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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 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 the latch bars on the hatch.
I thought I had a new bulkhead made as well, basically I duplicated the layout of the TWS piece but made it to fit the hull. The shape is fine and fits very nicely with both the upper and lower hulls, but when I tried to test-fit the engine in the compartment it seems the cutout for the gearbox and generators isn't big enough as you can see in the top-right photo. I have a fresh blank for another try ready to go, but I decided to wait until additional research material arrives in a few days to start detailing it.
Another size issue cropped up with the radiators as well. The CMD ones are a perfect fit for the hull, but lack interior detail. The TWS ones have the fan housings, but are far too small and lack the exterior detail. What I am planning on doing is just using the fan housings from the TWS pieces and move those over to the CMD radiators. They test fit ok for now, I'll decide for sure when the new photos arrive and I can see how close they are to reality. If they work, I'll also add something in there to represent the actual fan blades too.
If you look closely you can also see that I started adding additional bolt details around the transmission, I'll also have to add the bolts on the inside of the hull for some of the bogie units as well. The engine itself went together without any problems, thankfully.
Progress is still slower than I would like, but once I get the bulkhead issue worked out things will start to speed up hopefully. I've also decided on the tracks, and have a set of AFV Club T-51's on the way. I think I'll be snagging a Tamiya Early M-4 to donate the sand shields and it's extra set of drive sprockets. |
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