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Modeller Build Logs
M8 HMC |
| By Michael Bedard | | Started: | Nov 14, 2007 | | Updated: | Nov 2, 2008 |
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I received the Tiger Model Designs M8 HMC on October 17, 2007 (a day after my birthday) from Saul Garcia. I was surprised to see how large a box the kit comes in considering the size of the vehicle. The box was packed with several resin cast parts, AFV Club styrene parts, a CD from Toadman, large instruction booklet plus an extra set of tracks and decals that Saul threw in for giggles. My first impression is the amount and quality of the resin castings. The instructions are more comprehensive than any other resin kit I have ever seen. Reading through the instructions one gets the feeling that the owner and master-builder have put together an extraordinary kit but apologize for it not being ‘perfect’. The booklet points out several areas that the initial build came across as points to be aware of when building the kit. Just the instructions alone are a marvel in the resin kit business. As I proceed with the BLOG I may come across points in construction or detail that others may want to be aware. Hopefully this BLOG will inspire others to purchase this extraordinary resin kit and/or help with their own build.
I won’t go through the history of the vehicle or review of the kit since Saul has already posted this on track-link. I will be using as reference for the build past articles in Military Modelling by Steve Zaloga and Cookie Seawell, Osprey books on the Stuart (along with Steve Zaloga’s Modeling book on the Stuart), Hunnicutt’s book on light tanks and my own reference photos of a local M5A1 Stuart and Aberdeen’s M8. I may post some of these references along in the BLOG.
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| Upper Hull | Sep 4, 2008 |
After I started I bought the new AFV Club M5A1 which I have added for this comparison. The TMD kit has been an awesome build thus far. When I received the kit the first thing I did was match up the parts with line drawings supplied by Steve Zaloga in a past Military Modelling and his Osprey book on building the Stuart.
Right away it was evident that the master lengthened the Tamiya kit over the engine deck. This created the correct length overall but the angle at the front of the engine deck (pointed out by knife) is wrong angle. By shortening the original Tamiya hull they had to change the angles. Actually the rear is also off on length.
The new AFV Club upper hull seems to also be short and angles incorrect at the hull rear (pointed out by knife) at least when compared to the Zaloga drawings.
The only upper hull that matched all the upper hull drawings exactly was the Formations M5A1 resin hull.
As the photo shows the old Tamiya kit is really different than all the others (uppr left hull). |
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