Rare Medium Tank M3 variant, from a MiniArt kit

[Jakko]

For my next model, I’ll convert a MiniArt M3A5 into a very rarely seen variant of that tank. I’m not going to say yet which one, though — see if any of you can guess it as the build progresses



I bought the MiniArt kit plus a set of AFV Club tracks, because I don’t exactly feel like making them from the MiniArt parts again.

Soon after I got them in this afternoon, I began constructing the hull plates:



Fit is okay, but needs a little work to get everything to line up correctly.

 

[Jakko]

Continuing with the hull pieces, I now have most of the upper hull done too:



This kit sure builds a lot faster when you don’t have an interior to deal with The only change compared to the kit is that I replaced the row of screws on the left rear deck by rivets, because as I mentioned in my other M3 build, MiniArt mistakenly put a line of screws there instead, because they simply mirrored the right-hand part (you can tell if you look closely because the orientations of the slots in the screws are exactly mirrored too). I used my rivet punches for this, but it’s easy enough to do by shaving some rivets from the insides of the kit pieces if you don’t have those.

After that, I painted the engine bay black and the cooling air exhaust interior olive drab:



This because the engine deck has two photo-etched grids in it, and black below it looks better than grey plastic, and because the insides of the exhaust will be hard to reach later.

Here’s the inside of the engine deck:



MiniArt gives you an etched strip to go behind them, but I replaced that with some plastic strip simply because it’s easier.

 

[Jakko]

And the engine deck and rear plate in place:



I’ve also started on the actual conversion to the rare M3 variant:

 

[minitnkr]

Recovery?

 

[Jakko]

The M31? I’d have bought the Takom kit of it if I wanted to build one, so no, it’s not that

 

[Tim Marlow]

Command variant? Though I can’t find pictures of it......

 

[Jakko]

Does this help?

 

[Tim Marlow]

Nope

 

[Isitme]

Nearest I can find....

 

[Jakko]

That’s indeed a cool conversion of a Grant command tank to a Sherman-lookalike. Stay tuned to see if what I’m building is that or not

 

[Jakko]

This is the basic shape of the glacis fleshed out. It still needs some work, like cutting and sanding bits, of course.

 

[Jakko]

And a nose job:

 

[CarolsHusband]

My guess would be a mine clearing or demolition something-or-other ?

There's a lot of deflection angle going on....

 

[Tim Marlow]

Makes sense Dan. I think there was an M3 flail trialled for operation Husky? Is that it?

 

[Jakko]

No definitive answers yet, then? I guess I’ll keep on building …

 

[Lee W]

Initial thoughts were...
M2A1
BARV

If its none of these... I havent a scooby!

Lee

 

[Jakko]

I’ve not been making too much progress lately, though I did put together the suspension bogies and drive sprockets (again replaced by Asuka ones, as they’re better than MiniArt’s) and have cleaned up one sprue worth of AFV Club track links:



The track links are the usual nuisance to clean up, but at least they have 25% fewer parts than the ones that came with the kit On the other hand, these need filing off of an ejector pin mark. As this is on the inside face, I have no choice but to do it on all links — had it been on the outside, I would have done just a few more than what would be visible and saved myself a lot of work. The real saving will be in the putting these together, which is (or at least, should be …) rather less fiddly than the MiniArt tracks.

 

[Jakko]

Though I haven’t managed to make myself make the actual rivets yet, I have been marking out where they are to go, which is a chore in itself:



Because it’s just about impossible to do this with a regular ruler, I made my own. The ladder shapes on the paper are rulers, each of which has a line spacing 0.1 mm more than the previous. So, if I find that one side of this needs 15 rivets in 41 mm, I use the one with a spacing of 2.9 mm (41 divided by (15 – 1)), while for a length of 43 mm with 17 rivets, I also have a ruler with 2.7 mm spacing (43 divided by (17 – 1)), etc.

 

[Jakko]

I’ve managed to make myself start adding the rivets now:



You can tell how much fun this job is by me alternating it with assembling track links

The rivets are all punched from 0.25 mm plastic card using an RP Toolz punch-and-die set, with an 0.7 mm punch designed for making domed rivets. You don’t need to buy a separate set for this if you already have a “flat” punch-and-die set — just order spare punches in the sizes you want. You need the ones that say “for Rivet maker”.

Some years ago, I reviewed AFV Club’s T48 track and wasn’t too impressed. Their main failing was that the track kept falling apart because the pins were too narrow for the holes in the end connectors. Somewhat unexpectedly, this T51 set is far better. The pins are, if anything, often a little oversize rather than under-. That is, the connectors sometimes won’t fit, but I’ve solved that every time so far by trying a different one. At least this track doesn’t fall apart when I pick it up.

 

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
No idea what you're building. If much more knowledgeable guys can't work it out then I'll just enjoy the build and wait to be told

Rivets and tracks - not the most enjoyable of jobs. Rivets look neat and the measuring rulers are a clever idea. Glad the AFV tracks are working OK
Jim