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Kiwi Sherman lll.


Bullbasket

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I did some work on the front end. First up were the two hatch covers which came from the Tamiya kit. I sliced off the two moulded on grab handles, drilled them with a .4mm drill bit and then inserted two pieces of brass wire, bent to shape. I then added two small pieces of 10thou card, under the handles for the locking catches. They were finished off with two brush guards for the periscopes, courtesy of Hauler. (Note; These were removed after these photos were taken as I couldn’t find a single photo showing brush guards on any of the periscopes on NZ tanks).

From the same etched set, I attached the brush guards for the headlamps. The headlamps are from the Tamiya kit, drilled out to accept new lenses, once the painting was completed. The two forward parts of the track guards came from the Hobbyboss M4 kit with the leading edges scraped thin. I drilled hole in the left hand one to take the horn which again came from the Tamiya kit, but unfortunately, it became a lost UFO when I picked it up with pointed tweezers and it shot off into infinity and beyond, never to be seen again. The only alternative that I had was the other one in the kit which comes complete with a frame but no detail on the front ie; the mesh. I cut all of the frame away, cleaned it up and added the mesh to the front from an Eduard set for the Sherman, and then glued it in place.

The bow machine gun was cut off and the mount drilled to accept a brass replacement from RB Models. The lifting eyes are Tamiya and the two towing shackles are from the Hobbyboss kit.

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I added two strips where the track guards butt up against the transmission housing. Looking at the only photo that I can find of Tiger Lil, it appears to have an “L” section bar, fixed across the front between the two track guards. To do this in plastic would have been a bit flimsy, so I dug into my old model railway stuff and came up with just the right thing in brass, and super glued it in place.

Another item that is obvious in the photo is that “Lil” had a couple of lengths of track laying down the glacis plate from each hood, the one on the right being shorter. On close inspection of the only photo that I know of of “Lil”the tracks appear to be steel chevron, and luckily I had a set left over from a Hobbyboss M4A3, so these were cut to size and super glued to the front. Finally, there is what looks like a metal cage on the front, right track guard for holding Flimsies. None of the etched sets that I had contained one so I had to make one up from scratch using 10x40 thou strip. It’s very fragile, but a can or two inside should strengthen it a bit.

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That's it for now. More in a couple of days.

 

John.

 

 

 

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Hi John. That looks to have been an excellent session's worth of modelling. As always your detail work is exceptional. It’s more impressive being in 1/48 too.

Sorry you managed to lose one of the smaller parts. I don't tend to use tweezers with small parts, rather I use (and you probably do this as well) a cocktail stick with a small amount of Blutac on the end. Tweezers, for me, tend to have a habit of firing smaller parts in all directions!

Kind regards,

Stix

 

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14 hours ago, PlaStix said:

Hi John. That looks to have been an excellent session's worth of modelling. As always your detail work is exceptional. It’s more impressive being in 1/48 too.

Sorry you managed to lose one of the smaller parts. I don't tend to use tweezers with small parts, rather I use (and you probably do this as well) a cocktail stick with a small amount of Blutac on the end. Tweezers, for me, tend to have a habit of firing smaller parts in all directions!

Kind regards,

Stix

 

'Morning Stix, and thanks for the comments. With regards to the cocktail stick and the blutac, I've not used that before, but I'm going to give it a try. Either that, or get some of these new tweezers that people are talking about. 

 

John.

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Jumped out of sequence a little here, and moved onto the turret. After joining the lower and upper parts and cleaning up the joint, I added a sun compass bracket on the RHS from 10x40thou strip. The rather thick gun sight was removed and replaced with an Eduard item.

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I then had a go at the mantlet/main gun assembly. Because I intended to use an RB Models .303 for the co-axial, I had to make some alterations. I took a piece of plastic tubing, drilled a hole in through it and then cut through at the hole. The resulting U shaped hole in the end was enlarged with a round file until it was big enough for the brass MG to sit in. I super glued the gun into the hole and put it aside to harden. I was also changing the 75mm main gun, again, using an RB Models item. The hole in the mantlet needed drilling to accept the new gun and so did the shield. Once everything was ready, I cut the piece of tube that the co-axial was glued to, and then fixed that onto the end of the pivoting part of the mantlet, before adding the main gun assembly as well.

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I decided against leaving the hatch open, but the covers still needed some detailing. First job was to remove the moulded on grab handle and then drill a couple of holes to accept a new one made from bent nickel wire (.33mm). Missing from one of the covers (the one with the periscope in it) is a small blade sight. This came from the Eduard set as did the small brackets on each hatch. I wanted to mount the AA .50 calibre MG in it’s pintle, and also the rest on the other side of the hatch. The gun is the kit item and the rest is from Eduard. To have the barrel sit in the rest properly wouldn’t have been easy, so I cheated. I cut the barrel where it met the rest and glued the cut off piece to the other side. I also cheated with the gun as I didn’t bother detailing it as I was going to drape a cloth over it later.

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The colour profile that I have of “Lil” shows that it had a blanket box fixed to the back of the turret. This item is available in Tamiya’s AA Crusader Mk.lll, which fortunately I had in the stash, and isn’t needed in that kit (it’s a common sprue found in other Crusaders). The only thing that needed doing to it was to fill the back with a piece of card.

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Two views of the completed turret. Two items added after these photos were taken were the bases for the A and B aerials.

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Nearly finished.

 

John.

 

 

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14 hours ago, AntPhillips said:

Looking good there John, I'll be interested in seeing this one progress to the painting stage.

Thanks Ant. Nearly there now. I've just one more stage to post and then it's paint time.

 

John.

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Good evening John. Impressive work on the turret now!  Everything seems to be coming together very nicely. Your metal barrels do look rather excellent too.

Kind regards,

Stix

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15 hours ago, PlaStix said:

Good evening John. Impressive work on the turret now!  Everything seems to be coming together very nicely. Your metal barrels do look rather excellent too.

Kind regards,

Stix

'Morning Stix, and thanks for the comments. Yes, those RB Models barrels are a definite improvement over the kit items.

 

John.

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I added a flimsey and a 5 gallon drum to the cage on the RH front track guard, and threaded the tow rope through to the transmission cover, along with some personal gear from Black Dog.

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At the back end of the model, I used a little poetic license. A lot of NZ Shermans had various styles of locker fixed to the hull back plate. I’ve no evidence that “Lil” carried one, but I didn’t think it an unreasonable assumption, so looking through the Black Dog set of resin boxes and bins that I have, I selected a standard locker that one book refers to as being a “British Pattern” locker. This was superglued to the rear plate, over to the RHS. On the LHS I fabricated a caged shelf and filled it with some jerry cans.

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Obviously there was no room on the rear plate for the sledge hammer and large wrench usually carried by Mk.lll’s, so the hammer was laid alongside the shovel and axe on the RHS along with the rest of the usual tools.

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The stowage came from another Black Dog set and I added three of these to the engine deck, and then covered them with a tarpaulin made from paper towel soaked in PVA glue. The camnet is a bandage treated in the same way. These were all tied in place with some thin sting wiped with PVA to make it non hairy.

Final items added were the two rear lights along with the etched brass brush guards, and an infantry telephone box, underneath the locker. This was made from the .50 cal. Ammo box. 

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A couple of photos of the finished build.

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That concludes the build, which is a record for me in the time. Something like three weeks. Next, the paint shop.

Thanks for looking.

 

John.

Edited by Bullbasket
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Wow! Such rapid - and excellent progress. All the stowage is really going to bring this to life. Can't wait to see it with the paint going on! :worthy:

Kind regards,

Stix

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43 minutes ago, AntPhillips said:

Some good stuff going on with the stowage, looks like you'll beat me to the painting stage. 

 

26 minutes ago, PlaStix said:

Wow! Such rapid - and excellent progress. All the stowage is really going to bring this to life. Can't wait to see it with the paint going on! :worthy:

Kind regards,

Stix

Thanks both of you. Even I'm amazed at how quickly this has come together. I've managed to get the base coat of Light Mud on, and will be hand painting the SCC14 today. Progress will probably slow a little as I'm also trying to clear a shelf queen that I've had sitting there for 5 or 6 years. It'll look a bit familiar.

 

John.

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I gave it a soapy wash due to the release agents used in resin moulds. Once dry, I primed it with Halfords grey auto primer and left it for 24 hours. For the base coat I used Vallejo’s Panzer Aces Light Mud. A couple of thin coats was sufficient.

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The next day, I marked out the camouflage pattern in pencil and then brush painted Vallejo Air Model NATO Black. Again, two applications did the trick.

Next a coating of Vallejo’s acrylic gloss varnish from a rattle can, ready for the Bison decals.

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I find the Bison decals 1st class, a little bit like the old MicroScale, and they react to the Micro products very well. All of the decals went on without any problems, the only one needing additional attention being the RAF roundel. I applied this to the turret roof as a lot of Italy Sherman lll’s had it there, even though Bison say to put it on the engine deck. I baulked at that idea as I could foresee problems trying to get it to lay flat over the engine intake grill. As it laid over a double curve of the turret, it rucked up a smidgen, but a sharp blade and some more Micro Set cured it.

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I decided that the only wash that I would give it would be a pin wash, so using Mig’s Dark Wash, I applied it to the engine grills and all relevant recessed areas, cleaning up any over spills with a damp, flat brush once it had dried slightly. I also applied this wash to the lower hull. Once it had dried thoroughly, I sprayed the whole thing with matt varnish.

Thanks for looking.

 

John.

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11 hours ago, Dads203 said:

Not sure how I missed this one but it’s looking rather tasty John :thumbsup:

 

1 hour ago, Jasper dog said:

Super work going on John, enjoying watching this come together. 

Thanks.

Thanks to both of you. Nearing the end now, so I'll then be able to finish my shelf queen.

 

John.

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2 hours ago, PlaStix said:

Great work John!! That looks stunning in its paintwork and decals. Going to be another Bullbasket masterpiece! :thumbsup:

Kind regards,

Stix

Thanks Stix for the kind words. Appreciate that.

 

John.

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Aye up John.

 

Fantastic as always. Its years since i did a Sherman from the Italian front, so this just might give me the inspiration to have another crack at one! 

 

Regards,

 

Steve

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11 minutes ago, fatfingers said:

Aye up John.

 

Fantastic as always. Its years since i did a Sherman from the Italian front, so this just might give me the inspiration to have another crack at one! 

 

Regards,

 

Steve

Thanks Steve. You wait all this time for an Italy Sherman to come long, and then two turn up. My shelf queen that I've resurrected is also a Italy Sherman lll. I'll be posting another update on that soon.

 

John.

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When I was at Telford last November, I bought a couple of different brands of varnish to try out as I’ve not had a great deal of success with ones in the past for various reasons. The first one which I tried out on both this build and my shelf queen was from Mig, and what I liked about it was no thinning needed and clean with water. I’m glad to say that I am more than pleased with the results; a nice matt finish. The other product is Alcad, so if anyone uses this, how did you get on with it, and does it need to be thinned.

I made a start on the turret, by painting the stowage and the tarpaulin draped over the .50 cal. MG. I didn’t want to go OTT with the weathering, so I just used a bit of Carr’s black to give depth to shadow areas, and Mig’s European Dust to give it a dusty appearance.

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The VVSS units were painted and super glued to the lower hull, along with the drive sprockets and the idlers, and then given a wash using Mig’s Dark Wash. I made up the tracks into three sections before painting them black and weathering them, and then adding them to the running gear. That last sentence may have seemed a little blazey, especially when you consider that I had a hell of a job getting the link and length tracks to sit right. Part of the problem was because I’d already joined the upper and lower hull, so that did make it more difficult. Next time, tracks on beforehand.

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I applied several pigments to the rest of the tank, including Carr’s black to accentuate shadow areas and Carr’s yellow and Mig’s Europe Dust to give the whole thing a dusty appearance. The stowage was painted with Vallejo acrylics and then gone over, once dry, with Mig’s Allied Green Fading. Some dabs of raw umber were added to show paint chips and edges were rubbed with an HB pencil.

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Other items added were a tow rope, some rope to secure the stowage, and two 2.5mm headlamp lenses, courtesy of Little Cars.

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There are one or two things that still need to be done, such as the remnants of the house boat frame to be added, and some more weathering to the tracks, plus the rear light lenses, but that aside, I’m calling it done. That’s a record for me. Start to finish less than four weeks. It’ll now reside with other shelf queens until a base is made, and a figure painted. Then I’ll put it in RFI. Thanks for following along.

 

John.

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BB, you really went to town with this build! I really like it, and than you for including so many informative WIP photos. 

 

Your undertated weathering looks good. A very dark gray drybrush of the track pads might be all that it still needs, in terms of weathering. 

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