JeepsGunsTanks

Started the kit yesterday and this afternoon. So far very impressed. Lots of very cool and accurate details. Things I have learned. There is NO WAY, I will get the photo etch fenders on without a bender. The PE is very fragile, and will not take many bends before it breaks. Everything takes way longer than I remember! Give that glue time to really set and dry! Crazy Glue does not work on everything. I watched about 4 hours of youtube videos on building this thing. They made it seem so easy. No dropped parts, no swearing. No cat to walk all over everything. The tracks look like they will be very time consuming, and one guys was like, "Use a tiny dab of Tamiya fine cement," and the other guy was like "Don't use Tamiya fine, it would get everywhere, I used CA!" in both cases they ended up with a very nice looking track run. I got my model area converter from RC to model making by moving all the screwdrivers further away! I got the Sherman Bible out. If you build Sherman tank models, or have an interest in Sherman tanks, and like details, this IS THE BOOK. I loved this book so much, when the cat who like to walk on things he shouldn't puked on this copy, I bought another one and its still has the shrink-wrap on it. I suppose it's nice to have a copy you can abuse a little. I am going to go out of order, and do things in major assemblies. I'm going to do this because I want to paint the interior stuff out of the tank. I'm going to leave the periscopes out to the end to, so I can more easily keep the black with the clear faces. I'm also going to pose one of the hull ones close, and the loader and co drivers looking off to the side to help show the things rotated. I decided today I would do a few of the upper hull details and maybe build up the powertrain unit. Once built, its like the perfect little scale model of the Shermans final drives, differential and tranny. I did not get past most of the inner upper hull details. Here you see the inner plate is being held in while actual plastic cement, the old school stuff in the orange tube, is drying. I should have sanded the edges a little, but didnt want any gap. These are the handles for the hatch release on the drivers and co-drivers 'doors'. Both in place. This took more time than I think it should. Over an hour. I would get it in place. it would be almost perfect. I would try and fix it, and knock it way out of wack. I thought, OK, PE fenders are out, but maybe just the front part would work. Then I messed with it to much, not much really, but it broke. Here you can see the front hell blower, this is a big armored fan that blows fresh air down on the driver and co driver, the nozzles are adjustable. it builds up with 7 parts including a PE shelf. Everything in place, the nozzles, a red/white light, and two intercom boxes. You can see two other interior lights on the right and the compass in place. This is were I called it quits. It seems like it should have been ten minutes of work! I really dig this kit. So far the ONLY thing I'm disapointed with is, check this image. in step 30,in the drawing of the big thing being mounted on the tranny, There is a box with 4 wedge shaped things. in real life, its a holder for four complete replacement periscopes. It seems like an easy thing to model, but maybe with how nice this thing is, they needed to cut costs somewhere. I have a wild hare about this. I got out of building models, because we moved, and I had no space to build anything. I ended up giving my stash, all but the 1/32 Zero away to a buddy. I didn't send him everything, I kept all my tools and paints and a few goodies. Some of the goodies are like six of the Dragon clear periscopes. It really does not seem like it would be hard to make a paper pattern and cut some of the thing brass sheet I have and make one... You can see what I'm talking about on a restored tank in this image. http://shermanrestoration.com/page1/files/page1-1759-full.jpg The image is from the great http://shermanrestoration.com At the rate I'm going, I'll probably I'll have time to convince the wife I need a PE bending tool, and those fenders are going on near last, so it all might work out. They look a lot cooler. More to come...

Andy's is the one I heard about first and he is saying the price was going to be around 160 or so bucks. I'm going to assume the turret on the one up above with Canvas cover is not based on the actual model, cause it is all wrong. The one in Andy's video looks great thought. In either case, it's nice to see some American tanks in a big scale like 1/16.

Tell me about it! When I opened the box and saw how small everything was compared to the 1/16th RC Sherman was messing with, it was, well, eye opening. Is that the same 1/16 Easy 8 that Tacom is doing or are there two companies doing static E8 Shermans? In either case, I am pre-ordering whatever one comes first. I even got the wife's approval! Big kits are so much easier to work on! I can't find any info on the one you linked, any idea when it comes out?

This kit has a full interior, including the engine, gas tanks, everything. It is really well done. All the weld lines are right, it's really a step ahead of the last 1/35th scale stuff I built from Dragon. It comes with PE, and builds a nice looking kit right from the box. I still bought an upgrade set, just for the fenders. I'll probably start it over the weekend. 44 page manual! Workable track links, I bit off a lot!

Mighty fine looking Sherman!

Against his last wishes too, he wanted a the collection preserved and kept on site, but his god digging San Francisco socialite "wife" whom married him right as he was dying didn't like the noise... Most of the collection was bought up by the Collings Foundations, and who knows what their status is now, after their negligence caused their B-17 crash.

Mark, The control unit with all the extra sounds is an aftermarket unit from Europe. https://radindustries.wordpress.com/2022/02/11/beier-sfr-1-hl/ The tanks parts to build the recover vehicles can be found on Shapeways. A few pics of me trying out storage on the back of the M4A3 76. I rubber cemented all the stuff on the string is cosmetic. The stuff is on good enough I can pop the upper hull off and not knock it loose, but removable with a little effort, and the rubber cement doesn't mess with the paint. It does take a long time to dry...

Too cool! I love seeing your name and call sign on the side, makes it so much more real!

What do you think would be a better choice? The F-35 has some amazing capabilities, most of the negative press has been unfair, as is normal with the media. I remember back in the day, the media was all over how terrible the M1 Abrams was...

Had a rough work week and didn't have the time or energy to deal with the tanks last week. I did get the dull coats on. Today, I got the internals more or less the way I want them in the hull, and the tracks back on. I also did a little of the detail painting. Some soot on the muzzles, the spare track links painted and I installed the bow gun. Of the mistakes made, when I put the wheels back in the boggie units. I didn't sand clean the contact points on the boggies where the wheels touched so there was a little drag. I decided to take them apart and fix that, and the red Loctite I used, resulted in one spun off axle head. No biggie, the boggie comes apart so I can put a big set of pliers and get it out. I installed the problem boggie in the back so its easy to get too, when I do get the new screw. Its broke in a way, the tank will work fine, so no hurry either. Red Loctite probably overkill. There was also a little problem with the decals. One went on crooked, broke, and then wouldn't come off. getting it off resulted in paint with little bits of white decal and scratches down to the primer in a few spots. So I masked off the hull and touched the turret up. I'm getting pretty good with a dual action airbrush. Luckily I still had enough spare stars, this was no big deal just a delay. I found a flat clear I like. It's not perfect, but its close enough, I don't know if I can trust my memory of what Testors flat clear looked like. It was 30 plus years in the past. I won't complain about getting old, since I know I'm not old compared to most of you. . I was using Rustoleum Dead flat clear, and it was not dead flat, or truely clear since it change the paint color slightly on the Pershing and M4A1, and it also died before it was empty. You could tell there was paint in the can, but no pressure to get it out. I ended up going with MRHobby's Mr.Super Clear Matt. I really like it. I used about half of a 170ML spray can. Right after the MrHobby went on. Tracks back on, a little detail painting here and there. Paiting the tools is going to be a pain. There is no getting them off intact. The cheap one they all came off, they were just held on with pegs, but this one they are firmly glued. Now all three tanks are basically at the same point. So when I weather one, I can do the same thing to all three. I do still have to take the turret on the M4A3 76 back apart, either the wiring harness or the flash and recoil unit died while I was messing with it. I have spares for everything, all the electronic parts for these tanks are pretty cheap, the big metal parts are the costly bits. Now the paint has a bunch of clear coats on it, I'm not overly concerned about marring the paint when I take it apart. If I were to do it all again, I would not rush things. I wanted to get as much done on our yearly vacation as I could, and rushed the paint a bit. I think considering what I used. several days between coats would probably result in the most durable paint. With 3D Printing, and places like Shapeways, you can use the basic Sherman hull from several companies and built and M7 Priest, or even a working M32 recovery vehicle. There are also some very advanced third party digital controllers that have connectors for all the stuff in these tanks that give you a lot more options and channels to work with. The M32 is a bit much for me, but I would be all over a working Dozer kit for the Sherman.

That's a killer looking VF-17 Corsair! It looks like it's ready to take to the sky in the Solomons!

Very nice! I bet you could photoshop into real photos and fool people!

Quick update. I got the decals on, a little weather done and the gloss clear. The big Thunderbolt decals were a pain. There were mishaps, maybe even a section of turret repainted... Also, to much red Loctite is bad... I'll do the dull coat next afternoon.

Ok, todays progress. I finished priming this morning and started the color coat this afternoon. Got two light coats on. Also got the infernal M2 as far as I am going to take it...There are photo etch parts I can't manage to grab with very fine tweezers. I watch a video that said you can use grease marker, sharpen to a paint, use the point to pick up the little part, an the crazy glue pulls it off the grease marker. So a few mistakes were made. I forgot to mask off the flash unit and the head and taillights. No biggy, I'll pull the flash unit and clean it. And for the head and tail lights, on the fronts I'm just going to clean a slot on each. An interesting tidbit about the headlights. The US Army of WWII was not a night fighting Army. They rarely even drove combat equipment behind the lines at night. This meant in many cases they did not maintain the headlights. I think it was the 3rd AD, when they had to do a night movement, many of the tanks couldn't get their lights to work. This, somewhat, is my justification for not worrying about getting the headlights to work on the Pershing... Here is the M2 with all the brass I can get on it. This pain in the rear will remain on the Pershing once painted, and I'll remove it if drive it around. A cat fart might sent parts flying everywhere... finding the gaurd for the front sight, had me on my hands and knees for 15 minutes. So far, the house paint is going on much nicer over this primer. Unlike on the M4A1, it is sticking well. I should finish up the main paint tomorrow, probably do the decals Friday. I think I'll put the bogies back on before final paint. Then I can touch up any dings and scratches. More to come.

This is the coolest ship model I have ever seen. To capture that moment in history with that many tiny little men is really Awesome.