Today I began work on my first Sherman ever. I started with Tasca's M4A3 76(W) in the hopes of it being a pretty straight forward build in addition to a very enjoyable first Sherman kit.

I intended it to be out of the box but there were a few things I wanted to use, like Archer's cast numbers, so I tried them out on the transmission housing. But before I used these I felt like the casting on the transmission housing wasn't rough enough so I used Mr. Surfacer 500 to roughen it up a bit.




From here, I applied some future to the spot where I would place the casting numbers and applied them as we would any decals.



SO at the end of a few hours work I couldnt help but do a little mock up with a fair amount of masking tape.




But I end with two things...can anyone tell me if I should use this barrel for the hull mounted .30cal? It's way too long and I dont mind boring out the kit gun to do so, but the barrel is just so nice.




And the last thing...I just got some goodies in, so once the actual LAV-A2 kit comes in, I will be returning back to modern armor for a bit



And last but not least, I finally got a hold of one of these. If anyone hasn't built a piece of modern armor, I suggest one get Blast's T-72M turret. It is one of the best castings I have ever seen and I will do my best to do it justice.



Well until tomorrow!

Thank you for looking

Sean

I would definitely use the am mg barrel. You should be able to cut it off just after the mount pin with a dremel tool. It seems like it should fit in the housing with a little patience and a fair amount of glue. Never was much for Shermans, but I'll keep my eye on this one.

Great start on the Shermie, Sean. The casting looks nice too. What AM barrel are you using?

As for the MG barrel, I would probably use it if I had it. Probably wouldn't buy it for this kit but if you don't have any other uses. I wouldn't worry too much about the lenght, you can adjust it when attaching it to the model.

Cheers!
Stefan

Don't have to cut the barrel to length. Just superglue it to the armored collar at the correct length.

I'll be watching this one, as I'm just waiting on a few AM items to show up before I start my own build.

Looking good Sean
The casting numbers will make her *pop*. The extra roughing you added is not overdone, and should paint up well. Make certain to remove that small thin seam line around the turret pistol port.
Brad

Nice work so far. I really like your idea of using that brass .30 cal barrel. Archer numbers look good too. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.