Folks,
What are available after-market products to correct many inaccuracies of infamous Academy M551 Sheridan kit? Let me know. Somehow, I am drawn to the challenge of taking on the awful kit.

Friulmodel metal tracks is one

Legend LF1104 Sheridan Accessory Set

Nothing out there to correct the accuracy problems with the kit sadly. Fruil tracks will correct the kit tracks other than that you are forced to do all the work yourself....

OK, sounds like a big scratch-building project... Just found a couple of Eduard PE sets and hopefully, they'll help. Thanks!

james

Ive found this very helpfull

http://strony.aster.pl/vodnik/pages/Academy_Sheridan/sheridan.htm

regards
chris

Thanks Chris. Yeah, I've read Vodnik's review before- very comprehensive, and it inspired me to work on Sheridan. The review is posted here on Armorama also.

Hi James
What you also need is a Tamiya turret. There is a Tamiya kit for sale on e bay for 'bout USD 25 now.
I'm actually kit bashing my old Tamiya & Academy ODS version together. I did not managed to get the Eduard PE set but downloaded their instruction & scratch built most of the stuffs. Lots of pics & video of this vehicle on the www too.
Check out my post on the Vietnam forum.
Have fun..........

I've recently picked up a couple books on the M551. One is by Zaloga and the other by our friend Doyle. (both pretty good books, but I think I like Doyles best as I found some errors in the other. Anyway I got to looking at the drawings (I have no idea what scale Doyle used, but maybe it's 1/48th) in the books, and the turret is different than Tamiya's, and yet similar in ways as well. The Acadamey kit is closer in shape to the one in Doyle's book (leastwise with my antique eyeballs). A bout a year or so ago I came into some resin stuff for the M551, and it's pretty accurate (it's the complete upper hull assembly including turret. This turret is correct to Doyle's drawings, and the upper hull half appears correct as well. I have no idea who made them, and the turret looks like somebody else made it.

Jaguar sells a resin track set that looks very nice (i've now snatched up two of them, and looking for two more). Tobe be exact Jaguar also sells a complete kit that is the best out there as I write this. AEF sells the ACAV type turret assembly seperatly, but will need a little work to bring it up to speed. I wish somebody would come out with a photo etched sheet of extruded aluminum; as many Sheridans had this tach welded to the top of the engine grates (note: not screen wire!)

The turret bustle rack in the photos is a 25th infantry track. That particular style is something almost everyone of their Sheridans had. But for anyother unit you could do just about anything and get by with it. I only wish that Zaloga and Doyle would and included photos from other units like the 1/4th and 1/1st just to give the masses a few more options to choose from. Lastly keep in mind that a lot of Sheridans did not have the so called ACAV turret added to the main turret
gary

Nothing. The kit looks like a Sheridan from a parallel universe. Academy was hung over from TGIF when they designed it. That said, with a lot of work you might be able to make it about 40 to 50 percent accurate with what's out there. A passable Sheridan can be made... but only just.

But it does build easily, and it's amusing to try and improve it. I'd recommend Pawel Krupowicz's review where he goes into photographic detail to show the modeler what he might be up against.