¹⁄35

Tamiya M26 Dragon Wagon and M4 Sherman

Cab

The production of the M26 started back in early December 2002.The kit was built was built in sub sections and all I can say it was a pleasure to build. Once building the kit components in sub section process was complete I moved onto adding the photo etch. The detailing began with the chassis with the airline wiring. I know this was not seen but I wanted the build to start from the ground up. The cab section had evergreen strip glued to the windows with the wiring, window clips and washer fittings glued into position.

The royal model etch in step 2 of the instructions covers extra detailing of torches, fire extinguishers, resin 50cal box holder s to mention a few .The 50 cal box holders are duplicated in the Eduard set but I opted for the Royal model holders because it was better detailed. It was at this time where I added the wiring for the roof light. I found the jerry can holders on the chassis wheel arch needed a little sanding. Some converting between the royal model and Eduard sets was done to make the 2 Jerry can holders.

The plastic drivers panel had the plastic dials removed with an Xacto blade No11 and re-glued back onto the photo etch panel by Royal. They also give you etch buttons but I preferred to use the plastic ones because they sat higher and gave better presentation of the dials. It was at this point I glued the photo etch keys into position. The commander’s plastic table got replaced with a photo etch one. Fine wire was added for the airline gear assembly which ran off the steering column, once again it may not have been seen clearly but I wanted to replicate it as close as I could get it.

The complete engine cover had been replaced with metal rod and photo etch between both the royal model and Eduard etch and wiring for the air horns. Nothing was spared and everything was used. Evergreen strip and rod had been used on the rear interior wall. The resin Royal model resin jerry cans had been slightly bigger to fit on the rear wall so I replaced that with an Academy jerrycan from the spares box.

Moving to the outside of the cab I looked at detailing the front and top sections of the can. Evergreen rod was inserted and glued into position for the headlight guards. The photo etch was bent around the plastic headlight guard to get the profile and then the rods had been glued into place. The interior of the lights had been painted with silver and MV lenses had been used for all three lights on the front of the cab.

I removed the locking levers from the plastic armoured window shutters and reused onto the photo etch windows along with some fine rod to show the window locked into position. The searchlights on the back had been modified with wing nuts etch and MV lenses. I painted the inside of the searchlight with Humbrol No11 silver and then used blue tac to cover and protect during the painting process. The gun ring mount was scratchbuilt with Royal etch and evergreen rod. I used a Verlinden 50 cal with Eduard etch, Aber ammo tray and box with Mission Models 50 cal links.

The next stage was to tackle the winch assembly .The first thing was the winch ropes needed to be replaced with a wire colour .The thread was wound onto the winch drums and with about 35-40mm left for the end connectors to be glue on. Black ink was then dropped onto the reels and left to seep all the way through the thread. This was then left to allow me to high light with a metal colour and leave a depth like appearance to the tow ropes. The winch assembly needs a lot of detailing .The linkages for the gears had been a huge challenge. Nuts and bolts punched out of evergreen card helped detail the winch assembly along with the full complement of etch Royal model etch and resin gear lever knobs in section 14 of the instructions.

The pioneer mounts got made up out of photo etch and the kit’s pioneer tools had been converted to fit the mounts. The pioneer mounts had been left off and painted separately. All the fittings molded on top of the cab had been removed and replaced with etch from both the Royal and Eduard sets with adding air lines to the rear axles and the winch grease pipes and photo etch chain covers.