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Bullbasket

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Everything posted by Bullbasket

  1. Blimey! It's like being in the Aussie outback with all these dingos running around. It looks as though your modelling skills were very good, even ten years ago. Nice work Milan. John.
  2. Very neat work Nik, especially with the fettled horn and the AA etched brass lettering. Very nice. John.
  3. That's a beautiful little model (and the Churchill's not half bad either). Nice work all round. John.
  4. Thanks for that comprehensive update Mike. Can I take it that then that the disruptive colour could be something close to a khaki colour? And also that the disruptive pattern didn't go over the top of the horizontal surfaces, including the turret? TIA John.
  5. Thanks a lot, Flyboy. Have to agree with you about the Sherman. It was probably down to the fact that the US was able to produce the M4 in sufficient numbers, replacing those lost in battle. Something the Axis powers struggled to do. John.
  6. Thanks both of you. I appreciate your comments. John.
  7. Many thanks Roger for the comments. Not long now before it becomes a live build. John.
  8. OK, I've got a bit to get through here today, so first up are the towing lugs, added from plastic rod, bent to shape. The forward track guards are reasonably thin, but I scraped them some more with a blade to give them a more scale appearance. I cut off the two joining pieces which rest upon the FDH, as they pushed the guards making them sit at the wrong angle. I glued the guards in place and then added the two side pieces from thin card. The short stiffening pieces are still to be added. I decided to make it a bit harder for myself by using the kits headlamp brush guards. They are too thick, so using various files, sanding sticks and scraping with a sharp blade, they were reduced down to something a bit more acceptable., I removed the rear, angled support and replaced them with some 10x30 thou strip. Once in place, I was reasonably happy with them. I just need to add some Milliput around the bases for the weld beads. Although the tank in this kit has T48 rubber chevron tracks, it still includes on two of the sprues, six T54E1 steel chevron track links along with the brackets to mount them on the front of the glacis. So I made up two sets of three. Before adding the brackets, I removed the end pins because they were so undersized, and so that I could clean up the mould lines on each end. I then added new pins. Sounds convoluted, but it was easier this way. These were then glued in place, and the bracket for the tow rope was also attached. Also added the foundry casting mark and the two mounting brackets for the gun travel lock. I attempted to alter the forward track guards. From what I've been told, the ones included in the kit were more commonly seen on welded hull M4s and not cast hulls. So the moulded crease was cut down to size and a join line scribed across at the half way point. Three rivets were added just forward of the join lines. The rivets where the guards join onto the hull were removed and a weld seam applied, using thin stretched sprue. Finally, the two triangular fillets were glued in place. So that's the end of this update. Just a couple more, and then I should be up to date with this build. John.
  9. Thanks very much to all three of you for your comments. They're much appreciated, and I'm glad that you liked it. John.
  10. Nice work with the engine deck, and I like the weld beads. John.
  11. You say that it's not a mojo thing, but I beg to differ. It's the fact that a project drags on which IMO, kills the mojo. That's why I have around a dozen started, but not finished builds. I've never been able to complete a build in under three months (and for me, that's quick), and I get bored with it. I'm always happy when I've got through a long, tedious part of the build, and can move onto the next stage. I think that one of two things will help to snap you out of this. 1) The Easy 8 turret will turn up and you'll be able to get on with a real tank. Or 2) you'll get involved with building one of those wingey things, and by the time that you've finished it, you'll realise how much better it is to build something like an AFV. I must confess that I have an F9F sitting on the shelf, waiting for the mojo to disappear into the distance. Then I might have a go at that and finish it in the high viz colours. John.
  12. Yes I'm afraid that Dragon aren't doing themselves any favours by releasing kits which are full of very old, cobbled together parts, that are past their sell by date. How do they hope to compete with the likes of Tamiya (I'm talking about their Easy 8 here), Asuka and RFM. OK, so maybe their stuff is cheaper, but definitely lacking in quality and for the most part, accuracy. Looking at the casting texture on the Dragon hull, I believe that it's the same hull as was in the (very) old M51. Certainly, some of the sprues are from that kit, as they are marked as being M51. The texture can be seen in the last photo in my previous post.......and that has been sanded down! Still, once all of the paint and weathering has gone on, it should look too bad (he said hopefully). John.
  13. I'm moving this along at a pace now, so that I can catch up to where I'm actually at, at the moment. I did some work on the rear of the hull. Not a lot to do there, but the air cleaners are in place and I've added some etched brass clamps instead of the over scale kit offerings. The two drilled holes are for fixing the exhaust deflector in place once the upper and lower halves of the hull are joined together. Each VVSS base plate has a tapered piece which inserts into a slot on the side of the hull, and then the base plate slots into this. Trouble was, the tapered pieces just fell straight through, so to get around this, I glued some scrap plastic blanking pieces on the inside of the hull. The tapered inserts then needed thinning down a little bit, but once done, they were glued into place, and the base plates fitted perfectly. As with the majority of Sherman kits, the eight bolt heads which hold the FDH in place, are missing in this kit, as are the three smaller bolt heads just in front of them. So a couple of hours work and they were in place. The kit's instructions would have you join the upper and lower halves of the hull together right at the end, but that's not how I like to do it. If I needed to clamp the two halves, it would be difficult with all of the detail added. So I added the two exhausts to the lower hull, and then glued the two parts together. I have an Eduard set for the M4 which contains the grill which fits around the two exhausts, but I didn't use it. I did so on another similar project, which also used the exhaust deflector, and once this was in place, the grill couldn't be seen. So I'll save that for one that doesn't use the deflector. The four little white marks on the bottom edge of the rear hull is some card I use to fill the notches for the spare track frames, which weren't fitted to this tank. Thanks for looking and for any comments. John.
  14. Thanks for that heads up Peter. I'd never noticed those before. In fact, after reading your post, I thought that I'd have a look on the Sherman Minutia page....... and guess what....there are three blind holes! I suppose that it's dependant on which of the VVSS units they are. The two underneath the skid will prove to be too awkward to do now, but I may have a cunning plan. John.
  15. Thanks Ed. Glad to have your company. Someone's got to do it, if only to supply the shelf with plenty of queens. You're right though Darryl. I thought that I had posted something about this kit, but I'm beggared if I can find it, so hence, a new thread. Thanks Roger, and pleased to have you following along. I hope that it will be. Thanks for following along. John.
  16. Well, as it turns out, when I got a set of Comet racks from Fighting 48th for my A30 Challenger, he must have sent me two sets. I was rummaging through some boxes of bits and pieces, when I came across a complete set, plus drive sprockets. So if the Pz.lll tracks don't work, then these will suffice. Thanks for all the help and advice. John.
  17. Ah! The dreaded silvering of the decals. Did you give it a coat of gloss varnish before applying the decals? Apart from that, a very nice job indeed. John.
  18. I think that you are learning the trade very well.Love the cammo and the base. Nice work. John.
  19. When was that? In '78?
  20. First off, the Sherman lll has been put on the back burner until I can work up some enthusiasm for it. There's a story behind this build, but I'll try and keep it short. While I was going through my stash to find something to build, I came across this part built model of an M1 Sherman. Thinking that I must have started a build thread for it, I trawled through dozens of pages, looking for it, but without success. I was sure that there must be one, because I had the write up on my laptop. Then after a lot of frustration, and even asking Mike for his help in finding it, the penny dropped. There was no thread. What had happened was that I started this build back in early 2022 when I had been sent on “an extended holiday” for three months. I had all the write up and the photos, ready to post once I returned. So without further ado, here we go. The kit, which I picked up off of Ebay for a reasonable price, is the Dragon M4A1 (76mm), Operation Cobra. I did one of these a few years ago, but that one mounted the M1A2 main gun with the muzzle brake. The one that I intend building this time has the earlier M1A1 main gun without the muzzle brake, and with no thread protector on the end. The actual tank might look familiar to some of you, and that's because I have built it before in 1/48th scale. As I said, I bought it off of the internet, and I'm a little bit suspicious that the seller has cobbled it together from different kits. Some of the reviews that I've read state that the kit contains an aluminium barrel. Mine didn't. This kit has been around for a few years now, and I think that maybe Dragon have changed a lot of what is included, as some of the reviews state that the kit includes British T62 tracks, whereas mine contains two sets of DS T48 tracks, one with duckbills and one without. These will end up in the spares box, as what I need for this build is a set of T54E1's. I found a set in a Tamiya kit and they don't look bad, so providing they fit the sprockets, they will suffice. There are one or two features which I don't like about the kit, most noticeable being the OTT casting texture on the hull and FDH. Dragon state on the box lid that the hull has “realistic cast texture”, and even some of the well known online reviewers say that it's realistic. I beg to disagree. Cast hull Shermans had very little casting texture. This is way over the top. It will need sanding down quite a bit to get it to a more realistic appearance. It's very reminiscent of the cast hull in the old Dragon M51. What I do like though is the slide moulded M1A1 barrel, so IMO, there is no need for an AM barrel. Also included is a new exhaust deflector. Anyway, any other anomalies and I'll mention them during the build. First job that I tackled were the VVSS units. The tank which I am building had the straight return roller arms with a pillow to raise the roller, which the kit has. I won't go into too much detail with regards to the assembly of these units as I've covered the procedure in other M4 builds. So what I did was to assemble each unit, drill four holes on the forward face....... and add a piece of 5mm x 6mm 10thou card to the rear face. I scraped the leading edges of each track skid to a more acceptable thickness, then glued them in place. Finally, four bolt heads were punched out and added to each skid, and four more to the rear face of each unit. Drive sprockets (of the plain variety) assembled with no problem, and they fitted perfectly on the FDH stubs. But then it comes to the idlers. There are two types included in the kit. Ones with backs to them and the old hollow backed version. Guess which ones the instructions would have you use, bearing in mind that all of the road wheels are the ones with backs to them. Yes, the hollow ones. Another anomaly. I'm going to use the backed ones, simply because they look better, but it requires trimming the stub axle down a bit and packing out the hole in the back of the idler because the thing flops around on the stub. Sorry this opening post is so lengthy, and I hope that most of you will stay with me. Thanks for looking. John.
  21. Nice work with the Malta scheme. I bet that was fun to do. John.
  22. And now, it looks even better, decked out in it's Sunday best. Nice work Milan. John.
  23. I really like what you're doing with this Simon. Great paint job and weathering. John.
  24. What's not to like? It's a Sherman, and you're making a very good job of it. Nice work. John.
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