When I reviewed Tasca's new M4a1, my intention was to start this Blog as a supplement to the review. I've got the first two sub-assemblies finished. Firstly, the Hull-tub. This is one of the best-engineered i've ever seen. It comes in seven parts and just goes together with the minimum of hassle (and yes, I noticed the gap as well... ):









Moving onto the drive wheels, sprockets and suspension units. The latter are fiddly to build - the instructions suggest NOT gluing many of parts, and, yes, doing this, the suspension DOES work. Each suspension unit consists of ELEVEN parts (plus three strips of rubber to put inside) althey they are fiddly, once you get the trick of them they're easy enough... As I don't like smooth wheels, I use some fine wet 'n dry paper to 'roughen' them slightly - this causes a LOT of dust on the unit - they'll be getting a thorough wash before they're assembled.







Next stage will be the drive housing and the rear hull details.

Meanwhile, all comments/suggestions welcome

The (in-box) Review can be seen:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/review/2817

All I can say: looks great!!

the details on the bogies look very crisp, me likey

Even the top skid (two types supplied) are as close to scale as you can get in plastic. I don't know if the bogies originate from Tasca's suspension sets - possibly they do. What I will say is that there are NOW three superlative M4s on the market - this, Tasca's Firefly and DML's M4a2(s) virtually everything else...

Jim, good to see you getting some time to sniff glue... looking forward to see this one progress.

Cheers
Henk

A little more done yesterday. The lower hull gets a bit more work with the transmission cover and the rear of the lower hull.

Beginning with the transmission cover, I went for the earlier three-piece bolted cover (pure aesthetics, I love these bolted transmission covers )
Now, I may change it, but having broken one of the kit's shackles, I replaced them with a couple of (British-style) shackles from the DML Sherman III. Not entirely sure these were EVER seen on U.S. M4s but I liked the form of them... :









The rear engine compartment still needs the exhaust mufflers adding (and the shackles):





Dry-fitting the transmission cover to the lower-hull:





More (hopefully) this weekend...

Great work so far Jim,

Expecting a lot from this kit so will be interesting to see it go together, so far it looks excellent. Great to see they have formed the parts like the real thing with bolt holes and the works, excellent for showing a knockd out or undergoing repairs variant. Other manufacturers should take note!

Keep up the good work,

James

Just about to start mine! Dan

Nice going Jim. I saddown and raced through half of my darn build in half an afternoon!!
Have you added the shackles to the rear yet? Removed and cleaned mine up fine, but when stretching them over the clevices they both snapped clean in two... AND the spare pair...
Have to say that the idler arm and assembly is the best yet, with simple, effective use of parts to create adjustable idler wheel positioning, and with deep interlocking parts to have a strength for attaching tracks...
I'm yet to tackle the suspension though
Brad

This kit is not just 'well-designed' , it's absolutely superlative. Every time you move onto a different section, you find just one more attention to detail..Impressive..

Off to a great start Jim, keep it going.

Looks like a great kit,can't wait for my "pe-order" to arrive!

Having been inspired (shamed? ) by the progress that Brad (HONEYCUT) has been doing on his M4a1, I got a few hours in yesterday. The suspension is now complete. The rear hull still has a few details to add and i've begun adding detail to the hull. I'll probably rename this thread so I don't have 3-4 blogs running at the same time.

It's pretty much OOB, the only additional work i've done so far is to improve the banding round the rear (square) mufflers. Apart from that, I spent a (smelly) hour or so with Mr- Surfacer to improve the texture of the castings. A great product but use it in a VERY well-ventilated room...

I haven't actually glued the upper hull to the lower hull yet, but test-fitting it gave me a VERY pleasant surprise. The fit is unbelievable. It fits like a dream over the sponsons and slides perfectly into the front transmission cover.

So, here are the latest photos of the build:

Progressing well Jim!
Have to say that I wish I had laid on more Mr. Surfacer initially, because once the primer went on I could see that a little more was required (for MY taste) and it doesn't adhere well to paint, but more reacts with the bare plastic of the kit surface. Looks like you have a sufficient amount though.
Would like to reiterate just how well the upper and lower hull mated together...
One thing of note, is that if one chooses the round style air cleaners, you should align the bottom casing so that both sides are identical, (with the band on the underside running the same diagonal angle for both) not mirror images.
Oh, and if you haven't already Jim, attach part G12 to the hatch rim firstly, then add the hatch to it afterwards. Don't make my mistake which multiplied the fixing fiddle factor...

Jim and Brad, I used a set of Formations round air cleaners that I had laying around-I had a hard time getting rid of the seam on the kit parts. Dan