this build of his m3 grant kinda reminds me when i built tamiya's m3 lee and used bits of tamiya's m4 sherman kit to improve the m3 kit

I too had issues with Academy's M3 Lee w/interior upper hull. Actually, that is why it has been resigned to a permanent place in my stash.

It takes some work, but I think it'll come out nicely. No progress lately as I've had to devote bench time to my other project, plus... I ran out of rivets and need to resupply.

So... another project that had a 'timeline' kinda got in the way of this one. But it's coming back. Updates to follow in the next day or two when I can snap some pictures.

Nice! Jesse I was starting to wonder when you would get back to this one

HEY JESSE!!! Man, we were worried! How things with you buddy? Lookin' forward to some more progress on the M3.

Take care,
Gary

And we're back...

Today, the Black Dog resin stowage FINALLY showed up. It was already on order when I started this thread back in July of last year. I went through the pieces tonight, and it looks pretty solid.

Also, this build got me interested in also doing a M3 Lee. So with the help of some Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket, I bought some goodies from Formations including the M3 Lee turret. John and I had talked previously about using the Formations gun rotor to correct the Academy part on both the Lee and Grant. John was nice enough to send me an extra gun rotor to see if I could use it with the Academy piece. The answer is with about 20-30 mins of sanding, filing, and adding some more clearance on the Academy parts, YES!! I've now checked the Armored Brigade Models, Legends, Tamiya, and Formations gun rotors, and the ONLY one that is correct is the Formations piece with regard to the location of the barrel in relation to the center-line axis of the rotor.

Another thing I grabbed was the old Verlinden interior resin set, originally designed for the Tamiya kit. The biggest reason for this was that both Eduard and Academy skimped out on what they provide for the turret interior. The basket is pretty well detailed, but the turret itself is pretty bare. Verlinden fills that void nicely, and of course, has some nice parts to fill out the rest of the interior.

So what I've been spending my time with is going back through and picking and choosing which pieces I want to use... Academy, Verlinden, or Eduard through the interior.

I've also been doing a little work on the hull exterior, mostly just cleaning up previous work.

Ok, some pictures... not a lot of progress because I've been replacing some stuff I had previously installed, but it's moving along nicely now.

Here's the Formations rotor and Academy part. At the time of the photo, I had already sanded them down so they fit. As you can see (or NOT see), the modifications are very minor.



You can see at the bottom left of the opening in the Academy part where I've begun to clear out a notch. After I cut that out, I put the Formations gun rotor in, and then filled in the void space with some styrene strip. Sorry about the lack of photos this time. I'll try to get back in the groove.



Here's the Verlinden driver's seat. Somehow, I lost the academy seat back, so the Verlinden piece came to the rescue, and detailed with the Eduard seat belt.



Here's the interior right now...



And here's the Verlinden electrical generator with a little scratch built sheet metal 'duct' that led back into the firewall.




Here's the main gun canvas cover... I'm not sure if I want to use it or not. Thoughts?

Hey Jesse! nice choice of goodies and superb work making it fit together. For my part I like the way the canva dust protector looks. The weight of the fabric really shows, that is nice. Also we seldom see such a cover, so, it is somewhat original.

Phil.

Jesse;
Looking good so far. The added details are coming along well.
Keep up the great work. I'm not sure I like that type of 75mm
cover. I've seen slimmer, less bulky type before tho.
Question?,,, I know the kit comes with the lower turret basket guard, but does the kit have the actual upper turret basket as well.? The ammo boxes and interior additions look
great. Still waiting for more.
Todd

Hey Todd,

Thanks for checking in!

Terry has a pretty good review of the kit here, including photos of the sprues and some of the sub-assemblies built up:

http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/vehicles/academy/acd13212.html

Not sure what you mean by the 'upper' vs. 'lower' turret basket. Academy includes the 37mm turret including a full basket, and like the hull, I will be using a mixture of Verlinden, Eduard, and scratch to add some detail. The basket is actually nice in some respects to the Verlinden resin version.

Yeah, I'm still not sure on the 75mm cover. Then again, I'm not completely satisfied with my modifications to the gun rotor either, so we'll see. The nice thing is that there is really no modification needed to the Academy kit in order to make the canvas cover fit, which is a nice touch by Blackdog.

Because it's fun to see 'progress', I dry fitted all the sub assemblies to get a feel for what the overall is going to look like...

Your build is much better than the Academy kit that includes the interior. I believe they have the kit you are using as your base at my lhs. May have to trying matching your quality, some time in the future.

Hi Jesse,

Nice work, According to the stowage diagrams I have your 75mm shells are facing the wrong way. The rack should be sat on it's end with the heads of the shells facing the rear bulkhead.

Cheers

Al

Hi Alan, doing my research, I've found at least 3 different stowage "versions" for that particular ammo rack. There's the version you're referring to, a side mounted version that carried 37mm ammo, and a side mounted version that carried 75mm ammo.

For what it's worth, the stowage diagram you're referring to calls for 24 rounds of 75mm ammo. However, that space cannot fit 24 rounds in that area drawn like it is in the diagram:


The diagram is simply drawn at the wrong scale. Putting 24 rounds of 75mm ammo in the orientation they show would interfere with the hull where it notches down, where the tommy gun is located. Not to mention there would not be enough room to pull the rounds out of the locker in that orientation.

So I've decided that this particular iteration looks the best, and is at least somewhat accurate.

Hi Jesse,

Can you tell me what diagram you found the stowage on? You might have a bit of a problem if one of those rounds slid off .

Cheers

Al

Hi Al,



"On occasion you will find the smaller ammo bin [sponson mounted 21 round] turned or redesigned so the ammo rounds are accessible from the side, instead of the back, making the loader's job a bit less awkward."

The diagram is also a later version, as it shows the powered ventilator on the left side view port installed, which wasn't installed on the original versions.

Of course, the next sentence says that the Thompson ammo should be on the top, and not the side as I have depicted it. So I'll have to switch that tonight. Thanks for making me double check my references!

http://data3.primeportal.net/tanks/david_lueck/m3_lee/images/m3_lee_60_of_86.jpg

Here's the ~40 round version of the 37mm ammo rack.

There's also the Academy supplied version, with the drum ammo for the Thompson on the top.

And then if you look at something like David Doyle's AFVisuals on the M3, there's some photos from a Tech Manual on the last page, but you have to watch out, at at least a few are from the M3A4, with the multi-bank, which totally changes the interior layout as there's now an air cleaner where that ammo bin is located.

Hi Jesse,

Thanks, I just finished looking at my refs and I had the pic.

I used the AFV Stowage Diagrams by Barry Beldam for the Mk I.

Build is coming along nicely.

Cheers

Al

Thanks Al! It's been a process to try and nail down what is correct for Grants. Most of the reference, walk-arounds, etc are all Lee related.

The build has been fun. I'm excited to be focused on it again after finishing the previous build.

I'm also excited about doing a late M3 Lee, which is a future project based again off the Academy kit. At least with that one, I have ZERO plans for an interior. Should make it go much faster.

Jesse;
With the subs together temporarily. IT'S OF THE HOOK!!!!!
LOOKS AWESOME. In ref. to right sponson 75: I saw a pic with
rounds stacked front to rear w/ warhead FWD. HHMMM, Wonder
which is correct. Sometimes I just scratch my head with the kit manufacturing ways. You check layout, and it becomes obvious that it's dimensionally impossible.
Either way....you'll sort it out. Your progress has me sparked to build one as well. Cheers
Todd

Hey Todd! Thanks for stopping by. It's a fun build of a really interesting tank. Make sure to post some progress on your build.

Started on the turret basket last night. After reviewing my references, found another error with the Academy kit that I hadn't read about previously. The traversing motor is indexed incorrectly with the "open" part of the turret basket. In the picture below, you can see the raised 'rib' on the left, and how it's indexed compared to the Verlinden version. (Academy on right, Verlinden on left.) Verlinden's version is more correct, however, lacks some of the floor detail of the Academy piece, which I'll have to fix.




Fortunately, the Verlinden turret basket floor uses the same type of notch as Academy, so the Academy turret walls fit well. And then I started to detail the turret basket with some styrene and solder.




Thanks for looking!

As I mentioned previously, this build got me inspired to build a late M3 Lee. So I've been collecting parts for that. I picked up the Griffon model PE 'super pack', which includes a bunch of PE for the interior and exterior.

Since I'm NOT doing any interior on the Lee, now I'm looking through the Griffon set for what I can use on this build... and of course... there's some good stuff.

But it means more work, as usual.

I've also been spending some time reshaping the Academy turret slightly. It's not bad, but with a little help, it will only look better.

Photos to come...

Jesse, great work! I have been working on this same kit OOB, and it is amazing to see the improvements you have made! Thanks for sharing.

Nifty! Still following.....

Thomas, Russel, thanks for following!

More pictures in the following post.