It seems like I've been saying this alot this year...but I'm back with an overdue update on my Academy M4a3 (76)W.
When we last left off, I had added the winter camo. The white was too bright so I worked to tone it down and blend it with the Olive Drab.
So now the push to finish. I added stowage to the rear deck. I took styrofoam cubes, cut them to desired shape, and covered them with tissue and PVA glue tarps. Added tow cable, .50cal, and the usual Jerry cans and rations box to the rear stowage shelf.
The kit comes with a decent sprue of accessories. But the spare tracks lengths are the steel cleat type and offers the rear link racks with the solid smooth rubber blocks. The tracks are rubber chevron links with the duckbill extensions. The inspiration picture shows the rear link racks so I used the kit's and added the chevron using strip styrene.
Antenna is stretched sprue. Spare roadwheels came with the kit.
It got several washes...heavy on the weld lines to draw out the detail. And like the vehicle that inspired it, no decals were used for markings.
The plan was to add a crew so the hatches were posed open. Unfortunately, I was a man down so that will have to wait.
So she's done.
The kit isn't bad but it isn't amazing either. There's some really nice touches to this kit. And, it was a relatively fun build. Academy does tend to come up short on some of their kits...like the wrong spare tracks or offering the markings/scheme for a vehicle with the early round loader's hatch for a kit with the later oval hatch. And there's no cleaning rod. All of these are relatively easy to fix.
Thanks for the campaign and nice work guys. Ive enjoyed watching your builds and will enjoy seeing them finished up.