko.
Those old Humbrol paints used to be all that was available except for some from the USA (Testors etc). And yes, I still have a couple of draws of them.

[Guest]

When I started building models (age about 7 or 8), Humbrol was also all I had, it being the only paint sold in the shop in the village that also had a modest selection of kits. Once I went to secondary school in the nearest town, I discovered a model shop there, and that also stocked Tamiya so I started using that a lot as well. He sold Revell tins of enamels too, but that was about it, so mostly I used Humbrol and Tamiya by the late 80s (not liking Revell much because it was a bit lesser quality than Humbrol, and as they cost about the same, why would I buy it except for a colour Humbrol didn’t have? ). That’s also why I’m pretty much restricting myself to those for this model: I’m trying to build it as I might have done in the 1980s had my skills been better/had I followed Verlinden’s methods more closely.

[Guest]

After sticking on the decals, I also installed the tracks:

[ATTACH]497552[/ATTACH][ATTACH]497553[/ATTACH]

The markings are all from the Italeri Sherman, ones I picked pretty much at random from the sheet and applied where they made sense.

I painted the metal bits of the tracks first, with Tamiya XF-64 red brown followed by drybrushing with more of Verlinden’s metal mixture. Once that had dried I painted the rubber parts matt black and drybrushed them with grey.

You can clearly see the worst part of the Italeri Sherman here: the unbending nature of the tracks (and these are even from a 1990s kit when they were in metal grey plastic that was less stiff than the black ones from the 80s).

[Jim R]

That looks very nice indeed Jakko. The tracks don't look bad, certainly don't detract from the build.
You said "back to the eighties". A nostalgic trip to your youth.

[Guest]

Definitely, though better painted than I could have done 30+ years ago

The tracks look OK, but they are very much too stiff to sit well around the wheels, especially the drive sprocket. You can’t see it in the photos above because of the angle, but they also lift up off the return rollers and skids in a way no real track ever would. If I had had a set of the old Tamiya Sherman tracks I would have used those instead, they were much softer and fit far better.

[Guest]

This one is now done