Help needed - What was it meant to be?

[Andy the Sheep]

Last update: I met my friend who told me his brother seldom built kits OOB or in one of the versions offered by the box; he was a first class modeller and his kits were always the result of historical and documentary research and a lot of scratch building. Unfortunately, his project about the M3 conversion got lost with him.
I'll go for the M33, but I've a lot to learn before handling cutters, glue and paints.

Andrea

[Guest]

To learn about the M33 prime mover, or about converting models?

The M33 is not a bad choice for conversion, though — it’s not a very complicated vehicle because most of the M31’s recovery equipment was removed. The main problem will be the winch, which I have no idea where to get easily, other than a Tamiya M26 Dragon Wagon kit … which would be a little expensive and wasteful to get for just one of its winches.

The other main things you need to make are the stowage boxes around the engine deck and the door with dummy gun barrel that goes on the front of the right sponson.

[Andy the Sheep]

To learn about the M33 prime mover, or about converting models? :smiling3:

Both, Jakko, both. For the moment I am still on the "assembler" side of the hobby and a total newbie in US 2WW medium tanks world.
Thank you again for your tips and directions.

Andrea

[Guest]

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask, I’m sure this forum will be able to answer them

[Andy the Sheep]

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask, I’m sure this forum will be able to answer them :smiling3:

Thank you.

[Guest]

Easiest solution for the winch, BTW: chuck a tarp over it Carve something from styrofoam that has the approximate shape of the winch, then make a tarp from tissue paper or whatever to hide that there’s not actually a winch there.

[Andy the Sheep]

I'll search through the aftermarket jungle and, if the search is unsuccessful, the tarp is going to be THE solution.
I spotted a French resin conversion kit, but 70€ seems to me a bit "overscale". :astonished:

[Scratchbuilder]

I have been summoned! (TBH, I wasn’t — for some reason, I didn’t get a notification about being @-mentioned, I just happened across this topic.)


No, I’m building an M32 TRV (Tank Recovery Vehicle), the one based on the M3 was the M31 TRV.

I think the posts above are on the right track, but in my opinion, the intention seems to have been to build a Grant ARV:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n[/ATTACH]

or perhaps an M33 prime mover:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n[/ATTACH]

The reason being, there is a hull floor with the transmission is from an Italeri M7 Priest (or Priest Kangaroo) kit, which kind of points to an open-topped vehicle on which the transmission would be visible. All of the M3-based recovery vehicles had a turret, except the British Grant ARV, and with a turret in place, most of the interior of the tank is obscured, especially the driver’s compartment (see this model). On the Grant ARV with the hatches open (the twin Bren mount was far from always fitted), and on the M33 in general, the hull interior would be very visible, though.

This also fits with the Sten: that would likely have been carried in a Grant ARV, and speaks against an M33.

If you want to complete the model as a Grant ARV, I could scan the relevant parts from the old Airfix book Lee & Grant by Ken Jones and Peter Chamberlain (or you could buy a second-hand copy there :smiling3, as that has a section about converting the old Airfix kit into a Grant ARV.

I would agree with you there Jakko, or an artillery prime mover for the 155mm gun.
Mike.

[Guest]

I'll search through the aftermarket jungle and, if the search is unsuccessful, the tarp is going to be THE solution.
I spotted a French resin conversion kit, but 70€ seems to me a bit "overscale". :astonished:

That is a bit much, yeah … I just checked, and a Tamiya M26 recovery vehicle (the tractor part of the complete M25 tank transporter) costs about the same — you could buy that, steal a winch from it and then build it with the missing winch covered up with a tarp

Thinking of this, the cheapest option might just be to buy one that someone has already built, then just take the winch off it The rest of the conversion should be straightforward enough, the tool rack on the left side of the hull probably needs no more than some plastic card to make a rectangular box, into which you can scribe lines for the drawers. The air compressor is more difficult, especially because nobody seem to know where it was, but you could always leave it out on the basis that people won’t know any better — or slightly modify the compressor from the old Italeri field workshop set a little and stick it somewhere in the right sponson perhaps.

[Andy the Sheep]

Thank you, Jakko. A lot of very useful suggestions.
Now I've a lot to analyze and meditate.
The M33 project is not at the top of my "to do" things as I'd like to finish a couple of builds and some figure painting which are asking for an end to their sufferings before messing with the M3 family. I feel that the M33 build will require my full attention and a lot of time.

Here is a build log of an M33 from Takom M31 with the DesKit resin kit M33 with DesKit resins. I think it will be useful (even more if you can read French) .

Andrea

[Guest]

Okay … from that thread, it seems to be as I feared: the M33 doesn’t appear to have had a floor above the drive shaft. This will make your job a lot harder, if you want the model to be fairly accurate, because you’ve got the floor from an Italeri M7 Priest. I had kind of hoped that a floor had been put into the M31 but it seems there wasn’t, so that floor part will really only be useful to supply you with a transmission. Then you will have to scratchbuild all the other stuff in the interior, like the drive shaft but also the firewall with the oil coolers, the fire extinguisher bottles and all kinds of assorted other stuff … Unless you’d be willing to splash out for the Deskit set, this is a fairly major undertaking.

And if I’m honest, using that Deskit set on the old Tamiya kit is putting lipstick on a pig. But putting all the work in on a reasonably accurate interior feels much the same. Maybe the best thing to do with this model, even for sentimental reasons, is to leave it all in its box at the point the original builder managed to get to?

[Andy the Sheep]

Maybe, Jakko, but I'd like to make something out of that box. Probably the M33 will be my first step along the steep path of scratchbuilding... at least I will learn something new and that, even just that, I believe will also honour the memory of the original builder.

[Guest]

In that case, go for it