Hi all,

Ok, here is the start of a new project. I have been wanting to build this tank ever since i saw the profile in Concords "US Armored Funnies" by Zaloga.


here is the pile of stuff for this build.... The objective was to use as much of what I had in the sherman parts box as possible, and i just happened to have a taymia M4 upper hull, turret sprue, and one other sprue. Several folks on Armorama supplied some more items in need (Many thanks!), and then I robbed a old DML M4A1 for some more.



Thus far I have:
Upper Hull--- Taymia
Turret --- Taymia M4 early or DML from M4A1 kit
Boggies-- DML from M4A1 kit
wheels -- DML, pressed wheel
tracks --- DML indy rubber chevron T48 tracks (unless i get some new dragon styryne ones)
Lower hull --- either taymia or DML
Dozer-- Trakz resin kit
Eduard PE for taymia M4
bits of Aber PE
wading trunks -- modified Italeri...or something else? (scratch maybe)
Decals from Bison
Detail bits, tools, etc from various (academy, etc)

im also going to have to scratch the mounts for the T40 wiz bang launcher on the turret, which ever turret i go with.

One question....anybody know if the 70th TB tanks used the 3 peice transmision or the cast one?
Andy

Without a photo, one can't say if it was a one piece or three. Most likely a single piece. Avoid the DML turret -- use the nice Tamiya one instead.

Good luck to you Andy. I'm doing an M4A4 with dozer -- using the Resicast one and having to replace some of the chunkier parts. Ah well

Hi Andy,

Isn't there an issue with the Tamiya M4 early upper hull angle?

Look forwared to the build, always wanted to do a Dozer.

Al

wow impressive its ambitious il give you that =]

keep it up i cant wait to see this build !

im following this with intereast!

Not the slope; everything else is wrong. They based the glacis on an M4A4 hull, so the shape of the driver's hoods, antenna pot, and weld seam pattern are wrong for an M4. The antenna pot needs to be removed entirely and a new one made from plastic tubing, and the corners of the driver's hoods need considerable filing to round off the the shape; the DML Sherman III kits (NOT Tarawa!) have more correctly shaped castings. The welds all over the tank need to be filled in, as the beads are all raised on the Sherman. I'm with Roy; go for the late single-piece trans cover. The Tamiya piece could use some texturing and casting numbers added. Actually, a lot of casting numbers can be added; the Sherman was festooned with them everywhere.

Did some work over the weekend. I ended up using the Taymia M4A3 hull (which is the same in the M4 kit anyway), and im not concerned about the accuracy of the underside, as I plan on mounting the finished model on a base anyway.

I went with a early cast nose from Academy M10 kit, as I saw several pictures with M4s with this style nose, and thought it would be a nice change from the usual. However the dozer will cover most of it up, and ive now discovered that the dozer is molded to fit the later style “sharp” cast nose…so I may have to modify the dozer parts a bit (later).

After attaching the nose, I put on the plates behind the drive sprocket, which as you can see don’t exactly line up with the nose (I don’t think they do on the taymia “late” cast nose either). Simple fix was to ream out the hole that the axle slips through, and cut off the peg on the rear so the whole plate can slide up just a bit. A very small gap is between the plate and nose, but that is later filled with some plastic strip.

Before and after shots:





You may see in the background some of the bogies assembled. I stole these from Dragons new M4A1 76mm, as they are very nicely detailed and assemble easy. I will use skids from Aber PE set, and drill the missing holes at the front of each unit. More on that later…

Speaking of tranny covers (differential cover), I have yet to decide which bolt style I should use. I have the early exposed bolts from Dragons M4A1 early, and several sets of the recessed bolts. Im leaning toward the recessed bolts



Continuing work on the lower hull, I mounted the rear plate and bits from the taymia kit. I did shave off the handle from the engine access doors, to be replaced with wire in the near future. I had originally built and detailed the air cleaners, but then realized that the exhaust trunking will completely cover them so no point in mounting them or detailing any of the area up under the hull.





Ok, now for the upper hull….as Greg pointed out, the welds are horrible. I was starting to wonder as pictures I found I could not see any seams or welds on the front plate. So I cut some plastic strip and laid it into the bead, spread Tenax over it, then shaped and pushed it into the grove using a small flat-head screwdriver. I haven’t test painted yet, but im hoping that they will look just like the flowing flush style welds on a sherman. Now it sounds like I may be rebuilding a antenna pot too…hey, that’s what modeling is all about.



Well that is it for now. Maybe tonight will bring some more time behind the bench…
Andy

thanks for the comments Greg. Im not a sherman expert, as I have just now started building them on a more regular basis, with the new Dragon kits peaking my interest in shermans.

I didnt realize what a varaety and subtile differences there are between all the different types, and how important it is to find pictures of the specfic one your modeling as each is its own character. I am now on the hunt for the M4 sherman walk around....or some other good sherman pics.

thanks for the suggestion on using the Late nose, however I had already glued on the early cast nose by the time i read the posts...and though it is probally fine, the dozer blade brackets may need to be modified a bit to fit it right.

speaking of the pot, do you have some good pictures of the mods needed? and im i correct about the welds on the front plate? seems from the few clear pics i have, there are no welds crossing over the front plate, but its one peice of armor plate.

more work done on the front end…thanks to the posts here, I started looking closer at the front end and decided to replace the antenna pot. Cut off the taymia one , filed area smooth. I made a new one from some tube (a 1/48 scale rockeye bomb from monogram), a bit of plastic sheet punched with a hole puncher, and another part shaped to form the lip around the hull/tube join.



Note that the tube was inserted through the hull in the hull (enlarged with a file after cutting the old mount off). Much easier to do this than try to cut the tube at an angle to match the hull slope. The lip around the mount ended up being a tad small…a mis measurement on my part, and not noticed until after I glued it on, and cut the hole. Oh well, it still looks good, and is pretty darn close.

I also rounded the gunner and driver hoods a bit. Still not 100% accurate, but after I put on the laminate armor plate, wont be that noticeable (I think).



Just need to clean up those weld lines, add the plate, and finish off some details for the front end. At least its starting to look like a M4 front end instead of a M4A4!

Comments welcome!
Andy

its looking good so far...nice to see your becomng a sherma-holic =P
i cant wait to see it finished !

Andy: by replacing the squashed glacis antenna pot of the Tamiya M4 Sherman, that formally propels you into the realm of Shermanaholism! Do not pass GO, do not have to replace tons of recessed weld seams, do not have to add PE light guards -- YOU da man!

Roy and James, thanks to you both...
next time i do a M4 (and im already eyeing another picture of one I want to do), ill probally get a Formations or Legends hull (any comments on either?) But since this was a "use up the parts on hand" build, and to keep it low cost, it was a nice exercise to do a little scratch builidng.

ya know something i just noticed...looks like the antenna pot on the profile in the concord book is missing...

well with a long weekend, im hoping to finish off the bogies and rear end...maybe even get the upper and lower hull mounted!
Andy

Roy, do you have pics of your build? id love to see them... you can email me direct if you wish..
[email protected]

That'll be the plan over the holiday weekend. I've progressed very far. I'm using the Tasca Sherman V, a TWS 75mm turret, the Resicast M1 Dozer and a scratchbuild scarifier (what's that? See Zaloga's US Armored Funnies)

Hey Andy
Was it for you that I posted a pic of DT7 landing on Utah? If not, gimme a holler...
The glacis is shaping up mate. Nice work on the antenna pot, although if I had spotted this thread earlier I would have advised you to shift it up the glacis a little more. No matter... Is it possible to delete all the welds on the glacis, save for the seams running along the sides and bottom of each hood? The M4 were virtually seam-free save for the hoods, and sometimes the mount for the bow .30cal mg was a separate piece droppped in and welded.
I would also agree with the late sharp nose, as I have built Columbia Lou from 70TB and photo evidence would suggest that she had this type, but this wasn't exclusively for all 70TB tanks by any means.
Good luck on the project
Brad

more work done (actully, more than this, I just havent taken pictures yet).

Filled in the sponsons with .40 plastic card, glued the top and bottom hulls together, adn added the armor infront of the hoods, along with some new weld beads. with the new pot and filled weld lines, the glacis is looking far more like a M4 than what is in the raw kit.

Thanks for everybodies suggestion on the transmission housing...however it was too late! So the early one peice is what is being used...oh well...it will still look great.

almost time to start adding PE details and start work on the turret and plow

Brad, would you mind posting the pic here in this thread? I noticed something I would like to take comments on..

it looks like the road wheels may be the open spoke, cast type, and maybe not the pressed type seen in the profile...maybe?
thanks!
Andy

No worries Andy




Brad
Oh, and in addition, it DOES have the open spoked roadwheels and idlers. You can't see it in this still, but I just watched the footage and you can see the light sand on the other side of the tank through the spokes as the wheels rotate. Hope this helps!

thanks brad! Yeah, i was looking at those wheels in the still you posted and thought the shadows were a bit deep to be the pressed wheel type. Well...I assembled 3 of the 6 bogies, so ill be cutting out some roadwheels and adding the cast type! Guess that means i can save my Formations pressed steel idlers for another project as well.

thanks for the info and verification!

Great work there Andy!!!!
I love it.What thickness and shape of plastic did you use to fill in those weld seams?At first I was thinking of using half round stock and then texturing it but it looks like you used flat stock?Also, I noticed you removed the boogie skid plates,what will you replace these with?I had planned on using brass strips but you may have a better idea.
Anyhow,keep up the awesome work and please keep us posted on the progress with pics.
Ron.

Ron, I used .005" thick strips cut from a larger sheet on this one. Its thin enough that it softens completely when coated with some Tenax. The welds on the taymia M4 hull were not that deep. Now im looking at the M4A3 hull, and they are really deep on that one...you may want to go with the 1/2 round stock. Just as long as the plastic gets soft enough you can shove it down into the grove and then texture the surface a bit.

As far as the skids go, im using bogies from the M4A1 76mm (W) kit (operation cobra), and the skids are seperate parts. I plan on using the skids in the Aber PE set, but only because i have them around...you could use brass sheet just as easy. I will also add the bolt that hold the skid down. Dont does add a bit of detail.

Hey all,

Progress is creeping along… Bogies have been assembled, and as per photos and ____ viewing of the video clip, I went with open spoke cast type wheels, which meant I had to cut out the wheels of 3 bogies I had assembled prior to the picture. Oh well…not hard.

Added new skids from Aber PE set, and bolts cut from some leftover parts in the scrap box. To fit the dragon bogies to the taymia hull, I just had to remove a small locating tab on the back, and they fit like a charm.





Here is the beginnings of constructing the wading trunks. Close look at photos from Normandy shermans showed that the wading trunks were wider and of a slightly different style than what was in the Italeri USMC Sherman kit, so we scraped my original idea of using the stacks from that.
So I drew up some scale drawings in CAD to use as templates for the new stacks cut from sheet plastic. I just used the Mk I eyeball, as I had no dimension data. (if anybody wants a pdf, ill be happy to email them to you when I finish the drawings…still have to do the rear trunking)
I started the rear deck adaptor using .030 sheet, with a .010 lid, scored and bent, and reinforced with strip plastic. The trunks themselves will also be .010 sheet reinforced on the inside (out of sight) with strips of thicker plastic also. The lid was cut oversize and trimed to shape once the glue had dried.




Here is the start of the trunks themselves…



Ive started to assemble the main parts of the turret, and clean up the resin Dozer blade parts as well….next to masking canopy frames on airplanes, on of my least favorite chores!

So thus far, how many colors of plastic have we used?

Comments always welcome!
Andy

I don’t remember where I found this image, but it appears to be from the national archives. It is interesting that the second tank is a M4 Dozer Sherman…look close and you can see the controls cover going into the starboard headlight bracket, the very top of the center dozer hinge (under the coil of wire) and the dozer arm along the side (which is an odd color?)

There appears to be a little American flag on the driver’s armor too.



Great color for the canvas waterproofing around the mantlet, the color of the hull (note coat of dust…probably from the British countryside…no doubt washed off when they “splashed” in Normandy). The trailer is also interesting, and there appears to be a large star/full circle painted on the top! Note the color of the tools as well….green.

Looks like M-7 Priests in the background.

should have some new pics up by tomorrow... I have the forward trunk done, and the rear one about 90%.

been busy these last few weeks and not much time behind the bench!
Andy

well...i ran out of the house this morning with only the pictures of the dozer parts...totaly forgot the pics of the sherman itself! well...maybe tonight...but for now...

Here is the dozer parts cleaned up. Trax M1 dozer kit. decent, not a huge amount of detail, so ill be adding a lot of the missing finer details.





And here is a bug-a-boo i will have to fix. Looks like the mold failed or wasnt filled in around the part correctly, so i have a blob of resin around this bracket. The whole thing will come off and ill have to scratch a new bracket.


thats it for now...comments welcome!

That is looking great Andy!
I like your work on the stacks.
You know I have that colour plate floating around here somewhere, but never scrutinised it enough to realise it was a 'dozer... The different colour on the arm almost looks like it is a strip of timber hung there with wire for some sort of protection? Although I imagine it wouldn't have been that fragile yeah?
Keep up the good work
Brad