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Modeller Build Logs
Sherman III Early in North Africa |
| By James Wechsler | | Started: | Aug 13, 2005 | | Updated: | Sep 25, 2005 |
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A couple of weeks ago I wrote up a review here on Track-Link of the Legend Sherman III conversion set (LF 1096). I really liked the set and couldn’t wait to start on it. So I thought, why not do a blog to show how the build-up comes together? So here it is.
Up Next: What items am I going to use? |
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| Chapter 9 - The Suspension | Aug 23, 2005 |
The early M3 suspension included in the Legend conversion kit is a very nice set. It is a bit complex to assemble (more on this later) but it does appear to be accurate based on the references I have. The Legend set assumes you’ll use the road wheels and return rollers from the donor kit. The Dragon donor kit I’m using has two sets of road wheels, the open spoke type needed for this build and the stamped type seen more commonly on later Shermans. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have two sets of return rollers. I just couldn’t bring myself to sacrifice the very well done Dragon VVSS suspension just for the return rollers. Fortunately, I had an old Italeri VVSS set that I will be scrapping for the rocker arms so I decided to use these return rollers.
I figured it was probably a good move anyway since the Legend kit is designed for the Academy and Italeri return rollers (LF1097 is the sister kit for the Italeri Shermans and uses the same parts for the M3 suspension). Imagine my surprise when the return mounting pins for the return rollers were too big in diameter for the Italeri rollers. No big deal, I just got out the drill and opened up the holes in the rollers.
The other little item that is noted in the Legend instructions is that if your using the Italeri hull (and the Dragon hull fits in this category as well), you must remove the hull attachments from the back plate of the suspension. Hmmmm. Remove a large chunk of resin from a thin plate. Fortunately, the resin Legend uses is super soft and flexible. I was able to simply snip off these pieces with a sprue cutter. I also had to determine the reference distance from the bottom of the suspension back plate to the bottom of the hull so I could locate them properly later on in the build (once you cut off the fitting, there’s no reference pins or anything). I determined that the bottom of the suspension back plate should be 2mm below the bottom of the hull.
So after cleaning up all of the parts, it was time for me to start the assembly. Terry Ashley has a nice write up on the Perth Military Modeling Site (www.perthmilitarymodeling.com). In it he notes the issues to be considered in the assembly of these parts. By far, the biggest issue is that the Legend instructions show the rocker arm axle (part 45) as being the axle for the return roller! Legend really needs to fix this error.
I decided to do the assembly in a slightly different order than Terry’s write up. First, I glued the front return roller mounting support (part 46) to the front housing (part 41) and let it dry. I also glued the suspension springs (part 47) to the front housing as well. Then I slipped the return rollers on and glued the back plate (part 42) to the front housing (part 41). It turned out to be pretty simple and straight forward.
I decided to take a chance on the rocker arms. They have only a short stub for an axle and I got to thinking that maybe I could glue them together and slip the road wheels in after they dried. I figured that if this worked, I could paint the road wheels separately which is quite a bit easier. It did work! The Legend resin is soft enough to flex sufficiently to allow me to slip the road wheel in and out with ease.
Finally I glued the rocker arms to the housings making they are squared up.
Up Next: Front Hull Details
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