I thought I'd start my contributions with one of my favourite shelf queens. This one was going very well up to the time I decided to try a new experimental paint option. The story of this is build starts around 2009. I was inspired by Steve Zaloga's treatment of the Then new Tasca kit to build 'Major Jim' - a command tank from the Tunisian Campaign featuring a mud over OD finish. I had the old Dragon kit in the stash and a decided to try the silk purse from a sow's ear approach.
I'll start with a few shots of the lower hull to check that my images link correctly.
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.
Here are a few more shots of the work done on the engine deck and tool stowage. Tool straps are lead foil from a wine bottle cap with PE buckles. The 2 plates on the rear are field modifications designed to give the air filters a bit more protection
Here are a couple of photos from Steve Zaloga's article showing a very worn and dusty Major Jim. Earlier photos show quite a high contrast between the O/D and the mud camo when freshly applied. The tank name came from it's commander, Major James Simmerman who was the executive officer of 2/13th Armored Regiment.
These show some key details including the plates and give a feel what I was ultimately aiming for with the build. As major Jim was a command tank we also see that the front aerial mount is serving its intended purpose.
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.
Well spotted. I never noticed that but then it was way before the days of SoS. Probably won't bother doing anything about it on this build.
I still have the original Legend turret (shown below) I took the imprint from in my stash so I will probably see if Mr Archer can supply a suitable number 8 to make the correction when I get around to using that on another project.
Thanks for the offer but I 'm just going to leave this one as is. The project has been 're-purposed' as a practice exercise in painting O/D and only a few of us die-hards will even know the difference. I have some archer details in the stash if I really wanted to bother but given that the hull is too wide and uncorrected I will focus on fixing the details damaged in removing the original paint.
The running gear is a combination of Academy and Tasca. Academy are still the only bogies that have no pillow blocks on the trailing arms and that is what I wanted. The early skid is Tasca. The sprocket is Tasca with an adapter for the Dragon final drives made from styrene tubing. The idler is again Tasca with the pivot replaced with brass rod so that I can adjust the final fit
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.
The heavy handed paint job which was fine for a mud camo job but needed sanding back. Some collateral damage and some modifications to change the model into a 'generic' M4A1 from the Italian campaign.
It's amazing how resilient the paint was after a year or two to cure. What you see was the result of an all out assault of coarse sandpaper, lacquer thinner, and my Fiberglass pencil.
I must admit some of the unintended weathering effects are actually quite cool and food for thought. Whether I have the guts to try any of this on a freshly painted model is another thing all together.
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'm back to this project after a few diversions. My local IPMS has a 'shelf of doom' night coming up in December. This is about picking up one of those stalled projects and finishing it off so the challenge is to get the project completed for that.
I've done a bit more work on the stowage and repaired a bit of the damage incurred along the way. I am think that it's about ready to throw some paint at it.
Off to the paint shop. I started with a thin layer of AK O/D primer and then plain Tamiya O/D followed by highlights with a lightened mix. The markings are not 100% accurate for the kit but this project is not an exercise in rivet counting so I’m not going to sweat it. I’ve got just over a week left to get the project to a presentable (if not totally finished state)