I snapped a few pics of my M7 Priest last night while I was waiting for some parts to dry. It's about done except for a bit od detail painting and touch-up, as well as a bit of weathering on some of the stowage.

This started out as the Italeri kit. There are some in-progress shots in my gallery.











I am trying to get this done for KC Con IPMS Region V regional this weekend. When I get this one done, I'll start my T30 for the Incoming Campaign, hence the title of this post.

Looks puritty nice there Bob! One of these days, I'm gonna build that kit too. That's about the only Sherman based vehicle that I'd do. Love that 105.

Oh how I need a kick in the pants....

Great looking Priest. That was one of the first armor kits I attempted to build way back when.

Where did you get the spare ammo tubes?

nice build Bob one little *observation* your tracks are way to clean to match your tank

other than that nice priest!

"amen"

Very nice model. Are those shells scratchbuilt?

Bob -- good looking M7. Mind sharing your mud method with us? The coloring is very good, as is the mud application on the nose of the priest. Looks good.

The only nits are the area near the top of the 50 copula, (where the small decals are), looks so clean compared to the rest of the front end, -- might want to dust/tone down that a bit. The crate on front hull would also probably have some mud/dust spattered on it. I can't tell for sure from the pics, but the breech area of the 105 could be steeled also.

This is good looking build -- congrats on a fine effort.

Steve

Thaks for the comments, guys. Let me try to answer a few questions.




They are spares I had from an Academy Achilles kit that I have parted out to make other models. They are the same ammo tubes found in all the Academy M10 kits -- so they were allegedly 3-inch ammo tubes. I had to cut them down a bit to make them fit, but I thought they looked right and saved me a lot of scratch-building. Ave: the non-tubed ready rounds are the ones that come in the Priest kit.




Steve: I'm still in the process of pulling the dust up on the hull and stowage, as well as onto the tracks. The mud and dust is an old technique of mine using a mix of plaster of paris tinted with acrylic paint. When the plaster was dry, I worked it with some pastels and some oil washes to make it look "wetter" on the bottom and "dryer and dustier" on the top. This is all kind of a tricky process that folks may want to try first on a scrap model. Once it's all dry, I work it with a toothbrush and some smaller stiff brushes.

The markings are all Archer or Verlinden transfers.




It's "steeled" with graphite powder. It never seems to look right in pics, but in person it looks good to me.

Howdy Bob,

Sorry I'm late getting to this thread. Your Preist is coming along very nicely. Most of the comments I would have about it have already been mentioned (the tracks, the cupola, etc).
One thing I didn't know was that the Italeri kit comes with the 3-bar cleat style tracks.....good to know. Since I just picked up one of these kits yesterday from my local Hobby Lobby on clearance for $11.95.
Keep up the great work there Hollowpoint!

Tread.

Also....what, no close-ups of the bogies??.......

nice looking priest bob,

tread, if im not mistaken the kit comes with the very poor italeri rubber block tracks.
the 3 bar cleats are probably AFV club or academy includes them in a few of their kits.

ive got the italeri kangaroo (which is the priest minus the gun sprue) and it has the old italeri running gear and tracks. ive got an afv club set to improve it myself

cheers

joe

Bob-- I am curious as to the mix used to bring out the canvas rolls on the rear deck. What did you use?
thanks
DJ

For the record -- this is NOT a box-stock M7 -- it is very much back-dated.

I replaced the bogies with Tamiya M3 bogies and used the spoked road wheels from the Tamiya M4 kit. The drive sprokets are not even Italeri -- they are Academy, as are the three-bar cleat tracks. The final drive cover is the single-piece round nose also out of an Academy kit (see the foundry marks near the upper left corner?). The .50 cal. is also Academy on Tamiya ring pintle with details added.

Other hull mods include cutting off the side armor, making the MG "pulpit" the early shallow type, changing the stowage boxes from top-opening to side-opening, adding side vents on the rear deack (though now barely visible under the stowage), replacing the pioneer tools and tow cable (again, mostly covered), wire grab handles, and removing low headlights and adding new early ones high with siren and PE guards. Inside, I added goodies to the driver position, detailed the ammo box rack and replaced stowed rifles in the pulpit, rearranged and added new folding crew seats, shortened both 105mm ammo storage racks, added oil filler tube and oil coolers with scratch cover ...

DJ: The tarps are made from KImwipe industrial paper towels and painted with cheapo acrylics from Walmart mixed to make OD and Field Drab colors. They've had some light oils washes and will likely get a dry-brushing of tan or light olive before it's all done.

Bob-- thanks. Very effective in replicating bed rolls and canvas. Let us know what you win with this one.
DJ

HP, I'm becoming quite the connoisseur of the Priest. I really like yours and will refer to your pics when it comes time to back date my Priest to an early British one. I can't afford to use Academy for so many things as you have but I hope I can make do with the Tamiya Lee and a few do dads. I think yours is great. I like the cut down sides, the pulpit, the storage on the back, and of course the weathering.

One question for you. Since you back dated it, why not go with a 3 piece front cover, instead of the one piece. (Listen to ME, asking a Sherman expert like Hollowpoint this. Kind of like a farm boy drawing on Wild Bill Hickock.)

Fantastic build Bob. Everyone has already hit on any nits except that I noticed that the spare track links on the front of the AFV are different than the set the vehicle is wearing. Might I suggest you replace them with some of the spare pieces for the ones you used. I really like what you have done with this kit. Bravo

Bob, thanks for your replies on this one, especially for the mud technique and for what you are using to make your tarps. Thanks, and good luck at the IPMS.

Steve

As far as I know it was quite common to "borrow" old tracks and use them as extra armor protection rather than just another storage issue. I have seen a picture of this somewhere.


Both transmission covers can be used with this set up.

Having this M7 on the workbench (for maybe 18 months only) as well, I can really appreciate all the work you have done here Bob. Mines is built 100% and totally OOB, and I cant stand it. I want to add things to it now and give it some life.
This model has really inspired me to resserect it and try some modifying. I love all your stowage and that seems to be one of the main attractions of this vehicle for me ... they were laden with stowage. All your modifications have paid off and this will be a fine model when finished.

Thanks to all for the comments and compliments.

And thanks to Tread to sort-of answering a few questions for me. Dead-on right about the spare track links. You see some really odd mixes on these Sherman/Lee variants, especially the longer they stayed in service. There are many pics of Shermans with mixed track pads on the same length of track.

About the round one-piece nose instead of the three-piece: I knew this would draw questions, but I wanted to do something different and there are a few pics of the round nose final drive on early (M3 bogied) Priests. Here's one I found on the net:



I'm still adding little stuff to make it look a bit more "lived-in" and I'll try to post a pic or two after this weekend's contest. I don't really care if I win anything or not (heaven knows I already have a box of trophies and ribbons for other stuff). I just go for the fun, the friends and the vendors. The biggest "prize" I can get at a contest is when another modeler points at something on one of my models and asks me "how'd you do that?"

Good job Bob..love what you did to your Priest to back date it ....I've been wanting to try this ever since that article in FSM way back when....(we were young) :-) I like the muddy foot prints too..good little detail. I know what you mean about shows ..I'm the same way ..I'd rather sit and explain how I did such and such to another modeler than to win a ribbon ...Also meeting old friends and new ones too...I was at a show this week end and got to hang around with Mark Bannerman and Arthur Seluka ..Watched a seminar by Franck Edet ..And bought for over $100.00 worth of stuff to throw on the pile ..Now that's what shows are about!

Rick

Hollowpoint built a mid-late model M7 on the M3 chassis with cast nose prior to the change to M4 bogies. Very few of these were made as the change to the M4 bogies was very quickly followed up by the change to the M7B1 on the M4 chassis with M4 bogie and cast nose.