You've made good progress Peter. The Sherman does look quite a challenge. Not a good advert for Milicast.
peter's 1/72 scale D-Day diorama. (Greof's D-Day GB)
- Thread starter Peter Gillson
- Start date
Looking forward to its coming together blimy milicast have shot themselves in the foot with that one ok not a easy subject to model taking the casting difficulties into account but still you'd have thought they'd have said no we can't produce this to the standard we require it just looks like a home made effort. I'm sure your try and redeem it with the paint job somehow never good when something like that always puts a slight dampner on the enthusiasm for the project. Dave
Moving at a great speed Peter LCPV look nice
Coming on well Peter. Millicast originally made stuff in white metal so I wonder if that’s one of the older models.
Watching closely Peter. 
I'm honoured you think my Omaha Landing model worthy of a sort of reference 'blimp'!
Ron
I'm honoured you think my Omaha Landing model worthy of a sort of reference 'blimp'!
Ron
Slight change today - I put aside the Milicast Sherman and decided to work on the Airfix sherman on to which I am going to add the deep wading trunking.
Finding any scale drawings proved more difficult than I expected; i had resigned myself to having to scale some off of photos but fortunately a search of the WWW located a photo of the etched brass trunking for a 1/35 kit. i took a screenshot of this, saved it and inserted the photo into a Word document. This photo was then reduced in size until it was about 1/72 scale. I printed it and by comparing the print to the Airfix kit i established it needed slight tweaking. Just ot be sure i produced 4 very slightly different sizes:
Having decided which was the one to use i cut out the whole photo and stuck it to a piece of thin plastic and started cutting out the actual shapes.
the next stage went all wrong - the bits were far too fiddly, would not stay square; a bit if a mess so I: gave up and ordered two Unimodel Kits:
View attachment 511097
hopefully they will arrive next week.
Finding any scale drawings proved more difficult than I expected; i had resigned myself to having to scale some off of photos but fortunately a search of the WWW located a photo of the etched brass trunking for a 1/35 kit. i took a screenshot of this, saved it and inserted the photo into a Word document. This photo was then reduced in size until it was about 1/72 scale. I printed it and by comparing the print to the Airfix kit i established it needed slight tweaking. Just ot be sure i produced 4 very slightly different sizes:
Having decided which was the one to use i cut out the whole photo and stuck it to a piece of thin plastic and started cutting out the actual shapes.
the next stage went all wrong - the bits were far too fiddly, would not stay square; a bit if a mess so I: gave up and ordered two Unimodel Kits:
View attachment 511097
hopefully they will arrive next week.
Attachments
This now means that I have a1/72 Sherman tank to find a use for. Like Baldrick I have a cunning plan - to scratch build and fit a DD screen so I can have a DD tank in the sea as well as the Milicaste version on the shoreline.
more to follow ...
Jacko - the casting of the tracks on the Milicaste kit is not good so I will place it on the edge of the water, in about knee deepwater.
Peter
more to follow ...
Jacko - the casting of the tracks on the Milicaste kit is not good so I will place it on the edge of the water, in about knee deepwater.
Peter
Great idea. Sorry it didn’t work those UM models can be fiddly too sometimes.
G
That’ll hide most problems with it very nicely, yep
Really interesting to see how you're working around the problems you're having and how this build is going to evolve.
Hi guys
a productive evening yesterday and a large chunk of today; working on the swimming Sherman conversion.
first step to turn the Airfix She, into a waterline version by cutting in half just above the tracks and adding the 'skirt' - far easier to adda single flat sheet of plastic. This will be well below the waterline.
Next was to build the screen. Looking at photos, the screen is held in shape by three horizontal metal supports so these woudl also be the main structural supports for my version. I found some nice drawings (plan and elevations) on the WWW and using the method above I pasted these into word and scaled them to 1/72. Using the plan as s guide I bent some piano wire to the shape of the horizontal supports. a bit of thin tin sheet was cut to the shape (a little larger then needed) andglued to the supports. The skirt is held up by a number of vertical tubes which are inflated using air from two compressed air tanks; these were made from lengths of plastic rod. the tin sheet was used to make the top part of the skirt.
next some liquid filler will be used to tidy up the joins. I think i will paint the tank and the screed seperately and join them when painted
Peter
a productive evening yesterday and a large chunk of today; working on the swimming Sherman conversion.
first step to turn the Airfix She, into a waterline version by cutting in half just above the tracks and adding the 'skirt' - far easier to adda single flat sheet of plastic. This will be well below the waterline.
Next was to build the screen. Looking at photos, the screen is held in shape by three horizontal metal supports so these woudl also be the main structural supports for my version. I found some nice drawings (plan and elevations) on the WWW and using the method above I pasted these into word and scaled them to 1/72. Using the plan as s guide I bent some piano wire to the shape of the horizontal supports. a bit of thin tin sheet was cut to the shape (a little larger then needed) andglued to the supports. The skirt is held up by a number of vertical tubes which are inflated using air from two compressed air tanks; these were made from lengths of plastic rod. the tin sheet was used to make the top part of the skirt.
next some liquid filler will be used to tidy up the joins. I think i will paint the tank and the screed seperately and join them when painted
Peter
This arrived in the post today (actually a pair of them did)
Lee is correct - these kits are a bit fiddly; look at the instuctions to see how many parts go into building the wheel units:
8 parts! and one of those is etched brass! Although they do provide a little jig to bend the brass:
I fixed it to an off-cut of card to make it easier to hold.
i think this will take a lot longer than the Pegasus Higgins Boat.
Peter
Lee is correct - these kits are a bit fiddly; look at the instuctions to see how many parts go into building the wheel units:
8 parts! and one of those is etched brass! Although they do provide a little jig to bend the brass:
I fixed it to an off-cut of card to make it easier to hold.
i think this will take a lot longer than the Pegasus Higgins Boat.
Peter
Lovely work so far Peter :thumb2:
Geoff.
Geoff.
That Sherman conversion is superb! Very nicely done.
Peter as you probably know I build a lot of the 72nd stuff by Ukrainian manufacturers I'll be honest their not all that some are stinkers but with plenty of dry fitting and as the late Simon T would have said a fair bit of fettleing (I call it paintence) they build up in to great little models plus subject matter is endless 35er 's would die for some it. As you pointed out 35th build reduced to 72nd its all there l+ltracks ,etch ,what else could a man want hope you enjoy it . Dave
I am late to the party Peter with this one. Just had a full read through the post. A very interesting diorama you have chosen to do and you have made excellent progress to date. Following with interest,
G
I built one UM kit in my life, of one of their M10 tank destroyers that has the same lower hull and suspension as this kit, and I kind of thought one was enough
This kit does give you a good number of options, though. I see an M4A2 engine deck and hull rear as well as the equivalents for an M4A3, what I assume are two styles of roadwheels and drive sprockets, different types of gun mantlet and even parts for a 17-pounder gun (don’t use that, it was never fitted to the M4A2 and though it did exist on the M4A3, those were made for the US Army and almost certainly never actually fielded). Why are there two different parts for the area around the drivers’ hatches, though? It’s hard to see the difference between them, but I guess there must be some?Andreas - I was surprised by the number of parts; tempted to cheat and add the air vent to an Airfix kit!
David - the modern 1/72 (dragon etc) are a world away from the likes of Airfix, really are mini-1/35. I have for a long time wanted to build all of Hobart's funnies but put off by the cost and space of 1/35, perhaps in 1/72?who knows?
Steve - Welcome
Jakko - this is definately designed to be used as the basis for other kits. i know virtually nothing about the M4 and variants so cannot add anything of value.
i dislike cleaning single link tracks in 1/35 and really did not enjoy the single links here.
at the moment all of the vehicles are part built, to the stage where they are finished except fo the delicate bits that can be knocked off, this is becasue the next stage is to finalise the composition. Out comes a flat bit of board, the paper towel represents the sea and the strips of paper mark out where the diorama will end:
Imay move the Higgins boat down a little and chop some of it off. There is a bit of artistic license in the positioning of the Sherman DD; the beach sloped quite gently and where it is in relation to the edge of the water (paper towel) means that its running gear would have been on the sand so the skirt would have probably been lowers since it would not have been swimming. Since i do not want a really long diorsma i am settleing for artistic license.
i plan to have the figures having exited the Higgins boat. Rushing forward and some taking shelter behind the damaged |serman, some running past. Some more figures following the Sherman out of the LCM(3) with a few sheltering behind the anti tank obstacles - perhaps around 30 figures in all.
I plan to do no further work on this for the next 2 or 3 days, other than play about with the composition.
David - the modern 1/72 (dragon etc) are a world away from the likes of Airfix, really are mini-1/35. I have for a long time wanted to build all of Hobart's funnies but put off by the cost and space of 1/35, perhaps in 1/72?who knows?
Steve - Welcome
Jakko - this is definately designed to be used as the basis for other kits. i know virtually nothing about the M4 and variants so cannot add anything of value.
i dislike cleaning single link tracks in 1/35 and really did not enjoy the single links here.
at the moment all of the vehicles are part built, to the stage where they are finished except fo the delicate bits that can be knocked off, this is becasue the next stage is to finalise the composition. Out comes a flat bit of board, the paper towel represents the sea and the strips of paper mark out where the diorama will end:
Imay move the Higgins boat down a little and chop some of it off. There is a bit of artistic license in the positioning of the Sherman DD; the beach sloped quite gently and where it is in relation to the edge of the water (paper towel) means that its running gear would have been on the sand so the skirt would have probably been lowers since it would not have been swimming. Since i do not want a really long diorsma i am settleing for artistic license.
i plan to have the figures having exited the Higgins boat. Rushing forward and some taking shelter behind the damaged |serman, some running past. Some more figures following the Sherman out of the LCM(3) with a few sheltering behind the anti tank obstacles - perhaps around 30 figures in all.
I plan to do no further work on this for the next 2 or 3 days, other than play about with the composition.
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