Jakko’s 1:35 Sherman Crab Mk. I — seeing double?
- Thread starter Jakko
- Start date
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2018
- Messages
- 10,787
- Points
- 113
- First Name
- Jakko
I’d never built one of their Shermans before, but I don’t think it’s up to the standards of other Dragon kits I’ve built over the years.
Wait, that first statement is not entirely true. Maybe twenty years ago I built their Israeli M50 Sherman. Well, 95% built. It’s still in its box waiting to be finished and painted one day
As far as I van recall, it was better than this one, though I had to replace the hull top by one from Italeri to get rid of the far overdone texture.The wheel is missing because it also was on the real tank
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2018
- Messages
- 10,787
- Points
- 113
- First Name
- Jakko
FX: sound of a big sigh of relief
It doesn’t look like much, but the above was at least an hour and a half of work that at times made me think, “So this is probably what surgeons feel like sometimes …” and given me an even greater appreciation for what people like @Neo manage to build.
Let’s start at the beginning, though In the photo of the real tank, you can see, if you look closely, that even though there is a missing wheel, the axle is still there and the suspension arm is being held up by means of a chain and not one but three shackles, one big one around the axle and two smaller ones above it. Quite why the wheel has been removed, I don’t know, but clearly it was felt necessary to keep the tank mobile without it.
As I didn’t have any chain of even remotely the right size, I had to resort to making my own. Luckily, this is not overly difficult. I’d never actually done this, but I began with some copper wire that I wrapped tightly around a length of plastic strip; in this case, 0.6 mm wire and 2 mm by 0.75 mm strip. I then sliced the wire into links by means of a chisel-shaped knife blade:
You can’t do this by hand with wire this thick, but carefully hitting the rear end of the knife handle with a small hammer a few times did get me through:
Then it was a matter of twisting open a link with long-nosed pliers, hooking it onto another, closing it again, and repeating with the next link:
That was the easy bit (after the first couple of links, anyway) …
When I had about 4 cm of chain, I went to add the shackles to one end. The big one comes from my spares box, while the smaller two are towing shackles from the Asuka kit that I cut the half-pins inside away and replaced by a length of 0.5 mm plastic rod. So far, so good. Attaching the chain was an exercise in frustration management, though
I opened a link at the end of the chain and hooked it to the shackle, then had a devil of a time closing it again without damaging the shackle.
That done, I tried adding the other shackles, which caused one of the small ones to split. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it meant linking the three together was actually easier: glue one half to the big shackle, hook the second small shackle (on the chain) over it, and glue the second half over the gap.
Next, I put the big shackle over the axle (a length of pastic rod) and pulled the chain through the skid on top of the bogie, like it was done on the real tank. That left me the problem of trying to hook the free end of the chain to the shackle, which was pretty much impossible. Eventually I decided to split the chain, hook it up to the shackle and then attach the two free ends together. This turned out to only really be doable if I removed the shackles from the axle again, else the bogie kept getting in my way so much I couldn’t get anything done. After splitting more shackles and so having to redo much of what I thought I’d already completed, I managed to get this together last night:
By then, my hands were shaking enough that, even if I didn’t need to let the glue dry, I would have stopped anyway.
Leaving the glue to dry until this afternoon, I had come up with a better plan to link the chain ends: use much thinner copper wire on the back, behind the skid where it wouldn’t be visible. So I added a length of that through one of the end links, slipped the big shackle back over the axle and pulled the chain with the wire though the skid. Then it was a matter of more fiddling to get the other chain close enough to wire them together, after which I snipped off the excess links and wire. I left on extra link so I could glue that over the wire, disguising it better, and while I had the superglue out, glued the whole chain into place for safety
It doesn’t look like much, but the above was at least an hour and a half of work that at times made me think, “So this is probably what surgeons feel like sometimes …” and given me an even greater appreciation for what people like @Neo manage to build.
Let’s start at the beginning, though
In the photo of the real tank, you can see, if you look closely, that even though there is a missing wheel, the axle is still there and the suspension arm is being held up by means of a chain and not one but three shackles, one big one around the axle and two smaller ones above it. Quite why the wheel has been removed, I don’t know, but clearly it was felt necessary to keep the tank mobile without it.As I didn’t have any chain of even remotely the right size, I had to resort to making my own. Luckily, this is not overly difficult. I’d never actually done this, but I began with some copper wire that I wrapped tightly around a length of plastic strip; in this case, 0.6 mm wire and 2 mm by 0.75 mm strip. I then sliced the wire into links by means of a chisel-shaped knife blade:
You can’t do this by hand with wire this thick, but carefully hitting the rear end of the knife handle with a small hammer a few times did get me through:
Then it was a matter of twisting open a link with long-nosed pliers, hooking it onto another, closing it again, and repeating with the next link:
That was the easy bit (after the first couple of links, anyway) …
When I had about 4 cm of chain, I went to add the shackles to one end. The big one comes from my spares box, while the smaller two are towing shackles from the Asuka kit that I cut the half-pins inside away and replaced by a length of 0.5 mm plastic rod. So far, so good. Attaching the chain was an exercise in frustration management, though
I opened a link at the end of the chain and hooked it to the shackle, then had a devil of a time closing it again without damaging the shackle.That done, I tried adding the other shackles, which caused one of the small ones to split. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it meant linking the three together was actually easier: glue one half to the big shackle, hook the second small shackle (on the chain) over it, and glue the second half over the gap.
Next, I put the big shackle over the axle (a length of pastic rod) and pulled the chain through the skid on top of the bogie, like it was done on the real tank. That left me the problem of trying to hook the free end of the chain to the shackle, which was pretty much impossible. Eventually I decided to split the chain, hook it up to the shackle and then attach the two free ends together. This turned out to only really be doable if I removed the shackles from the axle again, else the bogie kept getting in my way so much I couldn’t get anything done. After splitting more shackles and so having to redo much of what I thought I’d already completed, I managed to get this together last night:
By then, my hands were shaking enough that, even if I didn’t need to let the glue dry, I would have stopped anyway.
Leaving the glue to dry until this afternoon, I had come up with a better plan to link the chain ends: use much thinner copper wire on the back, behind the skid where it wouldn’t be visible. So I added a length of that through one of the end links, slipped the big shackle back over the axle and pulled the chain with the wire though the skid. Then it was a matter of more fiddling to get the other chain close enough to wire them together, after which I snipped off the excess links and wire. I left on extra link so I could glue that over the wire, disguising it better, and while I had the superglue out, glued the whole chain into place for safety
Last edited:
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2018
- Messages
- 10,787
- Points
- 113
- First Name
- Jakko
More suspension work, but on the other kit
Since there’s a fair amount of rust on the monument tank, I did a little test on how best to replicate it. I applied some putty from a tube to the bottom of the hull and textured it with an old brush whose bristles have been cut down to about 2 mm long:
About half of the large patch, I did with a brush damp with thinner, the other half with a dry brush — that’s what the pencil line indicates, damp on the right, dry on the left. I think dry looks better, but I then added some paint over it to make sure:
All in all, I think the dry does look better, so I then began applying rust to the suspension parts with that method, to the areas where I could see it in my photos of the real tank:
Also note I swapped out one of the drive sprocket rings for a grey Dragon part. This is because I had added the “flat” rings before looking closely enough at the photos: the real tank has a flat one on the left, but one with the extra “scoops” out of it on the right. A little more research told me that this is because all Chrysler-produced Shermans had the latter, and all M4A4s (which this tank is) were made by Chrysler. The flat one must therefore have been added in the 1994 restoration. (That, by the way, also meant I had to make another set for the Asuka model, as I had built the flat ones for that too, but luckily that kit includes all three types.)
Since there’s a fair amount of rust on the monument tank, I did a little test on how best to replicate it. I applied some putty from a tube to the bottom of the hull and textured it with an old brush whose bristles have been cut down to about 2 mm long:
About half of the large patch, I did with a brush damp with thinner, the other half with a dry brush — that’s what the pencil line indicates, damp on the right, dry on the left. I think dry looks better, but I then added some paint over it to make sure:
All in all, I think the dry does look better, so I then began applying rust to the suspension parts with that method, to the areas where I could see it in my photos of the real tank:
Also note I swapped out one of the drive sprocket rings for a grey Dragon part. This is because I had added the “flat” rings before looking closely enough at the photos: the real tank has a flat one on the left, but one with the extra “scoops” out of it on the right. A little more research told me that this is because all Chrysler-produced Shermans had the latter, and all M4A4s (which this tank is) were made by Chrysler. The flat one must therefore have been added in the 1994 restoration. (That, by the way, also meant I had to make another set for the Asuka model, as I had built the flat ones for that too, but luckily that kit includes all three types.)
Graeme C.
SMF Supporter
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2018
- Messages
- 1,485
- Points
- 113
- First Name
- Graeme
The fiddly bits always take all the time Jakko, looking at the rust, which you will use depends of the rust on the real tank, by the look of it some areas are worse than others. I'm sure you will sort it all, looking good so far.
scottie3158
SMF Supporter
Jakko the detail work is looking good I make my larger chain the same way.
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2018
- Messages
- 10,787
- Points
- 113
- First Name
- Jakko
This one took more time than I had expected, though
Thanks, and yes, it should all work out in the end
The good thing is that, if I put paint over it and it turns out to be too textured, I can just tone it down with some model cement (which will soften the filler) and/or redo it.ThanksLove that chain Jakko
Looks good
Thank you too, and though, like I said, I’d never tried this before, it just seemed the sensible way to do it like full-size chain is made. Well, that, or order some and have to buy more stuff to make it viable and wait days or weeks for it to arrive, of course.
Jim R
SMF Supporter
Hi Jakko
Love the chain. Great patience and dexterity. I agree the rust with the dry brush looks good.
Jim
Love the chain. Great patience and dexterity. I agree the rust with the dry brush looks good.
Jim
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2018
- Messages
- 10,787
- Points
- 113
- First Name
- Jakko
About that chain … it now looks like I may have to take some or all of it off again and redo it 
Until today, I couldn’t work out what the thing is that can be seen in the picture of the real tank above, in front of the last bogie. Looking at a high-resolution scan (it helps to have access to the photo scans collection of the museum that has the original of that photo) I finally worked out it’s a piece of wood, probably from a broken beam, tied to the bogie by means of what seems to be rope. What’s still puzzling is why it’s there, but also how it relates to the chain. I’m wondering if the chain is actually attached to the wood, but can’t work out a reason why it would be — but at the same time, I can’t really see the return length of chain that I modelled because I thought was was behind the thing that turned out to be a block of wood. So perhaps I need to remove the inboard length of chain and replace it by the wooden block.
Until today, I couldn’t work out what the thing is that can be seen in the picture of the real tank above, in front of the last bogie. Looking at a high-resolution scan (it helps to have access to the photo scans collection of the museum that has the original of that photo
) I finally worked out it’s a piece of wood, probably from a broken beam, tied to the bogie by means of what seems to be rope. What’s still puzzling is why it’s there, but also how it relates to the chain. I’m wondering if the chain is actually attached to the wood, but can’t work out a reason why it would be — but at the same time, I can’t really see the return length of chain that I modelled because I thought was was behind the thing that turned out to be a block of wood. So perhaps I need to remove the inboard length of chain and replace it by the wooden block.
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2018
- Messages
- 10,787
- Points
- 113
- First Name
- Jakko
With much thanks to Alex van de Wetering, I got enough information to continue work on the interior — principally, the housing that covers the chains running from the main drive shaft to the flail system. I first made 1:35 scale drawings (attached to this message as a PDF file) based on the information Alex supplied me with, so that actual construction was pretty straightforward. Here are the main pieces cut from plastic card:
I made a template from paper, visible at the left in the picture, that I glued to the plastic so I could just cut along its outline (with a steel ruler, of course) and so produce the front and back of the main pieces, then did the same for the sides of the thicker bits at the top and bottom. Glued together, with plastic rod and strip between them to make up the required thickness:
The underside is open because it will be out of sight entirely, so I don’t see a need to fill it in. I’ll now need to leave it to dry before I can putty the joints and file and sand it to a smoother shape. The real thing was from welded sheet steel, after all, not a laminate like here
Fitted into its approximate location in the model, it looks like this:
I made a template from paper, visible at the left in the picture, that I glued to the plastic so I could just cut along its outline (with a steel ruler, of course) and so produce the front and back of the main pieces, then did the same for the sides of the thicker bits at the top and bottom. Glued together, with plastic rod and strip between them to make up the required thickness:
The underside is open because it will be out of sight entirely, so I don’t see a need to fill it in. I’ll now need to leave it to dry before I can putty the joints and file and sand it to a smoother shape. The real thing was from welded sheet steel, after all, not a laminate like here
Fitted into its approximate location in the model, it looks like this:
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2018
- Messages
- 10,787
- Points
- 113
- First Name
- Jakko
Now with a finished chain-case:
After filling the upper side and filing it to shape, I added details from mainly plastic card as well as a few pieces of leftover sprue, punched bolt heads and some or another chromed hub nut-like thing from an old car kit. I’ve only built the bits that will (likely) actually be visible through the driver’s hatch, so there’s nothing on the back except the one strengthening rib you can see in the picture, and things like the bearing at the top, the bolted flange that connect this whole part to the part of the case actually in the sponson and the feet that should be underneath are missing for the same reason.
Edit: I say complete, but still to be added is the bar that runs behind the driver’s seat, with the engage/disengage handle.
After filling the upper side and filing it to shape, I added details from mainly plastic card as well as a few pieces of leftover sprue, punched bolt heads and some or another chromed hub nut-like thing from an old car kit. I’ve only built the bits that will (likely) actually be visible through the driver’s hatch, so there’s nothing on the back except the one strengthening rib you can see in the picture, and things like the bearing at the top, the bolted flange that connect this whole part to the part of the case actually in the sponson and the feet that should be underneath are missing for the same reason.
Edit: I say complete, but still to be added is the bar that runs behind the driver’s seat, with the engage/disengage handle.
scottie3158
SMF Supporter
Jakko,
A great bit of scratchery.
A great bit of scratchery.
Jim R
SMF Supporter
Hi Jakko
Great research, planning and scratchery.
Jim
Great research, planning and scratchery.
Jim
Last edited:
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2018
- Messages
- 10,787
- Points
- 113
- First Name
- Jakko
Thanks, guys. Now all that remains is to scratchbuild the other visible bits of the hull interior (mainly the ammo rack beside the driver and the battery case on the left floor, plus the gyro compass and a few other Crab-specific fittings) before I can finally go on to the exterior again.