I bought an RFM 1/35th M4A3 76W HVSS Sherman tank! Now add an RFM Firefly Vc! (closing in on done with the Vc)

[JeepsGunsTanks]

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! 

Edited July 5, 2022 by JeepsGunsTanks

[LSP_Ray]

That looks pretty cool, especially with a full interior!

I was surprised by the news of this release:

No interior, but it is so much fun working in 1/16th scale...need to see the reviews, though.

[JeepsGunsTanks]

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?

 

Edited May 20, 2022 by JeepsGunsTanks

[josebagasteiz]

Sherman muy detallado sobre RFM. 

 

Hay que pensar en el Sherman Easy 8 que Andy's Hobby Headquarters va a comercializar. Lo ha presentado en YouTube. En escala 1/16!!!! 

Edited May 20, 2022 by josebagasteiz

[LSP_Ray]

12 hours ago, JeepsGunsTanks said:

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?

 

Das Werk and Takom worked together on the StuG, I don't think I Love Kit is, but don't know for sure.

The I Love Kit M4A3E8 is on preorder at Kitlinx , they list May 7 as release date and as far as I know no one has it yet.  I didn't know Takom was releasing one, too.

I don't know if I will get one, I already have the resin one from SOL, which is supposed to be really good. If they released a VVSS Sherman, I would be all over it. 

[LSP_K2]

1 hour ago, LSP_Ray said:

Das Werk and Takom worked together on the StuG, I don't think I Love Kit is, but don't know for sure.

The I Love Kit M4A3E8 is on preorder at Kitlinx , they list May 7 as release date and as far as I know no one has it yet.  I didn't know Takom was releasing one, too.

I don't know if I will get one, I already have the resin one from SOL, which is supposed to be really good. If they released a VVSS Sherman, I would be all over it. 

 

Andy's and Takom also have a joint venture in a 1:16 HVSS Sherman, and my guess would be that the ILK is the same, but with different decals.

[JeepsGunsTanks]

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. 

[LSP_Ray]

The ILK artwork also has late tracks...

[josebagasteiz]

I don't understand much but I think I Love Kit is the same as Merit, the same es Hobby Boss the same as Trumpeter. On the other hand, I think that Takom is something else and they seem to me to be models with more detail and definition. 

[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... 

 

 

 

[JeepsGunsTanks]

So, some of the supplies I ordered came in. I also decided, since I got a winfall in my toy budget, and really liked the lookj of the kit, picked up another 1/35 Sherman. A Firefly Vc. It's the Firefly that used the M4A4 Sherman as its base tank. The M4A4 Sherman uses the A57 multibank motor, the most amazing tank motor ever. Five, Chrysler in-line six car motors tied into one block! It seems like a nightmare, but Chrysler made it work, and it ended up being the most reliable of the early Sherman motors. 

 

The kit does not have a complete interior, so no A57, but its a really nice kit, and it will be a little easier to put together. I like to build in batches, because then I can paint in batches and not have to mess with the airbrush so much. Feels like I waste less paint too, my airbrush has bottles. I need smaller bottles. heh. Some paint, and weathering paints came too, and liquid mask and the needed Tamiya fine. Stinky.  wife hates it. 

 

New Sherman. 

I got these weather things, plus a set of tracks for this tank. Now, I am going to give the kit tracks a try, but one of the reviewers lost some parts and ran out. So I got the AFV club tracks as a just in case. 

Same excuse for these tracks for the Easy 8. 

The tracks on these kits are really neat, once built, totally workable, and they come with jigs, so I really want to try them. The rubber band tracks are cheap insurance, and I can use them on another brands kits later on.  I'll try and oil and gas stain stuff on the RC tanks to check it out. 

 

Other than a little housework I have no plans this three day weekend but to work on these models and work on a writing project.

 

Are expensive tweezers worth it? Do they somehow hold the little parts better?

[ChuckD]

Awesome.  Thanks for sharing this build.  I'll be watching it closely as the RFM interior kits are fantastic and a lot of fun.  

[LSP_K2]

On 5/21/2022 at 5:23 AM, josebagasteiz said:

I don't understand much but I think I Love Kit is the same as Merit, the same es Hobby Boss the same as Trumpeter. On the other hand, I think that Takom is something else and they seem to me to be models with more detail and definition. 

 

Takom is pretty excellent, just don't count on getting any parts from them.

[hworth18]

I'm in the middle of a RFM Easy Eight Sherman. The workable tracks aren't bad once you get the hang of them. I glued all the track jigs together so I could do long track runs at one time. The only frustrating thing to me about this kit is that even the smallest parts seem have 3 sprue connections and require lots of cleanup and building the smallest of assemblies is also a negative for me. A 1/35 tank kit shouldn't have 500 plus parts IMHO.. (sarcastic)

[JeepsGunsTanks]

So I spent a lot of time working on the models, well model since it was almost all on the Firefly. The Firefly kit is also pretty advanced, the last kits I did were Dragon and Tamiya, both much easier to deal with in some ways. The Firefly is helping knock some of the rust off, so to speak, and I've learned a few things doing this kit. The main on being, man, is it easy to have small parts go flying if you squeeze the tweezers to hard. I am have managed to lose all three plastic hatch handles and had to make replacements from brass wire.

 

I've been using my Phone as my camera, and it decided to eat some of the first nights pics of the Firefly.  Step one is basically glue all the lower hull parts together. This had me worried on the Easy 8, since all the Shermans in the past had a pre formed tub. 

 

Here is the first pic not eaten. You can see the door handle I loose shortly. 

Here we can see the replacement door handle, slightly too tall, and will cause problems later. You can see the start of the powertrain, one of the final drives getting built.  

The powertrain went together pretty easy and looks good. The Kit goes together in a way, you can see they left it open for a full interior kit. 

You can see in the instructions above the tow pintle options. Because I went with the leaf spring, it ended up hitting my door handle. I just bent he leaf springs a little and it all fit. I should have gone with the other option, I had to put the brackets in for it anyway. The back of this tank is very detailed and pretty accurate. I do not have a huge collection of Vc photos, but enough to tell they tried pretty hard with this kit. 

 

I have for sure unjoyed this kit so far, but I think my next will be something from Tamiya, just so I know it will be easy. Maybe their really nice M26 Pershing, with barrel upgrade. Lower hull tub more or less together. The Easy 8 has a bulkhead that can be used as a Jig, I think that will help putting the hull together. Tamiya Think was a must, I could still move the sides around for a big, with crazy glue, it would have been very hard. 

Quick hull test fit. looks pretty good. 

Lots of stuff has to go on the rear hull. This was time consuming. I have an issue, where if my wife is awake, I can only use Crazy glue, the smell of liquid cement is an instant migraine. I'm a natural night owl, so I would do anything that needed the cement at night after she goes to bed and crazy glue stuff during the day. Some of these small parts, you have to glue together, like the bracket above the doors already intalled, and the one in two bits center right, were very challenging to get glued together, and then on the tank. 

You can see the idler with the two part rim, not a great design, but it works, and the sprockets, a bit fiddly, but great looking. They give you three sprocket choices, when I think only two were used commonly. They look nice, and fit together like the real parts. These kits would be great for doing a diorama of one being worked on.

 

Some very fiddly bits. The photo etch is easy to get bent right, it folds right on the lines it's supposed to. I have to admit, I'm not even sure what these British specific items are, on these Firefly tanks! 

It's always possible, one company's track links wont work in another company's sprockets. This is a big deal on the RC scene, and no ones tracks work with another brands sprockets, but the sprockets can usually be swapped. The AFV Club tracks fit perfectly an fit well, but I will use the kit tracks, they look amazing. These I backup in case I blow it, or by another brand M4A4. 

exhaust deflector built, very nice rear hull screen in place. All fiddly bits on rear hull in place. 

Two shots of the deflector in place. 

 

Last shot. I switched to my wife's old Canon Powershot SD790, and had to figure out how to get the flash to always work and get it to take close in pictures.

One more shot. 

Final thoughts. I see that bent headlight... I'll probably have to break that off, drill it and pin it... 

 

Ok, so the headlight guards are super easy to break. I tried cutting one off, and tension from my clippers being to be snapped it. I have better clippers coming. I also figured out, you can cut the sprue further out and make it so there is no tension when you cut the part. I need to get in the habit of sitting closer to the table, and keeping my hands over the work area, so when I fumble things, they fall on the board. Maybe I need a real mat so they don't bounce.  I do not like PE periscope guards, the real ones were made of steel wire, and were round. I do not like PE light guards, they do not look beefy enough, while most kit plastic ones are to beefy. I ordered a set of very nice 3D printed ones that will do three tanks.  Fore Periscope guards, I had a pare in my little spare parts pile I kept, that will work just fine. 

 

I'll do more on the Easy 8 sometime soon. Probably when I get this hull done.  

 

Edited May 31, 2022 by JeepsGunsTanks