Rare Medium Tank M3 variant, from a MiniArt kit

[Guest]

For my next model, I’ll convert a MiniArt M3A5 into a very rarely seen variant of that tank. I’m not going to say yet which one, though — see if any of you can guess it as the build progresses

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I bought the MiniArt kit plus a set of AFV Club tracks, because I don’t exactly feel like making them from the MiniArt parts again.

Soon after I got them in this afternoon, I began constructing the hull plates:

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Fit is okay, but needs a little work to get everything to line up correctly.

[Guest]

Continuing with the hull pieces, I now have most of the upper hull done too:

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This kit sure builds a lot faster when you don’t have an interior to deal with The only change compared to the kit is that I replaced the row of screws on the left rear deck by rivets, because as I mentioned in my other M3 build, MiniArt mistakenly put a line of screws there instead, because they simply mirrored the right-hand part (you can tell if you look closely because the orientations of the slots in the screws are exactly mirrored too). I used my rivet punches for this, but it’s easy enough to do by shaving some rivets from the insides of the kit pieces if you don’t have those.

After that, I painted the engine bay black and the cooling air exhaust interior olive drab:

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This because the engine deck has two photo-etched grids in it, and black below it looks better than grey plastic, and because the insides of the exhaust will be hard to reach later.

Here’s the inside of the engine deck:

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MiniArt gives you an etched strip to go behind them, but I replaced that with some plastic strip simply because it’s easier.

[Guest]

And the engine deck and rear plate in place:

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I’ve also started on the actual conversion to the rare M3 variant:

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[minitnkr]

Recovery?

[Guest]

The M31? I’d have bought the Takom kit of it if I wanted to build one, so no, it’s not that

[Tim Marlow]

Command variant? Though I can’t find pictures of it......

[Guest]

Does this help?

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[Tim Marlow]

Nope

[Isitme]

Nearest I can find....

[Guest]

That’s indeed a cool conversion of a Grant command tank to a Sherman-lookalike. Stay tuned to see if what I’m building is that or not

[Guest]

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This is the basic shape of the glacis fleshed out. It still needs some work, like cutting and sanding bits, of course.

[Guest]

And a nose job:

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[CarolsHusband]

My guess would be a mine clearing or demolition something-or-other ?

There's a lot of deflection angle going on....

[Tim Marlow]

Makes sense Dan. I think there was an M3 flail trialled for operation Husky? Is that it?

[Guest]

No definitive answers yet, then? I guess I’ll keep on building …