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Modeller Build Logs
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 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 the transmission housing. The transmission was glued in first, since the driving compartment really needs it for placement. (Bottom Right)
Then I moved onto the floor plates for the front and rear compartments, as well as the rear bulkhead for the crew compartment.... none of which fit. The engine floor was a touch too narrow, but test fitting showed that the gaps will be covered by the coolant tanks when they're glued in, so that one was put in with no real work needed. (not shown )
The crew floor, that's just a mess. Problem one was the way the pour plug was attached, which damaged the edges when I separated it all. It was also about 1/8" too narrow and 1/4" too long. Since there isn't much detail, I originally thought about simply cutting off the little bits of detail and attaching them straight to the hull floor. But I didn't want to mess up the hull when scribing the escape hatch, so I decided I need to make a replacement floor out of .010 styrene sheet instead which will give me room to mess up without ruining the hull. (Top Right)
Both the interior and the engine compartment came with bulkheads. The one from the interior isn't correct for an M4A2, but thankfully the one from the engine set is. BUT, it's too narrow and too short in just about every measurement, which means that one is probably a scratchbuilt replacement as well. To fit it into the lower hull, the hull also needs some of the molded in supports to be trimmed out, which was easy enough to do. (All but bottom right)
Hopefully there won't be too many parts needing replacement, but so far it doesn't look so good. I've already spotted a lot of areas on the interior that will need a lot of work, so it may be a longer build than expected.
-Hans
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