Well had a couple days off and got some more work done on Academy's M10 GMC.. as stated before this one is going to be a winter 44' -45 ' one a little muddy.. maybe a bit whitewashed.. (not sure on that yet)...



part 2 of fighting compartment... added the ammo tubes..what a pain.. 32 of em and they all have to line up.....mostly.. thank goodness for superglue..

some people have mentioned that there is a bad fit around the engine compartment mostly dealing getting the firewall lined up so that the hull will sit flat.. I didn't find this to be true on mine .. carefull fitting and everything went in and was level.. no extra cutting or sanding needed..

. although there is a minor gap.. very small between the sides of the interier engine compartment and the firewall..but thats prob because I did something wrong somewhere...

but since i won't be putting in a engine this won't show or matter much. ammo tubes are testors od green and drybrushed with brown pastels.. radio drybrushed with steel and lightly washed with black.

Just a question -with the water bottles are they held by a bar or what to attach them to the side wall

They are hooked onto tie-downs. In many photos, the tiedowns are covered by the canteens, so in a model, the canteens can be glued right to the wall without adding the tie-downs.

This was easily the number 2 thing that I disliked (no...thats not accurate: "got frustrated on" - I loved the kit). It got to the point that I didn't use all of the tubes (and it doesn't show either - even the detailing eye would miss that.





Well if the ammo tubes were number two source of frustration, then this takes the number one thing that gave me a run for my money. I think I tracked the problem down to the firewall and the guideline molded onto the lower hull showing you where to glue the firewall to the lower hull. The guide lines, it seemed want the firewall to be put at an (slight) angle thus slanting the upper hull enough that it seemed to cause the rear hull plate to not fit right.

What you did, careful test fitting, is the only way I can think of remeding the problem before it happens,

But these two problems were the ONLY fit problems I encountered worth mentioning - the ones not worth mentioning are due to "modelling error" and not "model error"

Best of luck in finishing a beautiful model. Oh and as for whitewash vs. mud, do both. Have a very faded whitewash with mud from rough terrain and melting snow.

Jeff

thanks for the comments.....I've heard a lot of good and a lot of bad about the kit so far and personally I find it to be pretty good.. at the moment..

and if I had it to do over I think i would use less of the ammo tubes instead of trying to get them all in..lol but thats me....

Yep I find some carefull dry fit can solve many problems.. as for the firewall in the kit.. I didn't exactly put it agaist the moulded on guide on the chassis floor.. I got enough of the body built so that I could put the upper hull in place and moved the firewall a tiny tad forward of where they had the guide placed.. it just looks like that is the position it should go in. and the small gap created in the engine bay will not be visible at all...

Looks very good! Any fitting problems so far? I heard the ammo tubes give problems with the Academy M36 kit....same thing here or not?

Martin

there are some slight fit problems with some of my ammo tubes but I think its more of a fit problem due to inexperience... I think when I do them again I will do much better..

The ammo tubes on the front halves are pretty good as I glued them together as a unit with the 2 bulkhead peices.. then added the rear tubes to the assembly... the slight fit problems are where the rear tubes meet the firewall very fiddly getting them lined up in there.

I think if I did it again i'd follow the suggestion to leave a few of the inner ones off... as they can't be seen.. as it is my few little uh'oh's on them will be fairly well hidden once the upper hull is on....

and even though most of the inner area will be hard to see once the model is completed.. I like to do it just because I know its there.........lol.......