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


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3 minutes ago, Pete Robin said:

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

Regards

Pete

 

Aw that's very nice of you to say so. I wasn't waiting by the computer for compliments by the way, I just happened to be here because.... er, I was looking at some figures or something.

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That's just brilliant.  I admire your patience to deal with all that detail.  And the walkaround write-up was a bit reading a script for one the Inside the Chieftain's Hatch's videos.

Keep up the good great work :thumbsup:

Cheers

Gaz

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Looks terrific. What a clever way to take advantage of all that internal detail. The green reminds me of my favourite treat from Gelo Bar; pistachio ice cream. If only someone made a resin David Fletcher OBE in 1/35 you'd have a figure to add; "Bit crowded in there, but that's the way they did it". Thanks for the idler tip.

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16 hours ago, kiwitrogg said:

That's just brilliant.  I admire your patience to deal with all that detail.  And the walkaround write-up was a bit reading a script for one the Inside the Chieftain's Hatch's videos.

Keep up the good great work :thumbsup:

Cheers

Gaz

 

Ha! I just read it to myself in an Irish accent and you are dead right. 😄

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Sure I've seen this before, and commented, elsewhere...:hmmm:

 

Definitely amongst my favourite of your builds if not the favourite. Really like the museum type base for it too. 

Perhaps though the whole build just needed a little more in the way of explanations, trivia and general musings on modelling and life in general, seemed very short and to the point. :winkgrin:

 

Take care 

Darryl 

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1 hour ago, Jasper dog said:

the whole build just needed a little more in the way of explanations, trivia and general musings on modelling and life in general, seemed very short and to the point. 

 

Did not.

 

 

 

 

😆

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Wow! And the trophy for the Britmodeller model of the year goes to....🏆 

 

I might have another look at the genesis of my Grant model build & reflect on what I've just seen. Brilliant idea & excellent description of everything going on the inside.

 

Bravo!

 

Martin

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  • 1 month later...

Hi Bertie. This was such a treat to follow in the GB. Absolutely brilliant idea and executed superbly! Very well done. :worthy:

Kind regards,

Stix

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/18/2022 at 9:59 AM, PlaStix said:

Hi Bertie. This was such a treat to follow in the GB. Absolutely brilliant idea and executed superbly! Very well done. :worthy:

Kind regards,

Stix

 

On 6/19/2022 at 8:37 PM, Carius said:

Very Very nice indeed Bertie, all detail shown is brilliant.

 

Cheers

Cesar

 

3 hours ago, BerndM said:

A perfect way to display the interior and details of a tank.

Stunning work !


Thank you gentlemen. 

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On 21/04/2022 at 13:31, Bertie Psmith said:

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.

 

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 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.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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

 

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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. 

 

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The engine access doors give very little access.

 

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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.

 

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

 

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Roadwheel and return roller sectioned for instructional purposes.

 

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

 

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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.

 

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The drive sprocket showing the final drive extension inside it. 

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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

 

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

 

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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.

 

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Six crew members and six water canteens.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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

 

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

 

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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!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exceptionally good 👌
Top work Bertie!

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