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Tasca Sherman III

Stowage, priming, painting, and marking To match the pictures of the real tank I added some scratch-made gun cleaning rods to the brackets on the rear of the turret (made with Evergreen rod), along with a bag from the spares box (Tamiya, I think?) and two British-style tankers’ helmets bodged by filing down the flanges of some old Tamiya German helmets. Sure, they’re not perfect, but they’ll do.

Down on the hull I added a fuel can (from the venerable Italeri set) and made a tarp from PVA glue and tissue. I took a scrap of .030” plastic and added some other scraps to form a small “load”, pinned the tissue to the hull by gluing this “load” in place, and after it set I started the process of folding the tissue over and adding glue thinned with water. While it was wet I added a spare road wheel from the kit – it doesn’t look very secure but that’s where it is in the pictures! The best part was whittling a tin wash basin from some quarter-inch Plastruct rod.

The one thing I forgot to add was an empty periscope holder in the Commander’s hatch. I cut off the ends of a kit periscope and super-glued it in after all the painting was finished.

Painting
Painting started with a base coat of Tamiya’s olive drab XF-62, which is a touch too green for most US subjects (to my eye) but is fine as a base for British “OD” SCC 15. Then, I mixed up some “scale OD” by adding about 20% Dark Yellow XF-60 and hit the highlights. A further dollop of Dark Yellow was added and the edges of the hull and turret-top “corners” got a very highlighted hit. A light dusting of thinned Earth added some dust below the sponsons.

The sharp-eyed among you will have noticed that the kit has British markings, while I need Canadian ones. Since I plan to model several tanks from this regiment I splashed out on some Archer transfers for the AoS and Formation signs as well as Registration numbers so I could piece together the necessary “T-229994” on each side. I’ll no doubt use some of the Tasca decals in other projects.

While I added some shipping stencils (again from Archer) I resisted adding the yellow square squadron symbol on the rear or the bridging plate on the front since I couldn’t really see them in the photos. Adding rub-down markings can be a challenge – it took me six hours to do all the numbers etc! However, the results are excellent. To blend them in I went back to the spray booth to add a “fade” coat of thinned OD and scale OD over the markings, followed by even more Earth “dust”. Now all it needed was loads of details painted, before the real weathering began!

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About the Author

About Tom Cromwell (barkingdigger)
FROM: ENGLAND - EAST ANGLIA, UNITED KINGDOM

A Yank living overseas on a long-term basis, I've been building tanks since the early '70s. I relish the challenges of older kits (remember when Tamiya was "new"?...) because I love to scratch-build.


Comments

Great work, Tom, thanks for sharing!
JUL 24, 2011 - 07:55 AM
Hi Tom, Cracking build with and excellent finish. Congrats you have a real gem here. Enjoyed the build story very infomrative. Al
JUL 24, 2011 - 08:04 AM
Good work on this one Tom with some intersting details added.
JUL 26, 2011 - 05:39 PM
Tom, congrats on another great one form you! the scribing on the sponsons is first class. Cheers! Stefan
JUL 31, 2011 - 12:12 AM
Tom, thanks for sharing your build with us. Outstanding your "assembly guide". Did I interpreted it correctly. You show a "re-furbished" SHERMAN III with cast DV hoods that was upgrade by the so-called "Blitz Program", i.e. applique armor, and M34A1 mantlet! Outstanding work! Cheers Hauke Krapf
AUG 05, 2011 - 09:02 AM
Hauke, Yes - it definitely looks to have been refurbished at some point. The applique armour, wide mantlet, and MG stowage brackets on the turret are late features, but the sun compass bracket tells me the turret was used in the Africa campaign. I have no other detail - just what can be seen in the three original photos. But then that's half the fun! Tom
AUG 06, 2011 - 05:39 AM
Very comprehensive review, Tom. Makes me wish I wasn't putting a stop to my WWII era. Maybe I'll try to fit one in as a "waiting for the glue to set and paint to dry" kit.
AUG 06, 2011 - 05:53 AM
Tom, That is artistry. What a wonderful job you did mate. Thank you for taking the time to walk us through. Cheers, Stu
SEP 11, 2011 - 02:10 AM