El Alamein Sherman III DV with full interior |
| By Hans Haase |
| Started: | Oct 2, 2005 | | Updated: | Mar 23, 2006 |
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I had been planning a Sherman III for quite a while, and buying bits and pieces over time for the build. Most of my inspiration came from a photo on British Pathe of a tank named Bacchus, with an unusually placed and unusually large name on the rear plate.
When I saw James Wechsler do his excellent Sherman III over the past few weeks, I was pushed over the edge to do my own. Thankfully, Chesapeake Models Designs made an appearance at the recent AMPS East with the hull I was looking for.
I have a feeling this will be a long and arduous process, just from the sheer count of resin sets I need to coordinate, but I really can't wait to get into it.
-Hans Haase
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| Chapter 21 - Finished | Mar 23, 2006 |
And thus, a very satisfying build comes to a close. Bacchus has now been placed permanently onto its base and joined by its finished crew. For more pictures, check my website at www.siegecraft.us I have a bunch of larger and more detailed pictures up there for you to see and enjoy.
Thanks for all... more |
| Chapter 20 - The Crew | Mar 21, 2006 |
| Any good tank needs a crew, and here is the 5 men that run Bacchus. Three are from the excellent Resicast tank crew set, and the other two from an OK pair by Verlinden. Unfortunately the Verlinden heads stunk, especially compared the the much better Resicast products. So I ended up picking up the... more |
| Chapter 19 - Diorama | Feb 16, 2006 |
| The base is finished and painted now. Pink home insulation sheet with plaster of paris for the texture. I tried for the early morning sand look, where the cold can make the surface a bit crunchy and chunky when broken through. I'll do some closeups of that in the future, but it does look like the... more |
| Chapter 18 - Markings and the fiddly bits | Jan 26, 2006 |
Ok, few more parts added here to the 'ole Sherman. The Formation early .50 cal is a very nice piece, and the antennai have also appeared. The type and lengths match both the origin photos and multiple other sources.
One thing I learned long ago from figure modelling is the art of 'pinning'.... more |
| Chapter 17 - Major Assembly Completed | Jan 4, 2006 |
Here now is the finished major assembly of the tank. Tracks are installed as they will be displayed, hatches on... everything but the crew and stowage are on the tank now. Decals are turning into a bit of a sticking point, as I basically need to come up with a full custom decal sheet for this tank.
The... more |
| Chapter 16 - Base Camouflage Coats | Dec 27, 2005 |
And here is the finished base coats of camo on the hull. I know I'm jumping around a bit, I'm still getting used to keeping a log of the build.
The green color is Gunze 'Dark Green', which matches up almost perfectly to the color chips in Mike Starmers books. As mentioned in... more |
| Chapter 15 - Tracks and Hatches | Dec 23, 2005 |
| Time to keep making progress. The tracks are the AFV Club T-51's. I'm not 100% sure if I should have used the T-51 tracks or the earlier T-41. Both are plain rubber block, which is what the tank in question shows, but I just can't tell which of the two the tank uses. It's very... more |
| Chapter 14 - Turret Interior finished | Dec 4, 2005 |
| I found some of the 'lost' images of the turret interior just prior to sealing it all up. Since the lighting will be so poor when looking through the hatches, I ended up roughing things up a bit more than normal to give the extra contrast for visibility. As far as detail is concerned, the... more |
| Chapter 13 - Base coat and marking the camouflage | Dec 2, 2005 |
| Well, I had planned on showing how I did the basecoat.... but lost the pictures in a terrible 'wrong button' incident. I basically used the same method as James Weschler in his build though, so you can also look at his pictures. The initial paint coat was in a dark brown, overcoated with... more |
| Chapter 12 - Suspension and a couple other goodies | Nov 28, 2005 |
| One thing that folks seem to be curious about is the TMD suspension. Looks great, cleanup is a real pain in the behind. Though it's probably unavoidable due to the design of the M3 suspension system. Other than the return roller, it assembles like most other DML/Italeri style bogie units. But... more |
| Chapter 11 - Main Hull: Ready for paint | Nov 26, 2005 |
| This segment was actually quite fun and satisfying. Like the stowage strips along the side, I decided to scratch build the stowage rack on the starboard side fender. I understand now the urge to scratch things rather than buy them. The end result may not be perfect, but it's all my own work rather... more |
| Chapter 10 - Turret: Ready for paint | Nov 24, 2005 |
Ahhhh, progress. Here is the turret, finished and ready for paint (Hatches, Ma Deuce and Antennas to come later). The turret basket was shown already a few chapters back, so no need to bring that up again yet until the turret interior is all painted.
This was a bit more work than expected. The... more |
| Chapter 9 - Fenders, Sand Skirts & Stowage Strips | Nov 22, 2005 |
| Finally great to get the upper hull attached and call the hull interior finished. While I know there are still challenges coming up, it no longer feels like a chore and I'm happy with how the interior looks for this purpose. Other than a couple styrene strips at the very rear edge of the sponsons,... more |
| Chapter 8 - Engine Compartment Finished | Nov 14, 2005 |
Finally, progress is going along smoothly and some big milestones have been passed. Here is the finished, assembled, plumbed and painted engine compartment.
Most of my references show the engine painted a darker color than the interior, and a few color photos of recent vintage show what I believe... more |
| Chapter 7 - Fighting compartment finished | Nov 5, 2005 |
Well, after a long and stressfull couple of weeks that involved a flooded basement, car problems and a swarm of yellowjackets moving into my modelling desk... I have finally got more progress.
Here is the painted and finished lower hull fighting compartment. I added some stencils from fingerprint... more |
| Chapter 6 - On to the turret | Oct 14, 2005 |
Finally, an easy part. The turret basket assembly basically went together exactly per the instructions. While the details are a bit soft in parts, it is mostly accurate from what I have seen so far.
The gun breech is only fair quality. You have to supply and bend your own rods for the breech... more |
| Chapter 5 - More interior | Oct 12, 2005 |
This time, some real progress finally. I finally managed to get some references that showed that annoying bulkhead and engine compartment properly. Once I had that, I could finally make an accurate piece and get moving at normal speed. Once I got going, things just started falling into place nicely.
Here... more |
| Chapter 4 - Interior Progress | Oct 9, 2005 |
| Sometimes you need to make a decision. I finally found the full combat history of the intended tank, and I've reached my frustration limit on this interior. So I've been able to both decide on how I want to display the finished product, and I've decided that I'm not going to go... more |
| Chapter 3 - More interior problems | Oct 8, 2005 |
| Slowly, progress is being made. Here you can see the newly made floor panel for the crew compartment. Not hard really, just trim some .010 styrene to shape and cut a hole for the escape hatch. The drivers floor area and hatch came from the original TWS flooring and I added some thin wire to replace... more |
| Chapter 2 - Starting the interior | Oct 7, 2005 |
Well, it doesn't take long until you run into the first problems when you start combining so many aftermarket products.
I started off by test fitting the most critical joints and most important parts. The upper and lower hulls took just a quickie cleanup of some molding flash, the same with... more |
| Chapter 1 - Rounding up the parts for the build | Oct 2, 2005 |
Here is the initial parts list, which at least will get me going for now, though more pieces will be needed eventually such as tracks, drive sprockets and other minor bits and pieces. The current plans are for some small maintenance vignette, subject to change.
Chesapeake Model Designs:
* M4A2... more |
