Heller 72nd Sherman M4 * Finished *

[Foghorn Leghorn]

1 hour ago, Ozzy said:

Nice going on the rope Foghorn.

 

Thanks, it looks less like a picnic now

 

[Ozzy]

I struggle threading needles, let alone 1/72 light guards.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

11 hours ago, Ozzy said:

I struggle threading needles, let alone 1/72 light guards.

 

So do I

[Foghorn Leghorn]

As mentioned before, I needed to tweak the stowage. I added a blanket and folded it around the rope (the piece nearest the turret) and also put 2 kit bags on the rear end, hung off one of the tools. I used Tamiya masking tape for the straps to avoid the velcro stowage syndrome.

 

 

I'm thinking about adding more stowage but I'm at the point of "That's nearly there but it just needs a little bit more stuff..." and experience has told me to stop at that point because the little bit 'extra' normally ruins it.

 

Time for weathering. And time for another numbnut moment. It's the first time i've used pigment fixer on pigments but no matter what i did, the pigment would not fix and hold. Then the penny dropped, I was doing it on a gloss finish. So after a coat of matt varnish  I reapplied the pigment with fixer and all was well with the world.

 

You may also notice some tabs of masking tape, used to cover the locating points for the suspension. I wasn't sure how 'fixed' the pigments would be, but I found out you can easily scrape it away so there's no need for the tape.

 

 

She walks! She has legs! The suspension needs some paint touch ups though.

 

 

 

Tracks. Hmm, I noticed Sarge's remark of trimming off the tabs at the end but I haven't done it yet. A quick dry fit suggests the tracks will be a tight fit. The kit supplies a block of 4 track links on the sprue to fit on the hull. I've kept them aside as I might need them as extra links for the rubber tracks but I'm not sure if (or how) to attach plastic links to rubber. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Stretch the track gently by hand before fitting, but check them carefully for tiny tears or nicks before doing so (to avoid the issues I had with one set) if you find any damage you can still stretch the track, just do it either side of the damage.....Don't panic if you do break a track, I'll send you a replacement (Just don't break it in situ on the model like I did!   ), I'm about to order three more Heller M4A2s which come with spares. 

 

Love the mucky effects you are building up, the different shades of grot look spot on! 

 

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Yep, the tracks are a problem. I gave them a stretch (mine doesn't have any tears Sarge) but no way are they going to make it round the the wheels. I superglued the ends together and put one set on only for the superglue to give way, too much tension

 

Also I've got loads of moulding pips on the inside of the tracks, about every 6 links or so. These are a real pain, with a brand new scalpel blade you can't cut them clean off, you have to coax them with the scalpel and tweezers, took me bl**dy ages.

 

After the stretching, it looked like I was a couple of links short each side and funnily enough 4 spare links are given for you to put on the hull. Plan A was to super glue the tracks to the wheels and the gaps were going to be made up with the spare links. But I was keen to have the spare links on the hull so, in another bout of impulsiveness, I went for an old school solution, which I've never tried before, stapling the ends together.

 

Doing it in 72nd scale is fiddly and I had to hold the tracks on the stapler base with tape. I didn't overlap the tab as you're supposed to do , I butt jointed the tab piece to the other end of the track and doing that gives you about 2 extra links worth. It's simpler to show than to explain, the diagram underneath the track shows the red area that is the staple.

 

So, stapling and stretching the tracks has now given me a loose fit but I'd rather have that than the idler or sprocket snap under the strain. The staples will be hidden on the dio base with mud splodged around them. This means I can put the spare tracks on the hull, which is what I wanted to do.

 

Finally I'll tag this post with graeme's ID @Graeme H to bring it to his attention before he assembles the tracks

[Sgt.Squarehead]

That's annoying, they are generally nice tracks too.....Looks like I'm definitely going to have to buys some extra M4A2s, just to ensure my current kits have sufficient track (having used up my spares on my current UM project). 

[Foghorn Leghorn]

12 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

That's annoying, they are generally nice tracks too.....Looks like I'm definitely going to have to buys some extra M4A2s, just to ensure my current kits have sufficient track (having used up my spares on my current UM project). 

 

And of course a few extra M4 kits might be a bonus

 

Might be worth doing what Badder did (I think it was him), and hang the tracks under weight for a couple of days.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

On 07/02/2018 at 3:55 PM, Foghorn Leghorn said:

Might be worth doing what Badder did (I think it was him), and hang the tracks under weight for a couple of days.

Tried that with some DS-100.....Forgot about them, didn't end well. 

 

I stretch them manually and about 99% of the time I get away with it just fine, but for some reason the tension between sprocket and idler was suddenly more than they could take (the break is on the upper part of the right side idler on the Sherman with angled applique, fortunately it was far enough around the idler that the CA retained a good bite and I still had room to make the repairs.

[Ozzy]

Nice going Foghorn, she's coming along nicely shame about he ill fitting tracks.

[Graeme H]

Thanks for the heads up Neil, I sure would have stuffed that up, on another note, while on the floor searing for something else I found the guard for the starboard headlight, so back in business

Good to know that it is better to weather the inside before attaching the suspension, I'll get right on that

[Foghorn Leghorn]

10 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Tried that with some DS-100.....Forgot about them, didn't end well. 

 

Excuse my ignorance, what's DS-100?

 

10 hours ago, Ozzy said:

Nice going Foghorn, she's coming along nicely shame about he ill fitting tracks.

 

We sent a man to the moon so it should not be beyond the whit of man to create tracks that fit nowadays. And the M4 is ideal for link and length, straight top and bottom runs with no sag, smaller runs from bottom to idler and from bottom to sprocket, then a few single links. Heller produce injection links for the hull so they can be made. Ah well, we can all dream I suppose

 

9 hours ago, Graeme H said:

Thanks for the heads up Neil, I sure would have stuffed that up, on another note, while on the floor searing for something else I found the guard for the starboard headlight, so back in business

Good to know that it is better to weather the inside before attaching the suspension, I'll get right on that

 

Wow you have a friendly carpet monster. Firstly it hadn't snapped the piece and secondly you managed to find as it's tiddling little thing. I reckon with a bit more stretching I might have been able to fit the one peice tracks glued as per instructions, it's just a question of what to glue the track ends with, maybe my superglue had gone off.

[beefy66]

Great work on the paint job and stowage. 

 

beefy

[Sgt.Squarehead]

13 hours ago, Foghorn Leghorn said:

Excuse my ignorance, what's DS-100?

Dragon's peculiar yellow, allegedly glueable with poly-cement, track materiel:

 

 

22 hours ago, Graeme H said:

while on the floor searing for something else I found the guard for the starboard headlight, so back in business

Don't be panicking if you lose anything up to and including the hull or turret, I really do have a LOT of 1/72 Sherman spares.....One exception, don't ask me for a bloody towing hook! 

 

Just had a look for my track off-cuts, thought you guys might be able to use them for patching gaps or concealing staples.....Sadly I'd already tidied up, so I only found 2x2 link & 1x3 link sections, if they are of any possible use to either of you I'd be happy to send them.  I can offer you lengths of ESCI track to bridge gaps, the track pattern is correct, but they are a bit narrower than Heller's (around 0.5mm).

 

There's an excellent guide to 1/72 VVSS Sherman track/sprocket compatability at the Modeling the Sherman Tank in 1/72nd Scale site, here:  http://www.172shermans.com/articles/VVSS_sprocket_wheels.htm

 

On 07/02/2018 at 3:55 PM, Foghorn Leghorn said:

And of course a few extra M4 kits might be a bonus

Already have five of those babies so I can spare a set of tracks, replacing them with either of the types from the M4A2.....Plus the M4A2s are more useful to me generally as I need them for my Soviets, I'm hoping to do at least six M4A2s & four M4A2(76)Ws for them in the longer run.

 

 

[Foghorn Leghorn]

1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Dragon's peculiar yellow, allegedly glueable with poly-cement, track materiel:

 

Just had a look for my track off-cuts, thought you guys might be able to use them for patching gaps

 

Aha, Dragon DS tracks, got you. Yeah I can see why trying to stretch them might have caused probs. Never used DS tracks yet, I've got 35th kits with them but not built them yet. Also didn't know they did DS in 72nd.

 

And now I know there's a good reason for buying UM kits, injection tracks. Thanks for the offer but I'm ok on the tracks, just starting to plan/mess with a dio base so the Sherman tracks wil be camouflaged with mud

 

P.S. Great website link!

[Sgt.Squarehead]

The UM hard plastic L&L track is a bit iffy, the track pads are too narrow and the end connectors too long, it looks OK on its own, but when placed next to a model with more accurate tracks it can look a bit skinny (this is why I didn't want to use it, all the other models in my M4A1 platoon are on ESCI L&L track).....All round the kit you just built is still the best bet for a 1/72 M4 OOTB and the same goes for the Heller M4A2, but the opening for the 'Perfect Braille Sherman' is clearly still there. 

 

[Foghorn Leghorn]

I've reached 'drag' time, the stage where it's a bit of a drag getting things done, those little things that takes time and you have bogger all to show for it. My mojo takes a hit at this point.

 

The tracks were added. I thought I might have had too much sag in the tracks, having extended them with the staples, but as it turns out I was just on the right side of loose. The tracks need some fiddling to get them sitting in the sprocket teeth but they sit well, once in place. Due to the excess sag I superglued the top run to the return rollers. As it turns out, I'm really happy with the result, you can see where the staples are.

 

Interestingly, the tank has changed its colour completely (looks almost bronze green), due to the angle of the lighting and the photography location.

 

 

I also returned to the stowage and painted the ropes again. That was fun ...  the rope's not as bright IRL and I came across a tip (somewhere, but I can't remember where) to paint stowage with a satin finish, which I'll do later on.

 

I've virtually finished the build now, other than a few bits to add like the hull MG, 50cal and the tow hook. I need to look at the dio base next, another grindfest that effects my mojo. The tank's weathering will be done after I've sorted out the dio base, I need the tank to sit 'in' the base and if I weather it now it'll get worn off from handling the tank while doing the base.

[Ozzy]

Looking good Foghorn, looking forward to see the dio take shape. I've had a few of those days lately, I seem to spend hours doing what seems not a lot.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Before we go any, further a word from your sponsor modeller

 

They say pictures never lie, well they do with mine. Earlier in the build I added some modulation to the sherman, it promptly disappeard after a couple of days (probably down to the oils drying out). But some have commented they can see modulation in the photos whereas IRL I know it's not there, much to my annoyance. Then I looked at one of my previous postings and I could see modulation as well. Hmm, weird ... and then the penny dropped. I use a lot of jpg compression when processing my pics (to keep the file size down) and I think that's what's causing the modulation to appear on the photos. So there you have it, pictures do lie when I mangle them with compression.

 

Anyway, back to the story.

 

So there I was, getting my fingers covered in polyfilla while making the dio base, and I looked over at the tracks on the Sherman. A thought occured, if I could bodge the gaps in the tracks to make them look complete then I wouldn't have to pfaff too much with a dio base, although I still need to do a base for it.

 

So the plan was: paint the staples black and then add the guide teeth and end connectors from plasticard. What could be simpler? Well doing it in 35th could be simpler but I thought I'd give it a go as I had nothing to lose.

 

Pic 1, the state of the tracks and it shows how they were stapled. I trimmed some rubber away so the new pieces would fit better. Pic 2, the bit of plasticard cut to look like the guide teeth.

 

 

I realised that the new guide teeth wouldn't glue to the rubber tracks so I got some really thin plasticard and stuck it to the underside of the tracks using Kristal Klear (pic3). That gave me a solid base to work from. I added a couple of very small chunks of plasticard to look like the end connectors and then stuck the new 'tracks' in place onto the thin plasticard (pic 4).

 

 

After a bit of paint and a thin khaki wash, job done, that allows me to possibly do a different dio base than originally planned. You'd need to know where to look and have to be really close to notice the track mods. And if you're getting that close to my model, well ... beware

 

Well, bogger me, I can see some lovely modulation going on there ...

 

[Ozzy]

Nice going foghorn, as you said blends in very well.

[Graeme H]

Blimey, not looking forward to doing that work on the tracks

[Hewy]

Lovely little sherman that

[Foghorn Leghorn]

On 18/02/2018 at 6:19 AM, Graeme H said:

Blimey, not looking forward to doing that work on the tracks

BTW, make sure you get the tracks on the right way round, nearly stuffed that up myself. I'd hate you to get them on only to find they're the wrong way round. Many a modeller has done the same thing !

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Well things have been a bit hectic of late.

 

1. Had to look around for a new car, I'll be getting it next week. Money for it has been a hassle to arrange as well.
2. The weather's been a nightmare for me this week due to being a carer
3. One of the HD's on my server decided to have a fit (and it's a really important HD). Still working on that, not sure exactly what happened. And of course it happenend while I was making a backup of it, so it corrupted the backup as well. Luckily I have 2 backups, close call, that one.
4. All the above killed my mojo.

 

So next week or the week after I'll be back on it but it means I'll have to drop the dio ATM and go straight to some simple weathering.

 

It should be made a criminal offence for 'life' to interrput modelling.

[Ozzy]

Hopefully it will all even its self out foghorn, if you can get that as a criminal offence you've got my vote.