Unconverting a Sherman V from the Rye Field Models Sherman VC

[Mini Me]

Roger that.....I use Mr. Surfacer for the same results, the more you stipple it the rougher it gets. makes the best looking cast armour.....even in 1-87 scale. :thumb2: Rick H.

[adt70hk]

Coming on nicely Jakko.

As always amazing attention to detail.

ATB.

Andrew

[Guest]

I use Mr. Surfacer for the same results, the more you stipple it the rougher it gets.

I bought that long ago, but never really got the hang of using it. Thinned putty works fine for me, though, so I use that instead.

As always amazing attention to detail.

I just look at photos and try to build what I see there

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
Coming on very well. Good find on the bogie blocks. Saved a lot of time cutting and sanding. Turret is looking the part.

I just look at photos and try to build what I see there

True, but you also have the ability to interpret what you see in those grainy old fuzzy photos :tongue-out3:
Jim

[Guest]

That’s just experience, if you ask me

Progress on the turret:

[ATTACH]428387[/ATTACH][ATTACH]428388[/ATTACH]

Most of this is just the kit parts, though the covered gun shield is Resicast, as is the gadget on the rear roof of the turret. However, RFM only provides a firing port hatch that’s welded shut, which was uncommon on British tanks. I found an Asuka hatch in my spares box, so I put that in instead. The strips on the back of the turret are for the stowage bin, that couldn’t be fitted when the wading trunks were on.

[Guest]

The wading trunks are supplied as etched parts in the Resicast set: a rectangular piece with fold lines for the body, with a grating for underneath and a rectangle for the top, to form the lip there. I decided to solder them together, despite not being very skilled in this:

[ATTACH]428427[/ATTACH]

They still need a little filing, as there are some thicker bits of solder in places, but all in all, I’m pretty pleased with the outcome.

Here they are on the model, still loose:

[ATTACH]428428[/ATTACH]

[Guest]

Some stuff added to the hull front:

[ATTACH]428704[/ATTACH]

The spare tracks are all Asuka, the machine gun in its canvas cover is Resicast, but from another set than the one all the other bits came from (you can tell by the colour of the resin). This is purely because I broke the part that came with that set when cleaning it up, as the pour plug is attached to the thin end of the cover, but luckily I had some spares from previous sets.

Above the tracks is a white bit of plastic, two strips made into an L-profile for the step on the glacis plate. The kit has an etched bit, which I had great difficulty bending it to shape, because it’s about 2 mm wide and needs to be bent along its length. Once I had finally succeeded, it pinged out of my tweezers and disappeared

The headlight guards come with the kit, but I added the tube on the side from some 1 mm copper pipe. This is for holding the plug that seals the headlight socket when the light isn’t mounted, and since it isn’t in photos of the real tank, I put some plastic rod into the holes and therefore needed to have empty tubes on the headlight guards too. Quick tip, though: anneal the light guards (front and rear) before bending them with the jig that RFM gives you in the box. If you don’t, they’re hard to get into the correct shape — but I only thought of this when I had done three of the four

That fourth is the one on the left front, which has been squashed flat somehow. This is apparent in a post-war photo, but film of the tank during the war also shows it already. No idea what caused it, but I had to replicate it I first glued the guard to the model in its normal shape, and once the glue had had a few hours to dry, I carefully pressed it down onto the glacis plate, aiming for the shape the real thing seems to have had. That didn’t quite succeed, but it’s close enough.

I also added the tail lights and tools on the rear deck, with thin plastic card for straps:

[ATTACH]428705[/ATTACH]

On the left-hand side, I removed the locating ridges and tie-downs for the cleaning rods of the 17-pounder gun, as these obviously weren’t on regular Shermans. I used the same very thin plastic card to block the air intakes on the hull corners, instead of fitting the etched grilles that the kit provides. This because the tank was waterproofed, which it wouldn’t be with those vents open — trying to wade to engine deck depth would have flooded the whole interior through them, eventually.

And then:

[ATTACH]428706[/ATTACH]

… after taking the previous photo, while I moved the hull back to my workbench, I dropped it The deep-wading chute broke off the model. Luckily it wasn’t worse than this, but unluckily, part of the chute snapped off as you can see. I haven’t found it yet on the floor, but of course, I did find the step from the glacis plate …

[Guest]

It’s been fixed by now, I glued it back on and made a replacement plate from some plastic card.

[Isitme]

Jakko,
This is coming along nicely.
I had the same problem with the gun mantlet and in the end added the Asuka to the Dragon turret.
Keep going, interesting build.
Mike.

[Mini Me]

I'm with Mike on this Jakko.....looking the "Dog's". Rick H.

[scottie3158]

Jakko, nice work the soldering looks good and is the only way to go with large boxes of PE. Any build up of solder can be filled off or even scraped with a blade.

[Guest]

This is coming along nicely.

Thanks, though progress has been slightly slow of late Now I’ve got a set of C235 ammo boxes and T49 track, though, I can make a start on finishing the model.

I had the same problem with the gun mantlet and in the end added the Asuka to the Dragon turret.

Different manufacturers appear to have different ideas about the exact shape and size … At least the Asuka part should have fit in the hole in the Dragon turret, I assume?

Maybe, to see which brand got it right, I should go and see if I can still measure up a real one before it gets put back together

[ATTACH]429119[/ATTACH]

I'm with Mike on this Jakko.....looking the "Dog's". Rick H.

Thanks

nice work the soldering looks good and is the only way to go with large boxes of PE.

Thanks. The parts bend well enough that you could glue them, but I can just imagine them splitting apart at some point, so I felt soldering was really the only way to go. Also, it’s a bit of practice for soldering together the stowage rack that I still need to build for the hull front.

Any build up of solder can be filled off or even scraped with a blade.

I’ve filed it down a bit, but because the trunks have ended up slightly concave, that didn’t get everything off that needs to go. I’ll try scraping it, thanks for the tip.

[Guest]

The stowage bin for the hull rear:

[ATTACH]429245[/ATTACH]

The bin itself is from the kit, including the etched snaps; the kit also provides two etched padlocks, but I decided to leave them off. The box on top is from PanzerArt, a C235 ammo box (but they call it B235 for some reason) that was fixed to the bin lid on the real tank. The little bracket on the side is aluminium, from a printing plate, and is there because this bin will go on the tank like this:

[ATTACH]429246[/ATTACH]

It was normally carried on the rear plate, with those brackets sliding over the little square posts I made from plastic strip here. RFM has moulded the posts and the brackets onto the bin, so I had to cut them off and replace them for the bin to go on the engine deck, as per pictures of the real tank during the landing, because the wading trunk prevents it being on the rear plate. Once those had been removed, the crew did move the bin to its upright position on the hull rear, other photos show, but resting on the wading chute (the part fixed to the hull, that broke off on my model earlier) because that still prevents it being fitted on the posts.

I also got my set of T49 links in, so I could add one to the hull front, together with some more spare tracks and that odd little mat visible in some photos of the real tank. Also, I put a piece of brass rod on the hull front, on which a spare wheel could be mounted (but wasn’t on this tank):

[ATTACH]429247[/ATTACH]

[Guest]

Just had an interesting read through, you certainly know loads about these and it shows.

[Guest]

Thanks And yeah, I know rather more about this kind of thing than may be considered absolutely necessary … It gets especially bad when I want to build a model of a real vehicle, like here