Dragon M4A1

Looks like there are some technical issues in linking to my Microsoft One Drive. No surprizes there! Attachments worked though

Thanks Gary. I'm taking your advice about repainting this and will have a go at finishing it under a different guise. At the moment I'm trying to finish a Dragon IC but this will probably be the next 'dead' project I try to resurrect once that is done.  

The previous post illustrated the value of a punch and die set but once that was done things progressed quite well with the rest of the hull ...

The final drive came from a Dragon Sherman III, most of the tools were voyager and the spares box made a valuable contribution. Even then a few Tasca parts managed to slip into the build. 


dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/g1ox9tbo2zdibf7/DSCN0071.JPG?dl=0

Ah, I was wondering what the significance of those were.

Gary

On to the turret shell. Dragon got quite a few things wrong in their early turrets (this kit and the Fireflies of similar vintage). The key things being that the turret has a mysterious bulge under the bustle, the transition from the top to the sides is too small i.e. the curve is too small in radius. Other issues surround the gun mantlet which is mounted too high and the supplied mantlet options are are too wide. The latter was solved by using spares from a later Dragon M4A2 kit the rest by carving sanding and filling. All very satisfying work. here are a series of shots comparing the basic reworked turret vs out of the box. The cupola aperture was widened to take a replacement resin cupola. Features specific to later Sherman turrets were also removed s was the British aerial mount seen on the right below.

Nice work Lance - especially with the casting details. However, the D50673 is incorrect for this turret. Should be D50878.

Gary

Lance

It's not too late to change the actual part number - I have the correct D50878 from Archer which you can have.

Gary

The model was base coated with Tamiya acrylic mixes and the decals were applied. Here is where it all started to go wrong. The Dragon decals went on well enough but the carrier film is amongst the thickest I have struck. These were definitely NOT printed by Cartograph. I decided to try using artists’ gouache paint to simulate the field applied mud camo. I mixed up a dark cream shade and proceeded to copy the camo pattern from photos as best as I could. Once the paint dried it was no longer the shade I had mixed and took on a dark yellow hue. I tried later to tone it down with an overspray of dust but it never looked right and I left it languishing in a cupboard until this week.

That actually looks pretty damn good Lance

Gary

I've decided to have a bit of fun with stowage on this build. The bones of the stowage done so far are resin sets from Legends and mystery pieces from my spares box. I'll add to these and tweak them a bit to make them look more natural (I hope). The turret stowage was a carved out where it joins the turret to get a more snug fit. I think I'll also have to troll the spares box for a suitable figure to fill the void of the turret hatch. The turret ring itself is an old TMD item. I was lucky enough to have a replacement empty periscope holder for the one that got trashed when this build was in purgatory.

I haven't had a lot of tank time lately, life get in the way. I managed to do a bit more on my stowage over the weekend but still a long way to go

It's coming along very nicely, Lance! Eagerly watching your progress!