- Joined
- Apr 28, 2018
- Messages
- 10,982
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- 113
- First Name
- Jakko
The Sherman I was given is now just about finished.
The tow cable came with it, but I needed to shorten it a bit to bring it to the correct length. I did replace the D-clasps that secure it to the towing lugs at the front by ones from Asuka, and that brand also supplied a much finer clamp for the machine gun on the commander’s hatch.
On the bow, I did take the plunge and cut, scraped, filed, and puttied away the ridge and bolts at the top. Once the putty was dry, I punched out a bunch of bolt heads from 0.5 mm plastic card and added them along the top edge:
Not that easy to see because they’re white against the white putty, but if you look carefully you’ll see them The painted patch is because on the real tank, there was a prominent casting number on the plate there, so I thought I’d add that from Archer transfers (which are printed with resin so they’re 3D, forming letters, numbers, foundry marks, etc.). Because those adhere poorly to bare plastic, I painted the area first. Unfortunately, it then turned out that the set doesn’t include much of anything that’s useful to create the marking that needs to go here
And I’ve started on the tracks:
This is a MiniArt set of T41 tracks, which were fitted to early Shermans. I separated and cleaned up all of the end connectors (lower right) and two sprues of block parts (upper left). Only eight sprues more to go …
The tow cable came with it, but I needed to shorten it a bit to bring it to the correct length. I did replace the D-clasps that secure it to the towing lugs at the front by ones from Asuka, and that brand also supplied a much finer clamp for the machine gun on the commander’s hatch.
On the bow, I did take the plunge and cut, scraped, filed, and puttied away the ridge and bolts at the top. Once the putty was dry, I punched out a bunch of bolt heads from 0.5 mm plastic card and added them along the top edge:
Not that easy to see because they’re white against the white putty, but if you look carefully you’ll see them The painted patch is because on the real tank, there was a prominent casting number on the plate there, so I thought I’d add that from Archer transfers (which are printed with resin so they’re 3D, forming letters, numbers, foundry marks, etc.). Because those adhere poorly to bare plastic, I painted the area first. Unfortunately, it then turned out that the set doesn’t include much of anything that’s useful to create the marking that needs to go here
And I’ve started on the tracks:
This is a MiniArt set of T41 tracks, which were fitted to early Shermans. I separated and cleaned up all of the end connectors (lower right) and two sprues of block parts (upper left). Only eight sprues more to go …