As luck would have it.....

I was searching the web for images of M4's, and I found my way to Toadman's Tank Pictures when I came across a review of Iron Division's Resin replacement hull (48006/48007) for the Tamiya 1/48 scale M4/M4A1. While I was going to use the Tamiya hull, the replacement hull also was sold with solid or three piece transmission cover. Toadman, aka Chris Hughes, gave the parts a thumbs up. He also had a review of Iron Division's low bustle late turret. However, it was solid cast, and the gun cover was wrong for Hurricane.

I was aware of Iron Division, as they produce so 1/72 scale Sherman conversions I've been meaning to buy, but haven't gotten around to it yet. So I went on over to Top Gun Military and while looking around noticed a new lower hull, 48017-Resin Lower Hull with Sharp Nosed Final Drive. What caught my eye was this version of the cover included cast stamps/serial numbers. The price was reasonable so I added it to my order. While I was there I did a little more shopping, and found a new product line, Xtra Detail Series. The series currently consists of four low bustle 75mm, in various configurations, an early/mid high bustle, and a 105mm mid production. The turrets are hollow cast with separate parts for copulas, hatches, periscopes, etc. Again the price was fairly reasonable so I added it to my order.

The hull parts have pretty good detail, much more detail than the Tamiya die cast part. The is a bit of casting flash and some minor bubbles, typical of resin cast parts, but nothing major.







The one piece transmission cover has a nice subtle cast texture, and you can see the casting symbol and serial number of the manufacturer.



The turret has lots of parts many optional depending on the version your doing. Over all it's a very nice part, but I'll have to do a little work with the cheek armor, as the undercut is a little indistinct, and it doesn't blend well enough into the turret at the rear, nothing major.





The turret also has a subtle texture. The casting numbers on the turret roof look pretty good, as does the weld bead around the ventilator. I'm not sure if the number are corret for the turret nuber though.



Overall, I'm fairly impressed with Iron divisions parts, and think I'll be getting a few of their 1/72 conversions.

and something a little different

A friend in my local armor club gave me a Tamiya 1/48 scale M4 Sherman last year as a gift. I've been debating what to build since I was given it and decided it would be good blogging material. Sure it's technically not "braille scale," but it's my blog and I can do what I want!

I decided I would build an M4 called Hurricane, which was used in the allied landings at Normandy. Hurricane was in H company, 66th Armoured Regiment, 2nd Armored Division. There are a couple of well known pictures of Hurricane, and I can't decide whether I want to model it during D-Day with the wading stacks or after D-Day during the bocage busting days when Hurricane sported a two tone paint scheme.





Hurricane had some interesting features for an M4. It has a late model low bustle turret, without a pistol port, and loaders hatch, and with the thickened cheak armor incorperated into the right side of the turret. It also has open spoked wheels, which are included in the Tamiya kit, and a solid drive sprocket which is not. It also has a sharp nose transmission cover which is also not in the kit.

There are a couple of good articles on correcting Tamiya's 1/35 scale M4 kit, on Tim Streeter's US Army Models website. Since Tamiya's 1/48 scale kit is more or less a scaled down version of its bigger brother, the articles are extremely helpful. The turret in the Tamiya kit is an early production, low bustle turret. To make it a late model the pistol port must be filled on the left side of the turret, and the cheek armor needs to be thickened on the right side.

Steve Zaloga also covers this modification in his Osprey book, "Modelling the US Army M4 (75mm) Sherman Medium Tank." It's a great book, nd as usual I will steal borrow his research. So armed with all of this great information, I broke out the Evergreen plastic and Apoxie Sculpt, and went to work.






The gun shield in the kit is also incorrect for Hurricane, so you need to cut off the flange on the left, then cut the gun shield to widden it, and insert a plug to make up for the width of the flange you cut off.





While I was at it I cut off the molded on tools using my handy dandy JLC razor saw.

Back after another break

The wife and I went to New Zealand for three weeks in March to vist family, and I just haven't had much time or inclination to model or blog. We had a blast while we were there, and I got to play photographer. Among the thousand of pictures taken were at the Warbirds Over Wanaka airshow, so check back soon if you're into vintage aircraft, armor, etc., and I'll post a few pictures, and a link to my smugmug album.

Now on to the model blogging! First up are a few pictures of the T34/76 model 1942, alittle further along. I still have to do the weathering, add the figures and other details.






Next up are a few pictures of the Stug III, painted and decaled. Again it's wating on weathering, figures and decals.

Finally, there is Dragons M4A1 76mm. I've detailed the turret similar to the way I did with the M4A3, and tried to make the detail around the pistol port look better.

Ready for paint!

I made a few changes since the last post. I pried off the drivers hatch so I could display a driver through the hatch, and replaced the turret vision slots with ones made of .01x.02" evergreen. Next I used the hand rail provided in the kit, and used a rail from a second T-34 kit for the other side of the hull. I also used the turret rails from the second kit on the engine deck. The engine screen is from an old Eduard set that I had in the parts box (it's not glued on yet). I used Mr. Surfacer 500 stippled on with a cheep brush to try and reproduce a rough cast texture on the tank.



I also used the external fuel tanks in the kit, and replaced the rear fenders with some aluminum from a beer can.







Here's the commander figure I'm going to use with the Stug. I just chopped up the arms on a Preiser figure, and stuck some binoculars in his hand. I still need to sculpt in some putty to fill in the arms.





Did I mention how much I like Dragon's Stug.III? Here's a shot of the pe screen they include, but you'll never see.

I'm bored, I'm broke and I'm back....

OK I'm not broke, but I figure it's time to start blogging again. Next month my local IPMS club's
contest them is the Eastern Front. Participation in the monthly contest has been pretty bad the last few years (especially by me). So seeing as I'm an "officer" I should be setting a better example on the contest table. Since I've only got a month decide to build them largely out of the box. I've chosen two Dragon kits: T34/76 Mod. 1942(7266), and the Stug.III Ausf.G early production (7283).

T34/76 Mod. 1942(7266)



I couldn't resist a few tweeks. First the kit provided pe intake screen doesn't fit their own part. I'll be using an Eduard screen meant for the Cooperateva T-34. Next I added louvers to the big intake since you can see throught the screen. I also drilled out all of the lightening holes in the wheels (a fun evenings work!).











One last thing I modified on the T-34 kit was the rear transmission cover. I can't find a single picture of a T-34, where the transmission cover looks anything like the kit part provide (A15). So I carved the extra little housing away from the part A15, and the lower hull sides. I tride Jolyon's trick with the tracks (thank's Jolyon!), and it works pretty well. There was no cupping were the tracks go around the return or diver rollers. I still have a little more filling and sanding to do, before painting, and I need to find some suitable junkt to pile on it, along with a few Preiser figures. All in all a nice little kit, but lots of little fiddling to get it to go together right.



Stug.III Ausf.G early production (7283)
Boy do I like this kit! Unlike the T-34 this thing almost falls together (but not quite). Dragon really out did themselves on this one. I hope it's a sign of better things from them. Even the DS tracks are pretty good. I really like their Sherman's, but if only Dragon put the same king of effort into their allied stuff.....the Stug.III is just great. That being said, there are a few problems. Dragon has you put the wrong part on the wrong side of the hull in a few instances: grenade launchers(B7/8), rear tow pintles (A12/13), and the antenna mounts (B1/2 not A1/2!), but otherwise very nice. The only real trick is that the entire upper hull is made up of separate parts (fenders, front hull, main hull, engine deck), but they all go together very well. Care must be take because the front hull and fenders bend down slightly along the lower hull, so I just carefully bent the front third of the fenders down slightly. This is how the actual vehicles fender are, so why dragon didn't mold them that way, or tell you to do it is a mystery to me.

Happy Birthday Sweetiie!

Not a modeling post, but today was my dear wife's birthday...Happy Birthday sweetie! I took her and the dogs for a picnic at the Arboretum. No modeling was done in the post AMPS buzz. The weather was perfect, even if the dogs were a little misbehaved, and I think my wife had a great day. I even managed to bake her favorite jelly sponge, thanks to her mom's recipe, and pulled of at least a semi passable imitation of the desert. It ain't her moms, but it did in a pinch!

Happy Birthday Kiwigirl!

AMPS Report

I managed to make it up to Havre de Grace on Saturday for the AMPS show. I was going to try and finish the M4A3 and T-34/76 kits so I could enter them in the competition , but remembered my Tiger debacle from a few years ago (I melted my Tiger chassis under a light bulb trying to speed the paint drying process). So I decided to just take the M10, and enter it. I had to do a quick super glue job for a turret figure that had become dislodged, and it was off to the contest table. I was hoping to get another silver, but was pleasantly surprised later that night to be awarded a Gold! Unfortunately, it's probably the last Medal I'll get at AMPS, as now I have to compete as an "Advanced" modeler.

I was also really looking forward to two events on Saturday. First there was a behind the scenes tour of the Aberdeen Proving Ground Museum at 10AM, then at 2:30 there was the Missing Lynx Braille scale get together. So right after I registered my model I did a quick walk through of the contest room and vendor room, then off to the Museum. The Museum tour was great, I took hundreds of photos. After the tour my buddy and I went for some lunch (12:20PM), I looked at a copy of the schedule and found out that the Braille Scale meeting was moved to 11AM! Duh! I was quite bummed, even ended up missing Steve Zaloga's talk. So we headed back to Havre de Grace for a retail therapy.

It was a rather intense therapy session, don't tell the wife! I managed to find copies of the Nuts & Bolts series Marder III books [Sd.Kfz. 138 & 139] for a somewhat reasonable price. I also found the three Kiwi Armour series books I was looking for when I was in New Zealand, who would have thought. I also managed to spend a few dollars at the Tiger Productions tables, picking up all manner of diorama accessories. Lastly I managed to spend a few dollars at the Archer tables, picking up many of their Allied dry transfers. All in all quite the hall. My wife and I head to New Hampshire next weekend for a stitching show. I guess I'll have to encourage her to do a little retail therapy so I don't feel so bad wiping out the checking account by myself!

To make matters worse the announced that they were doing the best of judging right in the middle of my shopping spree, err therapy, so I didn't get to make it to the contest room for my normal picture session. Hopefully one of the other "Braille Scalers" shot lots of pictures, because quite a few models were back at the judging table when I did my only walk through.

The rumors of my demise were greatly exagerated

OK, it's been a little while since I've posted anything to my sadly neglected blog. Proof I'm still alive and building. Admittedly at a snails pace, but I'm still plugging away. I've been dabbling a little bit with Mig Pigments. So far I'm pretty impressed with the results. They're much easier to use than your average pastels.







Here is RPM's FT-17, possibly the most over engineered kit I've ever built. The amount of detail is incredible, but so is the number of parts.



and here is Aces' M3 Panhard armored car. Overall a nice little kit, not bad for a limited run kit. One of aces best.


I also tried pigments on Dragons T-34/76 L11. They really rescued the model. I wasn't at all happy with the pastel job I did on it.





Here is UM's BT-5. I really like this kit, it builds up fairly easily, and has pretty good detail. However, I'm adding Part Photo Etch details and tracks.



Lastly I'm working on Dragons AAVP7A1 with external Armor. Dragon first released this amphibious beast with a diecast metal hull. Thankfully they've followed up with
an all plastic version. I obliterated most of the side detail filling seams, but this will all be covered by the bolt on armor.