Good progress on the Sherman I was given. There was nothing
really wrong with it, other than the front lifting eyes having been fitted 90 degrees rotated from how they should sit, but I’ve been making some corrections of the kind I would also have done had I bought and built this kit myself.
Most important are the rivets on the lower hull, because Dragon gives you a welded hull:
The kit represents a fairly early M4 made by the Pressed Steel Car Company (“PSC” to Shermanophiles) but those had a riveted rather than a welded hull until the summer of 1943 — while the direct-vision flaps on the hull front mean the model represents a tank that was made in August 1942 at the latest. That meant punching a bunch of domed rivets … To get their locations correct, I took an unbuilt
MiniArt M3 medium tank kit from the stash and removed its hull side plates from the sprue, so I could hold them next to this model’s hull and make pencil marks where the rivets were to go.
Oddly, Dragon also forgot to add the bolts on the sides that hold on the nose armour, when those were present on
all Shermans, whether with riveted or welded lower hulls. They’re not in the picture because I only added them after taking that.
The rest was more minor corrections:
Most obvious is probably all of the filler, necessary to get rid of the scars left by removing the armour plates and the stowage box on the rear of the turret, as well as add some texture where it wasn’t moulded at all. The lifting eyes on the gun shield are from an Asuka kit, and I deleted the commander’s vane sight (on the right front roof of the turret) as well as the “ears” to the gun shield to each side of the barrel and the spotlight on the roof, because those were not present on early Shermans.
On the hull front, I straightened out the lifting eyes and replaced the headlight guards by Asuka parts again, as they’re not as too thick as Dragon’s
The holders for the plugs for the headlight mounts are also Asuka (and they’re parallel to the glacis plate because this is an early Sherman) while the siren on the left mudguard is from the Rye Field Models Sherman VC kit. The strip with bolts along the top of the nose should really be replaced by one where the bolts aren’t recessed, but I can’t remove it. Maybe I will carefully file it flat and replace the bolts with new ones. Maybe
In the splash guard around the turret, I drilled some drain holes and also bevelled the upper edge of the rear part, because that’s how PSC made the real ones, which Dragon missed.
On the back, the guards over the lights are also Asuka, the bracket for the tow cable is resin from an unknown make, and I removed the sledgehammer that was on the rear plate as well as reversed the large wrench (that had been glued on the wrong way around).