Jakko’s 1:35 Sherman Crab Mk. I — seeing double?

[Guest]

Thanks, John

[Guest]

I decided to redo part of the turret floor after all. You may notice in some of the previous photos that I had widened the gunner’s subfloor already, but without antislip on it. Looking closer at photos of the real tank, though, I saw I had misjudged where the floor actually sits: it’s level with the outer ring instead of halfway between that and the main floor. Therefore, I removed the box and seat pillar, then glued plastic card on top of the old floor and cut a new piece of antislip card:

[ATTACH]369486[/ATTACH]

And in place, with the correct hatches engraved plus the box and seat pillar re-installed:

[ATTACH]369487[/ATTACH]

[Fernando N]

Just caught up, grand project Jakko and neat detail work, all the research pays off.

Love how the turret basket is progressing :thumb2: .

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko

All too much for me, :flushed::surprised::thumb2: looks amazing well done Jakko .

... and me. I agree though it does look amazing.
Jim

[Guest]

Thanks, guys I’m hoping to get this done sometime soon, though — I want to get on with the rest of the models too, but this needs to be done first so I can paint the interior.

[Jon Heptonstall]

Hi Jakko .
this is the sort of thing that I love.Brilliant modelling and an appreciation of what it's all about
Jon.

[Graeme C.]

The turret basket is shaping up nicely Jakko, very impressive.

[Guest]

this is the sort of thing that I love.

Good to read that

Brilliant modelling and an appreciation of what it's all about

I would dispute the brilliance of my modelling, but I like the way you put the second bit

The turret basket is shaping up nicely Jakko, very impressive.

Thanks

[Guest]

Turret interior, with most of the left-hand details added:

[ATTACH]369692[/ATTACH]

I also put the commander’s intercom box on the right, but nothing else yet. There will be more on this side as it will be easily visible through the open hatch, but the left side is pretty much finished because the gun and turret roof obscure almost everything else there.

On the real tank, the periscopes had all been removed, including their rotating mountings, so I had to open up a hole in the turret roof. Here is the kit part:

[ATTACH]369691[/ATTACH]

I cut it out with a jigsaw:

[ATTACH]369693[/ATTACH]

And then cleaned up the hole with half-round files and a sharp knife:

[ATTACH]369694[/ATTACH]

I also added the recoil guard to the gun:

[ATTACH]369695[/ATTACH]

The right (closed) side fit very nicely, the left (tubular) one was badly warped, but a little work with a hair dryer soon got it mostly into shape. I could then glue it onto the gun and right side, then bend and glue it completely in place.

The breech block and its operating handle are not on the gun. Both would be entirely out of sight, so there’s no point in adding them, if you ask me. In addition, the block itself makes no sense. It’s provided as what seems to be the complete block, but without the rounded cutout it should have on one side, and there is no opening in the side of the breech for it to slide through.

Here are some views of the turret as I have it now, with gun and basket in place, and also the commander’s hatch ring dry-fitted:

[ATTACH]369696[/ATTACH][ATTACH]369697[/ATTACH]

As you can see in the first shot, the whole area in front of the commander’s hatch is very visible, so I still need to build most of the gun controls. Luckily, I have good views of that in the M4/M4A1 technical manual and its shape is not overly complex, but I need to work out how big it is before I can start building it.

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
You're right, more can be seen than I imagined. That's good considering the work/skill it has taken to get it done. Great stuff again in this update.
Jim

[Guest]

You could just paint the interior of a model black below the open hatches, but I like to add the things that are visible through them if there’s no figure in the hatch to obscure the view. It’s almost surprising how much of the interior you can see through an open hatch on a tank kit, though — this is one of jobs that gets out of hand quickly. As per usual

[scottie3158]

Jakko,
Lovely attention to detail coming on very nicely.

[Steven000]

Very nice added details Jakko :thumb2:
Looks excellent

[Guest]

Thanks, guys

[Guest]

[ATTACH]370022[/ATTACH]

The radio shelf in the back of the turret is now in place, but more importantly, so are the ammo racks and the commander’s and loader’s seats. The rack on the floor was made much like that in the left hull side, from aluminium strip (cut from a printer’s plate) formed into a wave shape for the round holders, with the rack itself built from plastic strip.

The ready rack around the rear of the turret basket is more of this aluminium strip, but now formed into circles, which I did by wrapping it around some brass rod of about the right diameter, to form a coil that I then sliced into rings. Each of these was glued to the horizontal strip at the back of the basket and then had a lock mechanism added from a long and a short bit of plastic strip. The 75 mm round in the basket is just there for size, and comes from the Vision Models kit of the 75 mm Pack Howitzer M1A1.

Finally, the seats are from the Asuka kit, with little brackets above them from more strip and a π-shape cut from thin card (I tried making it from strip, but this way was much easier). Sherman-builders, note that the
loader’s seat is perpendicular to the basket, but that of the commander faces forward instead.