I would recomend either an ott light or a halogen lamp for photographing inside.

Thanks for the tip....I'll give a halogen a shot next time. Here's some advancement.

scratch work on the main gun. I have to re-set the Mg...got it crooked

Details are looking good Neal, the scratch-built recoil guard fills the bill nicely.

Thanks Bill!

Slowly moving on....tons of stuff with the kids keeping me away, in fact, Mason hasn't even had a chance to start his Sherman. However, what's not shown in this pic is the basket that's under construction. since the kit didn't have one, I'm making one out of copper wire, plastic sheet and them putty to have the appearance of fabric. Speaking of wire, I learned that I should have just used one solid piece for the top recoil guard...lesson learned.

Starting to do some of the detail paintwork on the turret interior....

Fine tuning the interior paintwork....

And some interior weathering...

Just the right amount of weathering, too.

Neal, its looking good man! Im ready to see more.

Gary

Looking good Neal, almost ready to close 'er up and get to the exterior!

Thanks Bill! Doing just that....bottom of turret on. You see the collector basket which I scratch built from plastic sheet, wire and putty. It ended up being wider that it should have been, but when I built the recoil frame, that was too wide as well and the two had to match.

1st coat on the hull...

I feel like I've been slacking on the build...a ton of "life" stuff is getting in the way, however....

Any progress is good progress Neal, it's that time of year when things tend to pile up I guess.

Word to that Bill!

Here's a shot I took before getting ready to "fade" sections and paint on board accessories...note that I had some thickness problems with the paint over the etched grills that I had to scrape...

The first round of fading....I started very light with this round. I also decided to fix the grill issue when all spray work is done.

Very good progress on the build. You might want to try using a pin to move the paint off the PE grills rather than remove paint completely. Some of the problem will be caused by excess glue anyway.

S

Hello Neal,

Made alot of progress. looks good man! I agree with Steven on the pin trick on the grills. Ive had to do the same darn thing and more than once!

Gary

thanks guys...definitely going to use the pic trick.

Here, I've gone ahead and painted the rubber of the road wheels.

A couple of update shots...

Kinda moving forward...slowly...

Nice progress, Neal. I have a question about the tools. Are they all suposed to be acquired after the tank was deployed? If not, I believe they are painted the same color as the vehicle.

Valid point Matt

My plan is to have the tools appear well used...right to the point where the cover-over sand color is worn off and grease/grim/bare metal shows through the dust that will be liberally applied....same for the road wheel rubber. I'm trying to make this Panezr III a mate to my Panzer IV for the diorama....I did the same thing with that one...

All sides in the North African campaign had to deal with mechanical failures and frequent use of their tools. In many cases, crews helped other crews to expedite field mobility, so tools were used heavily.

Hello Neal,

She's a lookin good man! I personaly Like that you painted the tools in a used state. The desert is a harsh place to have to keep tools looking fresh. Keep it comeing Neal!!!

Gary