Beekster's Shermans

Wow - nice conversions!  Where'd the Skink turret come from?

As for "weathering" a freshly-painted parade tank, you're damned by the critics if you do it right!  The only thing that should show any real weathering is tracks, tyre treads, and exhausts, with perhaps a bit of "helping" the shadows and highlights in the fresh paint with a dark pin wash in the crevices and a light drybrush on the raised shiny corners.  I assume any fuel spills would be wiped up in the pre-parade clean-up?  Tyre faces might have been wiped down with an oily rag to make them shine, so only the treads would scuff in contact with the dusty tracks.  You might use a slightly darker shade for the lower-hull sides to accentuate the shadows lurking under the sponsons.

Awesome work! Love the Argentine Firefly Repotenciado mineroller and the Lebanese Phalangist Firefly

Thanks, Frank; glad you like 'em!  I always have several projects in various states of work.  Currently a gray Firefly Ic from the Guards Armoured Division final parade needs to be weathered, if you can call it that.  I'm unsure what to do for a freshly painted tank as noted above.  Percolating for a long time now (and dormant) is an M51 for Chile, done using a Tasca M4A3 HVSS with a scratchbuilt turret bustle, Dragon gun shield, and Dragon metal barrel.  The whole interior is being scratched as well.  And I'm plugging away on that Madill yarder, and ought to use a couple of my M51 conversions to finish the welded hull tank and do a Tamiya one for which the kit was done in the first place.  But I'm also working through the last engineering issues for a Chilean M60 HMGS conversion, so that's getting attention, too.  And so are the master patterns for a Repotenciado conversion.

Greg

Speedster, I'm doing them for myself.  I released a Chilean M51 conversion kit for Tamiya last spring, by Greg Buechler Enterprises, and it's just about sold out the initial production run of 50 sets.  My caster tells me that the molds have some life in them yet, and I have enough brass frets left to do nine more kits.  Beyond that, I would need to start a waiting list and when I got enough pre-orders I could commit to ordering a new sheet of etched brass and new molds & castings.  A couple of years ago I did an aluminum barrel for the 60mm HMGS fitted to some Chilean Shermans, and I'm expanding on that to do a complete conversion for that.  I'd like to use that same barrel to do a Chilean M24 Chaffee conversion once the AFV Club kit is out.  I'm working on masters to convert the Tasca/Asuka Fireflies to the Repotenciado version.  The major challenges there are the muzzle brake, and figuring out some kind of fixture so that a modeler can bend brass rod to a consistent shape to make the frames for the stowage baskets on the turret.  It's slow work, because the thinking-things-through takes time, and sometimes the first couple of ideas on how to do something don't work out.  And not everything that can be scratchbuilt can be easily or economically cast, too.  That has been the biggest challenge in moving beyond scratchbuilding for myself to building for molding & casting.  You can't always do things the same way for both.

Greg

Dropped you a PM, Speedster...let's get in touch off-board.

Greg

Thanks!  That Skink was a fun one, helped along by the Service Publications booklet and some nice images of surviving unfinished turret shells that were found in British Columbia about ten years ago on a cadet rifle range.  The CDP tracks were a challenge; way more links than usual for VVSS.  I'm sure I've got a few things wrong, but there are so few images and no survivors.  A little educated guesswork is required to tackle a subject so poorly documented.

Very nice indeed Beekster. Some nice versions there - especially the AA tank.

I have plans too for a Lebanese Firefly and a Chilean M51 amongst others. Nice to see these Shermans other than the usual mainstream models.

Gary

Man, if my wife saw me looking at the computer and making all these "ooohs" and "aaahs", there's no way she'd believe I was looking at Shermans.
I really like the Lebanese Shermie, looks like God was throwing rocks at it.

Greg thanks for adding more shots of the Lebanese Firefly. Outstanding work!