The turret is now (just about?) finished:
Most of it’s straight from the box, except the commander’s cupola is from
Tamiya (the Clearfix on the vision blocks was easily cleared off — it just breaks away from the plastic), though the hatch is Asuka. I decided not to use the
Tamiya part for some reason I don’t quite understand myself, but by the time I had started on installing the periscope, it was too late to go back to that
You hardly ever see a Sherman kit with a periscope in the one-piece commander’s hatch, and the flap for it is usually moulded shut. Thus, I had to file it away and then enlarge the opening for it so that one of the kit’s periscopes actually fit. I put a flap made from plastic card over it, in the open position as it can’t be closed when the periscope is all the way up in its mounting bracket. Without a periscope, there should be such a bracket on the inside of the hatch, which is missing entirely on many Sherman kits.
And I just remembered I need to add the hatch lock, which is missing on the kit part. Oh yeah, and the guard for the loader’s periscope is from
Tamiya as well, because Asuka only provides them as etched parts, but they were made from steel wire on the real tank and so wouldn’t be flat.
I also had to add a few details, like the rounded thing in front of the commander’s cupola and the casting numbers. The latter are from
Tamiya sprues: those of the last 20 years or so have long ID numbers on the side opposite to that with the parts’ numbers, so I shaved them off with a sharp, chisel blade and glued them to the turret. The number on the roof is the part number for the turret, 7067400; the 157 on the sides is the serial number of this particular turret. In all 254 were made, but by two different foundries; in a book, I saw 152 in photos of a turret with a rounded lower edge, so 157 looks plausible to me.