Medium Tank M3 from MiniArt — not a Sherman for once!

[JR]

Brilliant work Jakko.
Gives me hope when I read that modellers such as you don't all use all the PE !
The engine wirings is great, 99.9,% of people looking won't have the slightest idea what it is let alone know the wiring sequence.

 

[outrunner]

Thanks, and though this is my first MiniArt kit, I would say you’re probably right about their parts …

Having built a couple of MiniArt kits you are right about the plethora of small parts. I also found that most of the PE was way too small to work properly and did not really add anything to the model.

Andy.

 

[Jakko]

Brilliant work Jakko.

I wouldn’t go that far, but thanks

Gives me hope when I read that modellers such as you don't all use all the PE !

I don’t like photoetched parts much, especially when they don’t really have added value. Like I said in another thread recently, many etched sets have a whole bunch of parts that just replace existing kit parts with flat equivalents that are less accurate. This kit doesn’t suffer from that problem, luckily — MiniArt have used etched parts where they really do make a difference, but as I mentioned, it would have been nice to also have plastic equivalents.

The engine wirings is great, 99.9,% of people looking won't have the slightest idea what it is let alone know the wiring sequence.

Very true. My philosophy, though, is that if it’s glaringly obviously missing, I want to add it Things you can’t see, I generally don’t bother with, but with that clearly visible plumbing on top of the engine, I think it should be there on the model too.

Having built a couple of MiniArt kits you are right about the plethora of small parts. I also found that most of the PE was way too small to work properly and did not really add anything to the model.

I can manage most of what’s in this kit, and like I said, I think it does actually add something to the model. However, a few spare tie-downs would have been welcome — for practice putting them together, if nothing else.

 

[Jakko]

The finished engine deck, with tools, tow cable and straps to hold them down:



I made the cable from copper wire from an electrical cable and the straps from thin plastic card, but everything else came in the kit.

While I was working on that, I also finished the front of the hull:



The cabling to the headlights isn’t supplied, but MiniArt does tell you where the cables go, so I drilled holes to put in some thin copper wire before adding the etched headlight guards. I had to replace the right convoy light by one cut from a Sherman headlight, because one moment I had the kit’s part in my tweezers, and the next moment, I didn’t

After also adding the side doors, driver’s vision port, etc. I think I’m done with construction:



… other than the tracks, which I haven’t started on at all yet.

 

[Jakko]

I made a jig to assemble the tracks:



It’s just a strip of wood with three slats of 3 by 6 mm glued to it, so that there is 13 mm between the outer two. This lets me assemble the track with the inner face (and thus the guide teeth) down, while the high sides prevent the end connectors from slipping out of the link half before the other part can be glued over them.

On to the tank itself. I primed all the metal parts and their surroundings with grey Vallejo Surface Primer from an aerosol can:



Once that had dried overnight, I sprayed the whole model with Gunze Sangyo … sorry, Mr. Hobby H52 olive drab. Here’s just the main pieces:

 

[GerryW]

Certainly looking the business now

 

[Tim Marlow]

Looking lovely and crisp under the paint Jakko.

 

[Jakko]

Thanks. Now it gets tricky because I want this to look like a fairly new tank, so I’m having to work out how much fading and weathering to add.

 

[Jakko]

Today, I sprayed lighter patches onto the various panels, and then removed the masking tape:



I used a mixture of Vallejo field drab and olive drab for the highlights, mixed lighter (more field drab) for the upper surfaces and other bits that catch the most light.

Getting the tape off was interesting. Much was easy enough, but things like the little vision port on the left front were tricky. I had to find tweezers with a bend in them to even reach this, and then had to fix them with some pliers to make sure I could actually grab the tape

The paper masking for the rear deck worked very well:



A little touch-up needed, but nothing major, and the mesh is very nicely white on one side and OD on the other, as I intended/hoped

 

[Jakko]

After the paint was dry, I applied an overall wash from thinned-down GW Devlan Mud (a transparent darkish colour) over the whole model. Today, I then drybrushed the whole model with Revell yellow olive first, followed by light olive.



The wash shaded the details and the drybrushing highlighted it, so after I paint some details, the model should be pretty much ready for decals.

 

[therapy]

Looks great Jakko - thanks for sharing the painting process too..

Nick

 

[Jakko]

Thanks

 

[scottie3158]

Jakko,
All looking good mate nice modulation on the paint.

 

[Isitme]

Jakko,
I will put a photo on here of my own jig for bending those tie downs. a total pain in the rear compartment.
Mike.

 

[Jakko]

That might help, if I ever decide to try them again instead of the much easier scratchbuilding Someone else recommended using tweezers to press the thing down over a bit of plastic strip, but that had already failed for me before he even mentioned it.

 

[Jakko]

I’ve painted the wheels (dark grey with a black wash) and attached the bogies to the tank, and then applied decals:



These are not the markings that came with the kit. MiniArt supplies early American roundels of a blue disc with a white star and a red dot in the centre, but the reverse was also in use. Takom’s counterpart does have those, so with thanks to a fellow modeller, I got the full set of markings for that particular tank from that kit.

The Takom decals were quite stiff and didn’t respond well to Micro Sol. This wasn’t a major issue, except for the star on the turret top, that needs to go over the bend in the roof. I had a lot of trouble getting it to stick down; in the end I cut the decal along one of the sides of the star to get it to fit the curve better, followed by even more Micro Sol. Luckily, this seems to have worked.

You may notice the star on the glacis seems to be upside down. This is intentional: a photo in David Doyle’s M3 Lee Grant shows two M3s on 18 December 1941 like this, so I thought I’d do that too, as it’s more interesting than with one point up as usual.

 

[Graeme C.]

Just had a catch up Jakko, It's all looking very good indeed, the modulation has worked very well and the decals look to have gone on well despite the difficulties they gave you.

 

[Jakko]

Thanks, the decals are not that bad, really, unless you want to put them on a strongly curved surface. They worked fine on the turret side, it’s just the rounded roof/side edge that was difficult.

 

[outrunner]

Nicely turned out model Jakko.

Andy.

 

[adt70hk]

Just had a catch-up Jakko. That really is looking very nice indeed.

Well done.

Andrew