AntPhillips

Nice job with the upper hull and the loaders hatch, its really coming together now.

HI JD, Great builds, although I think you may attached the transmission housing bolt strip upside down, the angles don't quite look right (it's an easy mistake to make, ask me how I know ) Bolt Strip by antdphillips, on Flickr I may be wrong about this though as it does seem to look better in the last couple of photo's you posted. Happy modelling Ant

Hi John as promised a little fly-around of the Dragon Firefly Ic upper hull. I hope these help, although I think Bigfoot's link pretty much shows what you need anyway.

Hi John, Would some pics of the Dragon Sherman Ic kit parts help, I took some last night of the All Round Vision Cuploa for Mirrorman, could easily take some of the upper hull tonight if it would help. Happy Modelling Ant

A picture paints a thousand words........ Probably self explanatory but part no.1 is the adaptor ring and part no.2 the cupola.

The Dragon Firefly 1C kit has the all round vision cupola as an option in the kit, I'll check it tonight when I get home.

Airwaves (nee KK Castings) did 2 conversion sets one for IIRC an AVRE Mk IV and the other a Churchill NA75, both sets used the same replacement hull front with square drivers hatch & rectangular side hatches with a dedicated turret respective to each conversion set. This was pre AFV Club kit days and there were also conversion sets available from Resicast, Inside The Armour and Castoff amongst others. Regrettably I had both KK Casting sets and sold them off in the great stash clearance of 2007-2009. Typically now I have a couple of spare Tamiya Churchill's and would like to get hold of one or both again, but they seem to be as rare as hens teeth these days, and rarely appear on EvilBay.

Looks great, the Italeri Sherman really does go together well considering its age, and your composition of the tank, figures and base really does capture the essence of the original picture.

It must be a pretty inspirational photo, as funnily enough I have plans to build the exact same tank in roughly the same setting, there are markings available from either Bison or Star Decal (or both), I have the sheet at home, I'll post the No. up when I get home. The Italeri kit is pretty accurate in outline, although it will need some surface texture added to the hull, transmission cover and turret as Italeri's interpretation is as smooth as the proverbial babies bum. Other things I've noted in my preparation are the rubber chevron track and what looks to me like flat return roller bogies (AFV Club do these), I found this colourised image recently too and it does help pop out some of the details that were hidden in the original B&W shot.

Fabulous build and presentation, I was umming and aahing about one of these and following your WIP thread was the final push I needed to get one, and especially so as it contains markings for the 53rd (Welsh) Division in action at s'Hertogenbosch in 1944

Hi all, I wonder if anyone has had any issues with Humbrol Acrylic Gloss Aerosol going cloudy. I'm finishing off 2 kits that have sat on the shelf of doom for a while, both have been sprayed with Humbrol Acrylic 155 Olive Drab from an Aerosol and then gloss coated with Humbrol 35 Acrylic Gloss also from an Aerosol. The first kit (a Dragon Sherman Firefly) had a lovely glossy finish, perfect for decalling and pin washing, but the second kit (a Tamiya Universal Carrier) has steadfastly refused to take on a glossy sheen. The kits both have the same base coat of OD from the same can, but the Gloss is from 2 different cans, having run out between kits. I put the first gloss coat on the carrier a few weeks ago before disappearing on holiday and it took on a satin finish, so it's had plenty of time to cure, I sprayed a second coat a couple of evenings ago, hoping it would build up the gloss aspect and it did look nice and evenly glossy when sprayed but on drying took on a milky eggshell like finish. I've subsequently resprayed it with another light coat of OD which has covered the milkiness, but I'm reluctant to put another coat of Gloss on. I'm well versed in getting the best out of an aerosol, warming the can, making sure its well shaken, making sure the ambient temperature is good etc. but I've never had this issue before. Any body have any thoughts? Cheers and happy modelling Ant

Brlliant craftsmanship, a masterclass in building and finishing.

I picked up one of these a couple of months ago, so I will be following along, mine's going to be a N.Africa one too, although I really should finish off at least one of the Sherman Vc, Cromwell, Comet, Centurion and Chieftain that are all sitting semi-finished in the stash before starting another.

Airfix are simply reissuing the Academy kit with their own design decals, as there were no figures with the original Academy kit, so I wouldn't think so.

I thought that Bronco had modified the tooling on later releases to correct the misplaced engine deck louvres and panel lines, although I may be wrong. Great build by the way.