discussion Greg's 1/48 Tamiya Sherman Firefly

[Greg_147]

Hello all,

I'll be having a crack at a 1/48 Firefly for this build. It doesn't look like there's a lot to the kit, but it comes with a metal hull which is a nice addition. It also screws to the upper hull, so it looks like I can build both separately and just screw them together as and when I need to, which is quite handy.

In the interest of using up spare parts from the kit-box, I'll also be doing some crew members and a small display base. I'll be doing the tank with hatches open, so depending on if the crew are in them or not I may end up scratch-building some form of interior.

 

[A_J_Rimmer]

Excellent choice!

 

[Jim R]

A metal hull - that's unusual. I like 1/48, seems a nice compromise scale.

 

[Guest]

The early Tamiya 1:48 kits have a die-cast hull, which IIRC was intended to give the kits a more realistic weight. Not my cup of tea, but I think I read the more recent ones have plastic hulls but a metal plate to put into it to give the same effect.

 

[Geoffers]

Nice Greg, good luck with your build :thumb2:

Geoff.

 

[Lee Drennen]

Very nice I’ll be watching this one I need to get this one for my collection.

 

[Lee Drennen]

metal plate

Most of the ones I have are half rounds. Not plates.

 

[Guest]

Ah, that was it, then — a metal weight, anyway

 

[Greg_147]

So I've made a start, and it's gone together quite well so far. The hull doesn't have a huge amount of steps, but a lot of the parts are going to be additions once the paint is done. I'm also leaving the running gear and tracks until later; as the upper hull just screws off, it should make painting the sections much easier.









The first main issue was the hatches - all of them have injector marks on the inside, which is no good as I want to have 3/4 of the hatches open. So out comes the putty, and hopefully it should look less obvious once painted.

 

[A_J_Rimmer]

Great start Greg, that looks to have gone together well.

I assume you're having to glue parts to the metal hull with CA glue or similar?

 

[Guest]

That goes together a lot faster than its 1:35 scale counterparts, that’s for sure

 

[scottie3158]

That looks like a nice kit, the detail looks nice and sharp.

 

[Geoffers]

Nice start Greg :thumb2:

Injector pin marks are annoying and not something I would associate with Tamiya . Hopefully the putty treatment will do the trick.

Geoff

 

[Greg_147]

I assume you're having to glue parts to the metal hull with CA glue or similar?

Indeed, standard super glue seems to have done the job so far!


A bit more work has been done on this one. One of the problems the Tamiya kits seems to have is that the hull ends over the tracks, which lets a of light in and looks quite obvious. Not idea if the hatches are going to be open!



So my fix has been to cut a couple of strips of cardboard and superglue them in place on the interior. Crude, but it does the job!




Much better!



Next up the running gear:



And then some primer. One Firefly, ready for the first coat.

 

[Guest]

Those open sponsons were a misfeature of Tamiya 1:35 scale tank kits from the 1960s through the 1990s at least, and just when they started to release new kits that actually had them closed, they do it again in 1:48 scale …! The normal solution was to glue some plastic card in, but paper card will work just fine too. Everything is better than those open sponsons floors.

 

[papa 695]

Very nice work indeed Greg. Just pulled up my chair.

 

[Andy T]

Looking good Greg. Nice fix with the added strips.

 

[A_J_Rimmer]

Wow! That does look nice. The cardboard was a good idea, I blocked mine in with plasticard.

 

[Greg_147]

I've been away for a bit, but have had a chance to press on with this over the last couple of days. First step was to airbrush everything with some olive drab:





Next was some weathering on the hull. I used Mig oilbrushers, and then some textured earth. It was then given a light spray of deck-tan mixed with flat earth.



And then the tracks went on:





The next bit was the barrel camouflage. I cut out a pattern with some masking tape and spray painted the end of the barrel white. From looking at pics, this pattern was normally fairly rough, so I think this method is okay and came out better than I was expecting.





And there we are. Next steps will be weathering the upper hull, and then working on the crew.

 

[Guest]

And you were doing so well until you started painting the barrel white That was only done from late December of 1944, according to Mike Starmer’s book on British Army camouflage.