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Tasca Sherman III

Construction

Starting with the transmission I found this went together extremely well, even compared to the new Dragon M7. The fit of parts is just painfully precise. And, the flanges where the real thing is bolted to the hull sides have a row of empty holes in case you want to try to model the housing removed from the tank – except without an inner face this would be an empty armoured shell. When I added the lugs for the towing shackles I noticed the joint will need to be blended in with a little Mr Surfacer or good-old glue stippling. And I had to add some appropriate foundry marks from the Archer casting symbols set (AR88007).

Next up I assembled the lower hull, and again the parts fit perfectly. (Other manufacturers should take note!) There are guide ridges that effectively create slots for panel edges to ensure exact fit, and in no time I had a fully 3-D hull tub. The gussets for the idler axles pull the rear corners tight, and the radiator screen assembly stiffens the whole box. My only grumble with this stage was that the little plates (B1) under the bogie mounts didn’t always fit perfectly. I didn’t install part J24 (a bridging strip for the lower edge of the transmission) because frankly it wasn’t needed or even visible.

After assembling the tub I dry-fitted the upper hull and transmission and was pleasantly surprised to see that there were absolutely no gaps at all. Tasca really did their engineering on these parts! And this despite substituting an upper hull from a different Tasca kit…

I started adding details to the upper hull as per the kit instructions with three exceptions. I didn’t open the mounting holes for tools on the rear plate (my model will have a “parcel shelf” here), I added the direct-vision visors, and I added “pads” under the front lifting loops from 0.010x0.080” strip. I added the flat covers for the grouser bins for want of information (the kit offers two different styles of vent too), but the whole rear deck will be covered in a tarpaulin so they won’t be seen. For the visors I used parts E11 and E12 from the lower hull sprue, and flaps (M23). I then added the appliqué armour plates referring to the photos to make sure they were in the right places. Note that this all but hides the visors…