I have been working on the Mirage M3 Grant Mk1 and intend to do it as a vehicle of the County of London Sharpshooters. The model is a nice kit and typical of Mirage's offerings, lots of parts and some photo-etch. The tracks are vinyl and look ok, but I will be replacing them with OKB early M3/M4 tracks which are more suitable for the vehicle I am representing. Here is the kit box to admire ...



I am following the instructions more or less as they are intended, so first up is the running gear, this is cleaned up and laid out ready for assembly...



There is a simple sequence of assembling the individual bogies that makes the process fairly painless...









Here is all the running gear assembled...



Next is making up the floor pan and attaching the running gear to it...







Next up is attaching the OKB tracks, I glued two lengths together to start and then, using an hair dryer, I formed a length around the sprocket and then took it along the return rollers. I then used the hair dryer to form it around the idler and finally the remaining lengths are glued to the road wheels and joined up on the underside (easier to hide the join with some terrain). The tracks are glued with ordinary super-glue, which works very well...







Next up is the superstructure, this requires some careful placement as the sloping plates must mate neatly. Here are the parts to make up the upper hull...



The hull parts are glued together and the gun barbette is fitted and I have used the excellent RB barrels metal barrel set for the M3 Grant/Lee...





The upper hull is attached to the lower hull and running gear...





The side plates are added...







The roof of the gun barbette is glued in place...



The rear plate is added to the upper hull...




The turret was built up and the other gun barrel was added, this is a really nice little barrel in brass...


The rear grille is replaced with the photo-etch part provided with the kit...



The side doors were added and the grab handle above them made with 0.4mm copper wire. Also I made up the DanTaylor'sModelworks POW carrier, a very nice piece of photo-etch...



I found a nice commander figure from the Milicast British Tank Crew set, I have to modify the headgear as the batallion of the CLYS I am representing had a distinctive side cap and not the beret, that will be towards the end...





Well that is it for now, I have to airbrush the running gear and detail it before I can put the sand shields on. Unfortunately I am without an airbrushing area at the moment and am trying to rectify that asap. Thanks for looking, all comments welcome.

All the best,

Paul

Hi,thats awesome work on the Grant,it looks a much better kit than the Airfix Grant I just finished.Is it much more expensive?

The best Grant kit currently in release.

So nice. But one thing you're using the longer M3 gun. Grants used in North Africa never had M3 guns. Later diesel engined Grant mk II did and some were used in Burma. But Grant mk. II that made it to North Africa had the shorter gun.

EDIT: Even though the RB barrel says it is the L/31 gun it is too long. The M2 gun should not extend past the front fender.

Hi Kenneth,

It depends where you get them from, they are usually between £8 -£14 . I think mine cost £8.00. Also the Airfix kit is 1/76 and this is 1/72, the Airfix kit is quite old, if I recall it was released originally in the mid 60's (I remember making one when it was first released ). It wasn't that bad a kit and at the time was the only game in town. DanTaylor's Modelworks does a upgrade set for it...

http://www.dantaylormodelworks.com/m3-grant-mk-i-conversion-set-307-p.asp

I can recommend the Mirage kit, it is a pleasant build and can be made without the add ons I have included, but if you wanted to have them they are...

RB barrels...

http://www.modelsforsale.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=623201&RBM-1/72-72B60-Gun-Barrel-75mm-L/31-&-US-37mm-for-M3-Lee

OKB-Grigorov tracks...

http://shop.okbgrigorov.com/product/163/1-72-tracks-for-m3-m4-family-we210.html

Hope this is of help to you. I must add that I am in no way connected to any of the manufacturers mentioned above, just a satisfied customer.

All the best,

Paul

That's a blow, I quite like the gun as it is, I will have to consider what to do about this. There is a shorter gun in the kit, but I prefer metal barrels. Thanks for the 'heads up', I will see what can be done about rectifying this. I wonder if shortening the brass barrel is an option?

All the best,

Paul

[quote]Hi Kenneth,

It depends where you get them from, they are usually between £8 -£14 . I think mine cost £8.00. Also the Airfix kit is 1/76 and this is 1/72, the Airfix kit is quite old, if I recall it was released originally in the mid 60's (I remember making one when it was first released ). It wasn't that bad a kit and at the time was the only game in town. DanTaylor's Modelworks does a upgrade set for it...
Thanks for the info,my Airfix Grant is certainly lacking detail compared to yours,I shall have to try Mirage kits.

You probably can shorten the barrel but you'll have to drill it out, losing the rifling. Another problem may be the outer diameter may be too thick given the tape of the barrel. I hate to say it, but replacement may be the best option, if you want to fix it.

Hi Bob,

I have spent the last few hours doing calculations and measuring, it would appear that the M2 was 31 calibres long which works out at a total length, in 1/72, of 32mm and the M3 is 40 calibres, which comes out at 41mm. I have checked the other gun provided in the kit and it is way longer than the one I have fitted, I have measured the length of the second gun and it is 41mm (give or take a few microns) and is therefore a M3. This being the case the gun I have fitted is definitely meant to be a M2 and would appear to be a few mm longer than it should be, which leads me to the conclusion that I will leave well alone. It looks ok and studying photos of the tank in action (got to love Google images) it looks about right. So onward and upward, I will continue the build as it is now. Thanks for the input, I would have been really loathe to cut the nice barrel. By the way, it is a nice turned barrel but at this scale no rifling, unfortunately.

All the best,

Paul

I mangaged to get my airbrush area sorted so I am now on a marathon airbrush session to get all the things that need painting finished. First up was the running gear of the Grant, I needed to paint this part as I was fitting sand shields and with them in place I wouldn't be able to do this easily. Anyway I mixed up some Light Stone from a table provided by MAFVA and got spraying. The tracks and tyres were then hand painted with Vallejo colours...





I then fitted the sand shields, these have no detail and I had to scribe the joins in...





The Desert Grants had a side rail for attaching various items, this is not provided in the kit so I had to make it myself. I used some Evergreen channel section, with one end cut off, to make the supports...





The rail was also Evergreen strip...







There are various bits of stowage I have to add to the rail, I will be using Dan Taylor's Modelworks set for the Grant, although nominally 1/76 I think the difference is not noticeable, especially as one bedroll or camouflage net would not be the same as another. Here is his excellent set cleaned up, along with his ammo boxes (one of which I have folded ready for glueing and attaching to the model), again this is 1/76, but I don't think it will make much difference...





Well that is it for now, hopefully I will be able to get all the extra kit and final parts glued this coming week and can commence painting the model. Thank you for looking, all comments welcome.

All the best,

Paul

This last week I got the stowage sorted, I used some of Dan Taylor's Modelworks Desert Stowage and three helmets from Zvezda Art of Tactic figures. The stowage was glued in place and then I set about creating the securing straps from some dental X-ray plate lead lining. This is very fine and very soft and is easily bent to shape, excellent stuff, unfortunately my dentist is now digital so my dwindling supply is used sparingly...

The stowage attached...







With the lead straps attached...

















With the end ties added...









The model was then primed and basecoated, I used a mix from the MAFVA site and while it appeared a little yellow at first it calms down later...









I have decided to do it as 4th County of London Yeomanry and the colour scheme is that of a muddy brown colour with black and white outlines...

Here is the first colour a muddy brown colour, actually Vallejo Track Primer, a thin coat to begin with...









And then a final coat...


You can see the initial attempt at the black and white outlines, they were tidied up later...





With the outlines done all over...







Finally I used Mig Neutral wash to tone down the colour and a pin wash of the same to bring out the detail, a gentle dry brush made all the edges and rivets stand out...













I have the turret to detail and paint now, once that is done the whole tank will be weathered with some dust to make it look a well worn Desert veteran. Thank you for looking, all comments welcome

All the best,

Paul

I have finished the painting and added the commander figure to the Grant, it is now ready for the weathering. I will be doing the weathering a little later, when I have sorted the base out so I can match the groundwork with the dust on the tank, well that's the theory. So the model is one of the 4th County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters) about the time before the Gazala battles, the commander being Yeomanry is wearing his cricketing sweater as it is early morning and a bit chilly. His side cap is the CLY distinctive green one with a yellow insert in the top. All the stowage is now painted and the turret also painted. The commander figure is one from the Milicast set of British tankers, the figure has a sweater on hence my painting it as a cricketing sweater. The head wasn't that well defined, not that bad but not as good as I like to paint, so I swapped it for a Prieser head with a flat top. I used a Prieser side cap and modified it to look more 'British' and then made an indent where the headphone strap goes and made some headphones using scrap photo-etch and plastic rod...





The figure was then primed...





And then painted...



I was not that happy with the result and modified the finish a little, this can be seen on the figure when fixed to the tank...

The stowage was painted and the turret, then finally the commander was glued in place...















Well that's it for now, just the weathering and base to sort out, thanks for looking and all comments welcome.

All the best,

Paul