Bertie Sez, "Show Us Yer Bits!" - Cutaway M3 Lee Tank

[Bertie McBoatface]

This is a cutaway museum exhibit of the M3 Lee tank, Australian version, built from the MiniArt 1/35 scale kit for the M3/M4 GB.

 

 

 The total time spent on the kit was a whopping SEVENTY FIVE HOURS! It feel like that many weeks. I'm really pleased that it's over, although I've mostly enjoyed it. It's a good kit, if not a great one, and well worth a couple of months of anyone's time.

 

 

It's clean, at least on the outside, having been repainted by the museum staff quite recently. They even painted the metal parts of the track.

 

The fit of the flat pack hull was good right up to the last pieces. Note the gap above the big gun, and the slightly crooked glacis. I'm sure this is not a kit issue but entirely down to me; I was tired of it and rushing at the end.

 

If you do a MiniArt Lee or Grant, you may be interested to know that I made the tracks in a full circle before I painted them. I'd left the idler off and slipped the tracks into place first before inserting the idler. The idler has an eccentric mounting axle so you can rotate it to set exactly the tension that you want. It was tons easier than trying to make an invisible joint when the track was on the tank. It won't work if you have the track guards or sand shields on though.

 

 

 

The engine is a beauty. I skipped the big stowage boxes but I liked the little 'fanny packs'.

 

 

The engine air intakes are the piped that go straight through the white engine bearer at the back. Air is drawn down through the grill by the cooling fan, sucked down the pipes, through the air cleaners which are oil baths, then drawn down into the carb (see next photo) and delivered to the cylinders via a manifold. Its then exhausted through another manifold and passed through two mufflers and the fishtails. And ALL of that's in the kit. 

 

 

The engine access doors give very little access.

 

 

The cut in the sponson shows the place where the horizontal fuel tank would go. The black square to the front of the space is a cutaway into the inner, vertical tank.

 

Lower hull cutouts reveal some sort of pressure vessel? and the ammunition for the 75mm gun.

 

 

The idler reveals its bearings. It still rotated, until I glued it last night.

 

 

Roadwheel and return roller sectioned for instructional purposes.

 

 

Here you see the back end of the gearbox, directly below the driver's seat.

 

 

That's the breech end of the 75mm. It's the one part that's almost impossible to see even with all of my cutaways. I'd have to remove the turret to see it again.

 

 

The drive sprocket showing the final drive extension inside it. 

 

 

The driver's seat is the brown thing in the centre. In front of that are the steering handles and above it, the scratchbuilt instrument panel rear details. It  was one of only two things I needed to add to the kit.

 

 

Here, we are looking into the turret basket, home for three men, commander, 37mm gunner and loader. They must have been very good friends! The black thing on the floor is, I think, the turret rotation motor.

 

 

Looking down into the turret, that's the breech of the 37mm. You can see the highlighted edges of the hatch. 

 

 

Home for six sweaty men. The three already mentioned in the turret plus the driver, the 75mm gunner and his loader.

 

 

There are two Thompson guns inside and a crate of drum magazines. They also carried three MG tripods for using the .30 cal MGs dismounted. You can see the co-axial MG on the right. Actually, this tank only had that one machine gun. The other two were not fitted to the Australian Lees.

 

 

Six crew members and six water canteens.

 

 

Looking down into the driver's position we see the gearbox and the differential. The cast U shaped thing is the blanking plate for the two .30 cal mgs which were not fitted.

 

 

Looking down into the rear of the seventy-five. Note the screws, not rivets, holding the small hull plate on. This plate was removeable and was where the gun came out if it needed to be replaced.

 

 

Another one of the turret. I left that 'casting' seam in place but now I think it's a mould seam.

 

They had a shedload of ammunition for the 37mm, stowed in every available place.

 

 

I made the aerial from brass rod. In the driver's compartment you see the instrument panel.

 

 

Dropping down to the engine bay again, that's the steel fuel tank inside it's armour protection. The other bit that I added to the kit. The white thing top right is the vertical fuel tank. This is why there are so many filler caps on the back of the M3/M4 tanks.

 

 

These pipes run all the way round the engine and are the fire extinguisher discharge pipes. They end in four horn shaped outlets, two of which are just visible behind and below the big silver air inlet pipes.

 

 

Those rectangular things are the engine fire extinguisher triggers, one for each bottle. 

 

 

The radios were to the left of the driver. The turret gun is the blurred line in front of them.

 

 

And finally (phew), there's the other tommy gun. Behind it are a pair of quite large shelves for rations and crew kit.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed your walk around the M3 lee tank. Refreshments are available at the cafe and please visit the gift shop on your way out where you can purchase model kits of this remarkable machine.

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

The build thread is here.

 

Thanks for sticking with it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Milan Mynar]

Looks great.

 

[PF Naughton]

Hi,

That looks great.  It's always fascinating to me to be able to see the insides of stuff. 😃

[Bertie McBoatface]

Just now, PF Naughton said:

Hi,

That looks great.  It's always fascinating to me to be able to see the insides of stuff. 😃

 

Thanks. I keep thinking that it's a doll's house for boys!

[Bertie McBoatface]

49 minutes ago, Milan Mynar said:

Looks great.

 

 

Thank you , Milan.

[Maddoxx77]

This is an excelent build sir! All the detail shown are spot on! 

I can fully understand this build has it's place in a museum. 

Hands down one of the best builds on this forum!

[Bandsaw Steve]

Superb! A bold move to cut anything open like that but this has worked beautifully. 

[Bertie McBoatface]

7 minutes ago, Maddoxx77 said:

This is an excelent build sir! All the detail shown are spot on! 

I can fully understand this build has it's place in a museum. 

Hands down one of the best builds on this forum!

 

Thanks very much. You make me blush! 😊

 

7 minutes ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

Superb! A bold move to cut anything open like that but this has worked beautifully. 

 

Thanks Steve, I've done cutaways before but never quite this dramatically. It's a very detailed kit throughout and I didn't want to lose it. There are still some parts that have disappeared for good though, except on the WIP.

[StuartH]

Great work Bertie. Brilliant execution of a brilliant idea.

👏

[sardaukar]

Nice job Bertie, after all what Good is all that gubbins inside if you can't see it.

[Stef N.]

That's a fantastic model Bertie. Brilliant workmanship. Very well done.👏👏👏

[Muchmirth]

Looks like an almost impossibly difficult build done really really well. Fantastic and clean work mate well done to you. Shez a roight stunna!!

[mullac2001]

Fantastic build and wonderful explanations Bertie , well done.

 

[f matthews]

Spectacular job on this one!  I really like the Miniart M3s.  I’ve built two non-interior Grants, but have a Lee with interior to tackle someday.  Their interior kits are very well done-I recently finished a Miniart T-34/84 and the full interior, while time-consuming, turns out great.

Thanks for sharing this one-the cutaway locations are brilliant.

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, StuartH said:

Great work Bertie. Brilliant execution of a brilliant idea.

👏

 

Thanks Stuart, I'm beginning to believe all this. 🤣

 

1 hour ago, sardaukar said:

Nice job Bertie, after all what Good is all that gubbins inside if you can't see it.

 

Exactly!

 

1 hour ago, Stef N. said:

That's a fantastic model Bertie. Brilliant workmanship. Very well done.👏👏👏

 

Thanks. Maybe I haven't quite lost my touch then.

 

58 minutes ago, Muchmirth said:

Looks like an almost impossibly difficult build done really really well. Fantastic and clean work mate well done to you. Shez a roight stunna!!

 

Thank you. It was a bit of a challenge and at times it really got me down but overall, I'm very pleased with it.

 

53 minutes ago, mullac2001 said:

Fantastic build and wonderful explanations Bertie , well done.

 

 

Thanks. I enjoyed writing the captions.

 

35 minutes ago, f matthews said:

Spectacular job on this one!  I really like the Miniart M3s.  I’ve built two non-interior Grants, but have a Lee with interior to tackle someday.  Their interior kits are very well done-I recently finished a Miniart T-34/84 and the full interior, while time-consuming, turns out great.

Thanks for sharing this one-the cutaway locations are brilliant.

 

Thanks, feel free to use the idea. Or just leave the roof off. 😆

 

 

[John_W]

That is seriously impressive. Looking at the pictures I could even smell the oily smell you get in tank museums.

[Bertie McBoatface]

49 minutes ago, John_W said:

That is seriously impressive. Looking at the pictures I could even smell the oily smell you get in tank museums.

 

Brilliant! Thanks for that.

[Longbow]

Great work, all around, Bertie !! 👍

[Bertie McBoatface]

Just now, Longbow said:

Great work, all around, Bertie !! 👍

 

Thanks mate. Couldn't have done it without ya.

[Model Mate]

Awesome job Bertie! A great way to show off all that miniart detail.

[Bertie McBoatface]

2 hours ago, Model Mate said:

Awesome job Bertie! A great way to show off all that miniart detail.

 

Thanks mate. It will feel very strange making a normal tank model with no insides!

[Cerberus]

 Awesome idea, brilliant execution of that idea, so many nice little touches, has to be one of the best ways to show off an interior I think.

[Pete in Lincs]

Well worth all those hours. An epic build!

[Bertie McBoatface]

40 minutes ago, Cerberus said:

 Awesome idea, brilliant execution of that idea, so many nice little touches, has to be one of the best ways to show off an interior I think.

 

The only nice little touch I've had this year was ... Oh I'd better not mention that one.

 

16 minutes ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Well worth all those hours. An epic build!

 

It was like War and Peace. Except that I got to the end of the model.

[Pete Robin]

Consider my jaw duly dropped. Been an admirer of your work for some time Bertie, but this, well, WOW!

Regards

Pete