Got a new Dragon Sherman kit. Ordered from lucky model in Taiwan. The kit was 24 bucks plus 8 bucks shipping and I picked up a neat little photo etch tool to make handles and hinges for like 4 bucks.

I really dig this kit, I am on a Sherman kick for some reason. I really don't have much interest in German stuff, I have a Tiger half built but I just don't enjoy it as much as American stuff. I really want to do a Tasca firefly, but I cant see 60 plus bucks for a kit right now. There is a photo etch and resin kit for the Tasca Firefly 5C, that details out the A57 multibank and engine compartment. Info on the A57 Multibank( http://autospeed.com/cms/A_110704/article.html ) That would be a really cool build I think. That engine setup is nuts, I find it amusing the Brits used it in firefly's.

I am going to build this M4A3 (76) as the Tank of S/SGT. LAFAYETTE POOL, 32nd Armored Regiment, 3rd Armored Division, called In the Mood 3. The kit comes with markings and parts for in the Mood one. But I am building a later version using the turret parts for an oval hatch late model 76 turret with a threaded 76 barrel with the thread protector but no muzzle brake. The is not much info out there on his tanks so I figure his third was prolly a slightly updated model. I am also going to use Duck bills on the treads.

Pool was an amazing tanker. Check out this page about him.
http://www.3ad.com/history/wwll/pool.lafayette.htm

From the page:

"During a brief 83 days in combat in France, Belgium and Germany, Pool and his tank crew were credited with destroying 258 enemy vehicles, including tanks, self-propelled guns, and armored cars. He and his crew killed over 1,000 enemy soldiers and took over 250 prisoners."


This is the tool for handles and hinges

You can see the two cool 76MM shells made out of brass that came with it.

The turret so far.

I opened the parascope socket so I could rotate the loaders parascope to the side, you can see the masking tape on the face of the parascope.

Great start Jon, should build up to a good looking kit. Nice detail regarding the loader's periscope rotation, have not seen that done before. Always figured they were only forward looking to match where the main gun was pointed.

Thanks for sharing, keep plugging away...maybe you'll have a rekindled interest with finishing the Tiger to have them 'side by side'.

Cheers -
Tim

It seems to be a nice kit. I'm going to follow your build Jon.

I have this kit in my Stash and will build the1st Polish Armoured version included in the kit, (the "Flying Cow" - "Latająca krowa") one day.

Cheers

Paul

It's funny, Dragon went to the trouble to make them very detailed but the sockets for them in the two models I have built with them are set so they can only face forward. With just a little modification to the molds they could have them rotatable. I suppose its easy enough to trim them on your own. These are one of my favorite parts of these kits, tanks with the ports all shut look like ones in a museum.

I am really tempted to cut out one or two on my tamiya M26 and install some dragon ones.

On U.S. Tanks the round parascope like the ones I changes all rotate 360. On this model of Sherman the commanders hatch also rotated so the parascope had a full 360 as well.

Got much further on this build.

The suspension was fun, it all fit well and wasn't hard to clean up. It "works" but wasn't hard to build because of it. It is interesting how much stuff you add to the lower hull, a bunch of add on bulkheads and panels. I remember from back when I started doing this as a kid, if a kit had lots of stuff like that it was always a fit nightmare. These dragon kits fit very well even with all this stuff.

One thing to note on the suspension, the idler mounts are wrong in the directions and reversed from what they should be. I confirmed it with photos, and they only fit the right way. Other then that the suspension was a pleasure to build.

Another kit oddity, it has you use this awful bow machine gun from one of the old sherman sprues and its just uggly. But the kit comes with the very nice one from the E8, the has the hollow muzzle, and you just need to trim the tab off the back to make it fit. I can post a pic of the two parts if anyone wants to see.

I decided I was going to add the little fender stubs you see along the bottom of the hull sponsons. I think they look a bit big, but I think will look ok with paint. I added handles to the engine deck and drilled out the front tow points and added brass pins to replace the plastic ones. The little Griffon tool is nice so I am going to try and add handles to the inside of any hatches shown open.



Should start painting this week.

Did Pooles "In the Mood" have the Oval Loaders Hatch or the Split Hatch?

I could swear all the references were to the split hatch, but maybe I'm way off.

In the mood 1 for sure had the round, but as far as I can tell no photos are around for In the mood 2 or 3. I am going for 3 and guessing it would be a newer turret. Mostly because I wanted to build the newer turret since I had just done an E8 with the same turret.

Got the base olive drab on. Model master acrylic.

How's that Griffon folding tool working for you? I bought one and found it was a little too flimsy, so I bought a thick piece of styrene, taped the folding tools too it, and drilled out the holes, I found it easier to work with.

That's a good idea, its not perfect, but for 5 bucks or so I can't complain.

It is a bit of a pain to work with the thicker wires.

I think I will use your idea!

Good work Jon. Sorry I didn't see this earlier. DML made a few errors with this kit; the two fuel filler caps either side of the hatch on the engine deck shouldn't be there. Also the front fenders are the wrong pattern and should look like this



If it's too late to fix you can always add some stowage



Something that only came to light recently is that the engine deck handles on Shermans are loose and sit flat on the deck . To use them you pull them up. I've been adding handles to Shermans for years

I think a great job!

Pat
Thanks for the tips, I think I can just trim the fenders back and they should look pretty close right? (they are just taped on for paint, I didn't want to put them on before the tracks )

On the fuel fillers, in the images below I see 5 filler caps, one close to the turret ring, 2 right outside the gray Cover(what is that cover?)and then two more outside the two by the gray cover closest to the edge of the hull on both sides...

What ones do I remove?


Great kit, aweful instructions, they leave out the backs of the idlers.

These two

It works for me, I also made a second template and drilled larger sized holes.

I got around to trying to make a set of better front fenders.

I cut off the factory ones and added brass ones I modeled after Pat's image above.



I think they look ok for a first attempt.

I have the treads on from a M4A2 76 Russian kit to get them into shape for that kit. I think they look very good.

I will work on this one more once I get the rest of the lion roar stencils I ordered.

This one the stars are just a bit small. I can't wait to try them out though, I think they will look better then decals.

Nice build!
I didn't like Dragon's fender's either. I made a pattern for my Shaggy Dog M4A2/Sherman III build:

I print this out 1:1, glue it to .010 styrene, and cut out the parts. The rib is a piece of .03 Plastruct half round. I tried brass, aluminum cans, and lead foil, and the plastic solution seems to work best for me. If you want a pdf version drop me a line and I'll email it. It would be higher resolution than the jpg.
Here's how it come out:



The bolts heads should line up with the final drive housing pattern, but the DML part doesn't match the Army drawing I based my parts one exactly, but it's going to get covered with mud anyhow.



Again, nice work. I think you are right about MOOD3's configuration. Poole had the split door hatch switched over to the commander's side on MOOD2, but I think MOOD3, in which he was wounded, was the later type with the oval loader's hatch.

Mike Canaday