M3 Grant CDL (Takom 1/35)

[Scargsy]

So I'm going to be building this for the GB...

I do like obscure subjects and odd looking and/or asymmetric vehicles so this is right up my street.

Apparently they were designed to use powerful carbon-arc lamps to illuminate and disorient the enemy at night - though I'm sure in combat that would see them draw more fire on themselves. Apparently the turret gun in these M3 conversions was simply a fake dummy one, in order to disguise them more as regular M3 tanks to the enemy.

 

Onto the kit, the box contains a nice sprue layout on the side...

Here's a few shots of those sprues, lots of parts in this kit...

Pretty much all individually bagged, apart from the duplicates and also 2 sprues in one bag, though the bag there was folded down the centre so the two sprues were separated.

All looks very nicely moulded with lots of detail, haven't seen any nasty flash, ejector marks or mould lines so far.

I think this is the first Takom kit I've built but the quality seems great, I like the fact the sprue identifying letters are big and actually cut out voids so easy to see.

Only issue I've found so far is that the long piece of photoetch seems to have been bent in the box as it's got caught under the corner of the instructions, but hopefully easy to flatten back out if needed. 

The instructions are in a nice glossy black and white booklet, with a colour foldout paint/decal guide.

My only issue with that is that it's quite small scale but given the minimal number of decals and overall olive drab scheme it shouldn't be too much of an issue (there's also a high quality scan version on Scalemates.com I can zoom in on if I need to help my poor eyesight).

So without further ado I decided I'd make a start, fit and detail is great - so good that I mistook some of the detail on the inside edges of the drive wheel casings (I think this is part of the cast markings) for glue drops and started sanding it out.

So that'll do for a start, the next part is assembling all the wheels, bogies and tracks. There seem a lot of potentially fiddly little parts and I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to tackle these link and length tracks, wheels and painting everything. Ideally I'd like to paint the tracks separately then attach after painting everything else, I'll have to see how easy that will be to achieve, but that's for another day.

 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Welcome aboard sir, Ive always wanted a Channel defense light tank or two. 

[edjbartos]

Nice looking kit, I'm looking forward to seeing this progress, good start so far

 

Ed

[PlaStix]

Hi Scargsy. Welcome to the GB. Great to have you here with what looks to be a really nice kit. I'm looking forward to following your progress.

Kind regards,

Stix

[Scargsy]

I managed to make some progress over the weekend...

Firstly building up all the suspension bogies - are these things termed bogies?

This was a rather complicated affair as they are all moveable. from the lower arms to the cross-brace stabilisers and the return rollers. They do look pretty smart when finished. The return rollers are a multi-part affair too with a very fine inner ring to fit on either side. I even managed to successfully cut the small nuts (or whatever they are mean to be - end of the cross braces on the arms?) which are tiny little dots, supplied on the edge of the sprue on a flat bit, then carefully position these on the lower arms near the pivot ends. There's plenty of glue runs in them though but lets just call that, erm, 'pre-weathering'. I managed to do all this and keep them all free spinning/moving even with the extra thin glue - the trick is (because invariably you'll get some down the wheel axles) to just keep spinning the wheel as the glue dries so it doesn't get chance to bite.

Given they still seem a little fragile I'll be leaving these off until the rest of the hull is built up, the lower arms are simply held in place by shape/fricition - a small piece either side that slots into some shallow depressions front and back. Once I've attached all the suspension I may glue it all up to give it some more rigidity, I'll be using the link and length tracks supplied so not much scope for posing it rock-crawling, so once the suspension is mounted a bit of glue and a flat surface should hold help align them all in a level configuration.

There was rather a lot of tall flash from ejector pins on the inside of each half of the suspension parts - so much in fact that I initailly mistook it for some part of the suspension - to limit the travel!

 

After what seemed like a massive time sinc with the running gear, once I got onto the hull it all seemed to fly by quickly and start to resemble a tank!

The roof is just loosely placed on in the photo, to check alignment, seems like it should easily fit with a bit of glue and firm persuasion. Running gear safely stowed in the hull for now.

 

 

 

 

[edjbartos]

Good progress, it’s looking really nice...

 

Ed

[PlaStix]

On 29/03/2022 at 07:04, edjbartos said:

Good progress, it’s looking really nice...

Ed

Got to agree with Ed, it is looking really nice Scargsy!

Kind regards, 

Stix

[Bertie McBoatface]

On 3/28/2022 at 6:54 PM, Scargsy said:

Running gear safely stowed in the hull for now.

 

 

I can imagine myself sealing up the hull and leaving it inside. 😆

[Scargsy]

I managed to get a bit of progress on the M3, though there's plenty of other GBs I need to get on with - this is the closest finishing date.

Main parts all fitted together well - though I wished I'd fitted the final piece of hull sides (by the main gun) earlier as is would have been better with the glue slightly soft still to get a good fit.

A slight annoyance is that piece also that the sprue attachment points were on the visible part, and have left marks - I could have sanded them out but that risks removing the cast texture on the piece!

 

Another slight annoyance on the kit design is that the front lower glacis plate piece (I guess gearbox cover) doesn't include the upper part on the real thing (with the bolts) and there's an obvious joint (would have been nicer if that was where the physical joint was).

 

With all the main parts fitted I added some small amounts of filling - the fit in general is great on the kit...

One thing I found odd is that there are some clear parts for various vision blocks/periscopes - but not others (e.g. in the drivers window). I've added some small bits of masking for the clear periscope parts but have left out the main clear part on the turret for now (I'll fit that post painting as it would be a paint to mask and it should be easy enough to fit into the turret later from the inside).

 

I fitted most of the PE parts, though I hate using CA glue. The Bob Smith thin stuff is just too thin for my liking - it just runs like crazy but is too thin to pickup on the end of a cocktail stick to move blobs where you need it. Trying to attach the the thin side plates I ended up with a bunch of the glue running up onto the door - but fear not, I raided the wife's stash and used some Boot's Nail Polish Remover (mainly acetone) and managed to remove most of the mess with a cotton bud soaked in it.

 

Some of the PE parts were a bit of a PITA - like the light guards, even with the bending guide, but I got them fitted.

 

I was in half a mind as to whether or not to fit the stowage and tools pre or post paint - but given I hate using CA glue and poly solvent attacks paint I figured I'd fit it first. I also added some rough masking for the bogie fittings, I plan to attach these post priming, so I at least get some primer coat on the harder to reach points - masking off the areas I hope to get a better plastic to plastic bond for the glue post priming.

 

Time to add the primer; I went with Mr Mahogany Surfacer 1000 -  hopefully any bits I miss paint from later will at least look muddy, plus I tend to find that lacquer paint/primer has a tendancy to bleed through subsequent paint coats, so a muddy base colour should work well for my tank.

Unfortunately I managed to crush one of the handles on the side during painting (though fixed it), though worst still one of the side panel parts I'd managed to knock slightly loose - so decided to run some of the extra thin CA glue along the joint however it was so thin it ran all the way down, up the glacis and onto the upper glacis!

I decided to again try the nail polish remover to clean up the spill but my words - I didn't expect it to shift the primer as much as it did! I think I may have just found my new airbrush cleaner solution!

On fitting the bogies I discover I'd fitted half of the return rollers back to front and it's too late to remove them - still it could have been worse than 50:50.

Also the idlers didn't seem to fit on the spokes, so I needed to sand down the spokes and drill out the holes a little.

 

I decided that the primer might not be a dark enough base colour, so I applied a coat of Tamiya XF-62 Olive Drab which is quite dark, in full sun here it doesn't look too bad though it is quite dark.

I did notice that the front seam on the gearbox cover is still pretty obvious - I'm wondering if I can fill that up and also there are some pretty nasty seam lines on the bits on the back of the rear stowage bins (fire extinguishers?) - though I'll sand them out.

[arfa1983]

1 hour ago, Scargsy said:

found my new airbrush cleaner solution!

I don't think the gaskets are going to like it! 

 

Nice work on the painting. I think that shade of green looks perfect. 

Edited April 16, 2022 by arfa1983

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

1 hour ago, Scargsy said:

I did notice that the front seam on the gearbox cover is still pretty obvious -

I wouldn't worry about it too much, check this walk-around. The  2nd, 3rd, 5th, and the 8th photo’s from top. The seam is there on the real vehicle. 
 

https://www.net-maquettes.com/pictures/m3-lee-vol2/

[Jasper dog]

You're really cracking on with this one. 

Nice work with the pe too.

 

Good luck with the link and length tracks, they can be a bit of a faff....

(I had to cut one of the individual links down a little to make it all fit).

 

Darryl 

[Threadbear]

Nice work on this Takom CDL. I’m doing the much much older more basic Tamiya Grant with an old Verlinden conversion. 

[edjbartos]

I really like the look of this tank, so unusual, it's brilliant. Very nice work that you have done on this...

 

Ed

[Patrick Martin]

Gee it looks like my dad's photos from his time with 43rd RTR in India, he had the Blackpool tram badge on the side of his.  Rare to see mention of CDL anywhere.

Pat Martin

[Bertie McBoatface]

On 4/16/2022 at 1:13 AM, Scargsy said:

CA glue. The Bob Smith thin stuff is just too thin for my liking - it just runs like crazy but is too thin to pickup on the end of a cocktail stick to move blobs where you need it. Trying to attach the the thin side plates I ended up with a bunch of the glue running up onto the door - but fear not, I raided the wife's stash and used some Boot's Nail Polish Remover (mainly acetone) and managed to remove most of the mess with a cotton bud soaked in it.

 

I didn't know acetone dissolved CA. Very useful, thanks.

 

For applying thin CA very precisely, may I suggest you take some sewing needles, file the end off the eye, leaving a Y shape and then fix it into the end of a paintbrush handle. You can pick up a needle's eyeful of CA and drop it by capillary action exactly where you want it. It will clog but the CA burns away with no residue in a lighter flame. (I have half a dozen in different sizes. I hate CA too!)

 

 

[PlaStix]

Hi Scargsy. Sounds like you've been having 'fun' at times with your project but, despite this, it looks to be progressing well. Lovely job.

Kind regards, 

Stix

[Scargsy]

I gave the hull a few over-shots of lighter tones - a mix of AK Real Colors SCC15 and Faded Olive Drab, a slightly darker mix to start with then a lighter mix, trying to give it a bit of highlighting. Here it is after the first coat I think...

 

The wheel rubbers were painted and the link and length tracks attached...

The tracks were a hellishly fiddly bit of messing about trying to get fitted - you can see I've kind of chipped the PE (I didn't add any metal primer), also I had to add in an extra link per side, luckily there were some spare track parts that are unused in the kit, annoyingly it was about 1/2 a link too short.

 

I decided to not clearcoat but just try and lightly sand smooth the paint a little under the decal placements, it didn't come out too badly - but there's a little silvering under the larger clear decal sections.

I then gave it a quick once over with Mr Topcoat Gloss. Once dried I then brushed on some Microscale satin (thinned with a little IPA) - the alcohol does have a tendency to slightly loosen the paint slightly but a small amount of blending/bleeding isn't a problem here.

I tried a couple of filters (neutral grey and yellow/green) but they didn't sit too well so I thinned/spread them with some white spirits to be more of a wash, then did some detail painting on the tools, dry brushing on the track guides and painting some of the track pads I hadn't.

After that I added a few dark dirt/grime washes (water/clay based Flory Models stuff - which is great as you can wipe or wash it off later if you don't like it). 

I added some 'dried splash mud' flicking it off the paint brush with a tooth-pick, then a little more grime washing on the mud.

I gave the whole thing a coat of rattle can Tamiya flat-clear, then removed the masking for the periscopes and added the other clear parts (the lens for the mirror I painted silver on the inside then fitted through the turret).

I painted the headlight interiors then attached the clear parts - I may have added a bit too much Microscale Krystal Klear, hopefully it will eventually dry (if it hasn't completely sealed itself in airtight).

So there it is - another group build finished.

Quite a nice kit I have to say, my first Takom one and I reckon I might need to do another at some point! Some of the bits are a bit fiddly (I managed to brake/snap off both the grab handles on either side at one point or another) and the PE was a bit fiddly but overall an enjoyable build!

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

And very nice it is too!

[PlaStix]

Hi Scargsy. Great that you have got this finished and you have made a superb job of it too!! It does look very impressive in the Gallery. Very well done.

And thank you for building it in this GB too.

Kind rega5rds,

Stix

[edjbartos]

That's a very nicely made tank... Well done 👍

 

Ed

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Well done sir, Thank you for joining in with an different offshoot of the family.

[Kingsman]

A bit late to say this, but I believe the auxiliary gun shield was only fitted to those US "Shop Tractor" CDLs based on the cast-hull M3A1.  Takom have most probably goofed this through faulty assumption. 

 

True Grant CDL conversions certainly never had it, and Takom's kit is clearly a Grant hull with the drivers' periscopes.  Some "Grant" CDLs were actually converted on turretless Lee hulls bought from the US for that purpose but it is not believed that any of these had the auxiliary shield, although most if not all had the M4 bogies.  The gun counterweight was not needed as the shield added considerable weight to the gun.  It is possible that a breech counterweight might have been needed to balance the gun back the other way.

 

I say "believed" because the CDL was so uber-secret that very few photos have survived and it is possible that other configurations existed.