discussion Jakko’s Sherman BARV

[boatman]

WELL Jakko ive never seen this on a sherman an is this a sherman that floats ?
chrisb

 

[Guest]

Bit much when manufacturers can't get it right, quick enough to take your money .
Great work on the cat walks.

Talk to AA....

 

[Guest]

Jakko,
Just caught up on your BARV.
Ref the catwalks, I would expect that there should have been a supporting length on the inner side to prevent the catwalk itself from collapsing or being bent out of shape, after all not all members of the crews were blade of grass fed ballerinas, I imagine that some of them in boots duffel coats and what was worn underneath weighed quite a bit.
The Bumper looks like it does not fit any Sherman hull profile, how could they mess the fitting up? Would it not have been better for you to cut off the offending part and then add a piece of plasticard and then prifile it from one of your other Shemans and fit it that way.
Anyway watching with interest on this interesting subject.

 

[Guest]

ive never seen this on a sherman an is this a sherman that floats ?

No, the British version of those looked like this:

View attachment 515045

This is a Sherman DD, for Duplex Drive. Here with the screen up, from the front instead of the rear:

View attachment 515046

Or the American solution, the T6 flotation device:

View attachment 515047

The BARV is a Beach Armoured Recovery Vehicle, intended to push and tow stuck vehicles out of the water, and to push beached landing craft back into it. The whole tank was waterproofed, with the tall superstructure allowing it to wade into quite deep water. They were developed specifically for use in Normandy, but remained in service for much longer than that, until eventually replaced by the Centurion BARV in the 1960s, if I recall correctly.

Ref the catwalks, I would expect that there should have been a supporting length on the inner side to prevent the catwalk itself from collapsing or being bent out of shape

There was indeed, lengths of T-profile along the whole length except where the fuel filler cap is. Resicast omitted that except at the front and rear, and they also left out the vertical parts of the T-profile, of course.

The Bumper looks like it does not fit any Sherman hull profile, how could they mess the fitting up?

It does fit the three-piece nose, really. Not as well as it could perhaps, but I attribute that to resin shrinkage, which would give it a slightly smaller radius than it should have to fit properly.

Would it not have been better for you to cut off the offending part and then add a piece of plasticard and then prifile it from one of your other Shemans and fit it that way.

I did wonder if I would have to build it that way, but really, all that was needed here was to cut off a triangular bit at the top, and then fill and redo the weld. It was easy enough to work out what to remove by holding the support to the side of the transmission housing.

 

[Guest]

Slowly creeping forward … I started on the ropes along the sides, which the conversion set gives you resin rings for, but I thought they were a bit small so I made some myself:

View attachment 515366

Copper wire wrapped around a drill bit, cut into rings, and then pressed flat with the back of the knife handle. I had to do the cutting on a hard surface (the glazed tile they’re on) with a pointed knife, and it still wasn’t very easy, but I’ve got plenty for both sides — this is slightly over half I made, so including some spare.

I then superglued them to the right side of the hull, but because I’m afraid they’ll break off easily, I continued with the rope once the glue had set:

View attachment 515365

This because I can then glue the rope to the hull, or at least the knots in it, which will protect the rings better from breaking off.

After the deception of the 3D-printed tracks, I remembered that I should have a half-built set of T54E1s by the recently gone-under Panda Plastics, somewhere, for a model that I never finished. And indeed:

View attachment 515367

One track and a half, that I can easily finish sometime soon. For the other model, I’ll buy that upcoming set from Gecko at some point.

 

[boatman]

LOOKS a nice job Jakko very instresting
chrisb

 

[scottie3158]

Coming on nicely.

 

[Jim R]

That's a good solution for the tracks. You're not waiting on Gecko.
Side rope looks good.

Or the American solution, the T6 flotation device:

Never seen that before. Strange thing.

 

[Guest]

That's a good solution for the tracks. You're not waiting on Gecko.

No, I figured that doing that might mean the model won’t get finished before the year is out.

Never seen that [T6] before. Strange thing.

It was the American solution to making tanks float, but without the drawback of the British DD tank which couldn’t use its gun until ashore. They made similar things for the M18 76-mm gun motor carriage and, IIRC, even for the T26 heavy tank.

 

[Waspie]

Oooops!! Missed this build. :surprised: Going back to page one fer a catch up. This looks interesting!!

 

[Steve Ski]

Missed this one myself, catching up, Jakko. Having never heard of this version, it's impressive the amount of resin and PE available for this. Excellent conversion taking place here, Ruck On!

 

[Waspie]

Caught up now. Wow Jakko you have done some amazing stuff there. Making your own welds!! That's a new one I'll have to file away for the future.
I'll try and keep up with this now.

 

[Guest]

Having never heard of this version

It was in fairly limited use, mainly on the beach in Normandy but they did see use later on in and after the war, too. The Canadians built an equivalent on a Ram chassis and the Australians on an M3 medium tank, but both remained just as one-off prototypes, unlike the Sherman one of which something like a hundred were built. As I said in an earlier post, they were eventually replaced by a Centurion-based version:

View attachment 515393

That, in turn, was replaced by two different Leopard 1-based ones. Here’s the British model, used by the Royal Marines:

View attachment 515394

And the Dutch one, used by the Korps Mariniers:

View attachment 515395

it's impressive the amount of resin and PE available for this. Excellent conversion taking place here

Thanks. It’s quite an extensive conversion, but far less involved than you’d think at first sight. Mostly, it’s getting the superstructure to fit right, and after that most of the real work is in the splash plates and the catwalks. I had expected it to be more difficult to put together, really.

you have done some amazing stuff there. Making your own welds!! That's a new one I'll have to file away for the future.

Thanks, though making welds isn’t actually that difficult, if your putty cooperates, anyway I normally use filler putty from a tube, putting little bits of it into a line to make much subtler welds than here, but the BARV didn’t have subtle welds and that type of putty doesn’t want to stick well to resin anyway, so it wouldn’t have worked well.

 

[papa 695]

Coming along very nicely Jakko.

 

[Guest]

I added the remaining small details:

View attachment 515683View attachment 515684

Here, chiefly the stuff on the forward superstructure roof, like the aerial mounts, the fire extinguishers, the spare tracks, etc. The conversion kit gives you extinguishers, spare track links, and the rack to put them in, but I used different ones. The resin extinguishers are simply to big both in length and diameter, so I used Asuka ones, which are slightly too short (but not as much as the Resicast ones are too long) but the correct diameter. The track links you get are a different type than I’ll fit, else I wouldn’t have replaced them, and the plastic rack is just a bit finer.

View attachment 515685

At the back, I added the folding plate with tread pattern (oddly, you don’t get a part to build it in the up position) and the ladder, for which you get the etched parts but have to find the plastic rod for the steps yourself. I also added two tiny bits of strip as stops, else the ladder could not realistically fold down (but I just realised I got them wrong …). Also, I had to build a replacement bit to the snatch block, because it turned out that if you glue the two rings to the block, you can’t fit it over its stowage hooks — the real one has swivelling rings, of course, so that probably did fit easily enough. I had glued the rings on first, and the hooks to the model, and only then discovered this … Trying to cut the large ring free, part of the block broke off and went flying into oblivion. I heard to tick a couple of times against things in my hobby room, but couldn’t find it anymore Also, the handholds from copper wire glued into holes I drilled (and at the front as well).

And with that, I think the build is finished:

View attachment 515686

Other than the tracks, but I’ll only finish those after I’ve glued the bogies to the hull, else it’ll be hard to judge the correct length.

 

[Steven000]

Looks like a very clean build, nice details, well done :thumb2:

 

[Guest]

Thanks After I correct the ladder’s stops (hopefully without breaking it off) I can start painting …

 

[scottie3158]

Jakko, that looks great mate.

 

[David Lovell]

Excellent looks brilliant proves the point you only get out what your prepared to put in well done sir. Dave

 

[Guest]

Thanks You’re right, David, I could have built it straight from the box(es), but then it would have all kinds of minor inaccuracies that would keep niggling at the back of my mind

This afternoon I put a coat of primer on it:

View attachment 515733

Mr. Primer Surfacer 1000 from an aerosol can, to be precise. I’ll go over it with a very similar light grey colour as the actual paint, even though I could probably have painted the whole thing with this primer and used it as a base coat. But spraying the bogies and especially the wheels like this feels like a tremendous waste of paint, so I’ll get the airbrush out for another grey coat of Tamiya acrylics.