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Forums - Modelling / Construction |
The construction forum is for the discussion of techniques on the construction phase of AFV modelling and the tools and materials used. |
| Topics | 1870 |
| Messages | 8613 |
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| Subject: | Re: M4 DV Ports - scratch-building recommendations |  |
| Date: | Jan 5, 2007 |
| From: | Rob Ervin | |
Charlie,
I will try to not make this a paid political statement in favor of my Formations M4A1 hull:) When I did the master for the kit I first made a cut under the front of the hatch openings on a Dragon M4A1 hull that extended back about 3/4 of the way under the hatch openings. I then cut out squares for the openings for the direct vision doors. I then made the plates that represent the vision slits and the armored doors them self from sheet platstic, then established the placement relative to the remaining plastic parts and afixed the vision slits. The remaninder was maid from Apoxy Sculpt epoxy putty, then I matched the texture of all the parts with thinned laquer glazing putty. The steps are very similar to what Steve Zaloga did in his Osprey book that Roy mentions. Steve also built my M4A1 DV kit in this book. The work on the hull front took me approximately 10 hours. It's not an extremely dificult conversion, but if it's one of your first attempts of this type it can be a little tricky in points. There are great pictures of a DV M4A1 in Tom Gannon's Israeli Sherman book from Darlington. I will also agree with Roy that the Chesapeake hull is an excellent M4A2 DV. And to answer your question of should you just buy the Formations hull. My answer is will you enjoy the conversion and expand your modeling skills by doing so? If you answer yes, go for it. If not then the $25 for my hull will probably save you several hours of modeling time. Hope this helps,
Rob Ervin
Formations |
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