Sleeper's Sherman Stash Slashed Slightly - Now There Are Three

[SleeperService]

Greetings All.

 

After my previous feeble attempts to complete a GB I have adopted new tactics including preparation, shameless copying research of the work of others, advanced bartering with a guy who know resin casting, and a determination to use what I have rather than buy more.

 

So I'll be doing two Shermans based on the M4A3 from the items below

 

 

The chicken fajitas were my lunch (and very tasty, thumbs up ALDI) but the package will be used in construction. Sushi the Supercat will also be involved as it's impossible to keep her away when working.

 

Now the sharp-eyed will see three kits and I said I'd be making two models, doubtless some are thinking Sleeper has really lost it this time, they may be right but the plan is to build an M4A3 (17 pounder) of which 80 were converted in the UK for the US forces in ETOUSA apart from 3d Army who stuck with 76mm guns recovered from wrecks shoved into the 75mm turret. Cosy. Records found by Steve Zaloga and others prove absolutely these were built and shipped to Europe between March and May 1945 but nothing as to actual battle experience has shown up yet but we know the registration numbers.

The other will be a Sherman Jumbo

 

 

Sort of. This beast is a T68 Flamethrower tank one of two built on a re-built M4A3E2 retained in the US for testing and trials. Note how the flame gun is mounted rather higher than the hull mg was. The rubber block track will be a challenge but I may have a plan...

 

Out of shot is a pile of Sherman spares that will provide the second set of HVSS gear and a set of single pin track from the recent Tamiya kit which will get new tracks. My M4 driver training project from STGB 1 may photobomb at some stage too.

 

Wishing everyone a great build. Huge Thanks to @PlaStix for setting this up. Time for coffee then I'll start.

[Ted]

Interesting variations, looking forward to these.

[Mig Eater]

Oh Nice, looking forward to seeing the T68 come to life.

[Robert Stuart]

Looks interesting, if ambitious ... good luck

[PlaStix]

Hi SleeperService. Welcome to the GB. Great to have you here. And I'm pleased to see some more 1/48 kits being built. I built a 1/48 HobbyBoss Sherman a while back and it was a very pleasant build, as far as I remember. Hope you have fun with yours.

Kind regards,

Stix

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Welcome to the build sir, both options look interesting but the T68 is a new one for me. 

[SleeperService]

18 hours ago, Ted said:

Interesting variations, looking forward to these.

Thank You kind Sir. With only average skills I need to think differently to get noticed.

9 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Welcome to the build sir, both options look interesting but the T68 is a new one for me. 

17 hours ago, Mig Eater said:

Oh Nice, looking forward to seeing the T68 come to life.

 

Thank You both, the T68 is a bit of a rare one coming so late in the Sherman's USA service life and only two built. Several books have photos of them but misidentified as various things.

17 hours ago, Robert Stuart said:

Looks interesting, if ambitious ... good luck

I hope not this time Good Sir. I'm nibbling away at tiny detail painting on my Matchbox GB Fury which is little and often so these will be front and centre for most of the time. No cockpit to paint

16 hours ago, PlaStix said:

Hi SleeperService. Welcome to the GB. Great to have you here. And I'm pleased to see some more 1/48 kits being built. I built a 1/48 HobbyBoss Sherman a while back and it was a very pleasant build, as far as I remember. Hope you have fun with yours.

Kind regards,

Stix

 

Thank You Stix I hope so too. I pick up most of my 48th Armour kits at shows, remember them? 🤔 Although they have silly errors they are cheap and, tracks aside, very buildable with lots of spare parts for later use. The weird thing with these three is that they are all different and all wrong in different ways. However thanks to observations on another site it quickly became apparent that they can be knocked into shape. I'll be making a PDF available when done for the few of us who may be interested. Too many have rubbished these kits but, in many ways, they are a better offering than the Tamiya items until the recent M4A3 and even that has moulded shut hatches and other unhelpful features.   

[Bertie McBoatface]

There's a few interesting variations. Nice choice. 🙂

[Robert Stuart]

2 hours ago, SleeperService said:

No cockpit to paint

You are not alone with that concern - cockpits are my main worry with aircraft.

[SleeperService]

Greetings fellow Shermaniacs!

Well an interesting time has been had doing a compare and contrast between the various components which should all be the same...but they're not....and they don't match any plans, dimensions or photos I've found. The picture below shows a bit of the problem

Not a single dimension on those two matches, in some cases not even close. The E8 hull on the RHS is too narrow by 2mm+ the other by only 1mm. The engine decks are different widths with the E8 being right but the outer plates have been molded at the wrong angle hence the narrow hull. However the E8 kit contains TWO engine decks the original hinged type and the later torsion bar type which was fitted when the tanks were rebuilt post-WW2. Sprue T goes into the spares box followed by the turret Sprue J, and Sprues B, N and Q, both sets of tracks go in the bin. They are chunky and hard to fit then will sag into the sprocket over time even without tension. The Firefly will have a set of T66 track taken from a Tamiya M4A3E8 the T68 will have 3D printed T84 rubber chevron track. 

Having far fewer parts around made the next bit much easier and will be a tactic employed in future.

 

So the first job is to modify the hull tub to the M4A3 configuration

I found it easier to remove everything behind the escape hatch to get a flat surface the reinforcing angles are Plastruct angle, the reinforced floor is 0.25mm and the other parts 0.5mm sheet. On the hull sides the upper suspension mount and final drive locating pin have been filled with stretched sprue.

Finally I turned to the rear plates

 

The M4A3 G1 part is pretty good, the E8 plate M55 (LHS above) is appalling but at least the hinges are better. Note the difference in size!! They're attached for now but I'm not sure they'll remain...  

 

Turning to Sprue H from the VVSS kit I cut the bottom of the rear bustle from the base cutting vertically added a 1.75mm spacer to the top and attached it to the turret top, as molded the bustle is far too short.

 

 

The turret top piece needs the undersized loaders hatch filling and a strip adding to the outer edge of the commanders cupola to correct the exaggerated curve of the corner. 

 

Once set solid the molded detail can be removed including the strip round the commanders hatch.

The final task this session was to reduce the HVSS frame L20 by 1.0mm, This is simple: remove the damper assembly, cut 1.0mm from the top edge of the frame, stick it back together. 12 times in this case.

 

Now I need some skull-crusher coffee and put my thinking head on while I work out what I'll do about the hull tops. Large hatch M4A3s were built at two plants Chrysler Detroit and Fisher Tank but both these projects are Fisher vehicles as they built all the Jumbos and 75mm wet tanks. I know that I'll only correct the hull top once and then get copies cast. However I do it it'll be tedious...

'til next time Thanks for reading and see you soon.  

[bigfoot]

Interesting subjects for the build. I was aware of the 17pdr being put onto some M4A3s but didn’t realise they made so many or that they made their way to ETO. The flamethrower variant is a new one to me!

 

Good start to the modifications.

[PlaStix]

Hi SleeperService. Good to see you've been able to make a start on the modifications. This project does look like it is going to require a bit of planning, here-n-there!! Going to be fascinating to follow.

Kind regards,

Stix

[SleeperService]

Greetings All.

After a lot of effort and coffee I admit defeat on modifying the HB hull tops. So I robbed my Tamiya kit of the hull top which I modified and, with other parts needing duplication, left them with my bestest buddy who knows resin. That accounted for last weeks work more or less. Realising that I couldn't get too far without the parts I needed I went stash mining and will be adding to the effort.

 

Meet the M4A2E4 quite a handsome beast with new legs and shoes. I had barely started a conversion some years back which stalled due to lack of information

 

 

The hull is a Masters Productions item based on the Tamiya M4 with engine area tweaks. However the driver hoods aren't right for the M4A2 (or the M4 actually), the front is covered with trenches and the poorly defined grille is not good and has already been removed. Hauler 48061 offers grills from the M10 which work.

So I set to work

 

 

Rather than modify the resin glacis plate I simply cut it away leaving the drivers hoods in place and used 1.0mm sheet to make a new one. I cut away the hood sides to allow more of the same to make the welded hoods as the original. The hull ventilators were removed as they were ill-defined and in the way. Then gaps were filled including the holes for Tamiya's tool parts.

 

I despise Tamiya's metal hulls so used the Adalbertus item to build a styrene lower hull with the floor plate extended 5.5mm for the new suspension. The hull sides should be 15.25mm to the underside of the sponson correcting this is easy enough and will make everything else a LOT easier! The nose piece needed the bolt strip removing and an extension added to get it in the right place with the top edge 18.5mm from the bottom edge.

The sponson floor will be 1.0mm sheet and a rebate has been cut into the resin to take it. I believe the bolt strip for the sand-shields is the root cause of this error where it is moulded onto the kit hull side and the depth taken from the lower hull to compensate. The upper hull height is correct by my measurements. Still to be added is a strip of 0.5mm card rear on each side from the final drive casting. I believe the angled lower edge at the hull rear was vertical then the upper plate angled forward to put the top edge in the same position as the standard tank. This would avoid any unneeded extra work in the engine compartment.

 

My plan is to get this built while I wait for the cast parts to avoid inactivity in this GB. That has been my downfall too many times.

[PlaStix]

Hi SleeperService. Sorry you had issues with the HB hull top modifications, but good to see you have another project underway already!

Kind regards, 

Stix

 

[SleeperService]

20 hours ago, PlaStix said:

Hi SleeperService. Sorry you had issues with the HB hull top modifications, but good to see you have another project underway already!

Kind regards, 

Stix

 

Hi Stix

Thanks for that, it was getting to the point where each thing I fixed threw up a new problem so I cut my losses and took an easier route. The upside is finding the root cause of several issues with Tamiya and HB Sherman kits which show up in the running gear when assembled. That has meant I can get the running gear built for the original projects confident that they'll look right when done.

Today I shall be mostly filling in ejector pin marks on Tamiya tracks....

[SleeperService]

Hello Out There...

Well things have been a bit two steps forward then one back but things are starting to look better

 

After a lot of confusion and muttering I realised that the resin tank hull was based on the Tamiya offering which has several issues including the position of the roof line break. In between opening the suspension cutouts I've thrown together a new upper hull using black styrene as it was on offer and I like a bargain almost as much as a pie  

 

 

This view shows where I was ten minutes ago-ish. The 17pdr lower hull has it's suspension part-fitted and the rest cleaned up. The cast FDA for the T68 Flametank arrived today from Ian at Friendship Models it's from their Jumbo conversion set. Very well cast and with care taken to ensure it is user friendly. That'll be fitted to the outstanding hull later. The tank hull-top is in the naughty spot before I remove the detail parts and scrap the rest, Ian also offers a M4A2 conversion which I would use but feel a bit bloody-minded at the moment, an M4A2 based gun tower in Italy has also come to my attention....

 

Next thing is to start going through the other builds on here and get impressed/demotivated/inspired. Then it needs to be turret time and doing the torsion bar suspension for the E4, I see much scraping and careful measuring in my near future. 

[PlaStix]

Hi Shermaniac. Great to see there's been progress and hopefuly you've been impressed and inspired by other's work in the GB rather than the other thing! 🤞

Kind regards,

Stix