Wow I'm ecstatic that this build has returned, can't wait for the next update!

Really, really impressive. Can I ask, where did you get all measurements etc. required for the build?

Welcome back... to you and snuggles. Hope you have gotten your bearings aligned and are progressing along. I have not forgotten the E8 waiting in the wings.

i am so happy I found this build. the scratch building is just, well what I dream of doing. So if you do not mind I plan on using this to repeat all or sum of the work you done here. I love adding detail but I suffer from the SQU's (pronounced screws) Self Queen Undone. But I have recently returned to the hobby (over the last several years) and now starting to really build things.
any suggestions you can give would be helpful for me since I never really done much scratch building.
the work is excellent and I hop I learn a lot. keep it up while I follow along in amazement and hopfully not frustrated but I find this fun. So carry on

A blast from the past... Now go out to the shed and get your little blue knife from all the motor bike stuff and pick this one back up.

I'm new to the party here. What an amazing thread. You have some real scratch skills. I hope to see your future progress on this soon.

It might be that General Steel casted the hull like that. Just the way they cut the master.

Once your done the lower hull, you should make sesin copies of it through mold making rubber.
I'd buy one. )

Man, talk about a blast from the past... I started over, back with page 1, just to get in the mood again.
This thread is so old, SK has gone to the great food bowl in the sky, we've moved, and I haven't built (or even started) a Sherman in well over a year.

If you are talking about that round hole in the rear of the tank highlighted in the square??? That is where you insert the engine crank. Applies only to radial engined Shermans. If it has been a bit since the engine has been run you (and two or three of your best friends) will need to turn the engine over a number of times using the crank.

Engine oil will have accumulated in the lower cylinders of the radial and if you simply try to start the engine as-is you stand a fair chance of blowing the cylinder head off one or more of the lower pistons.

That is why you often see, in old movies, the flight crew of a B 17 or 24 doing the "propeller walk", using the propellers to turn the radial engines over to redistribute the engine oil before starting.

Or maybe you were referring to something else in the photo. In which case, as Gilda would say, "never mind".