my 15 year old son,just wont wo auctions on ebay.Tamiya's german 8 ton semi-track for $13.00,and a M2A1 for $25.00,in reguards to the M2A1.Its made by Commanders Series Model,inc,and its a full resin model,iam not familiar,with this company.Has anyone built this model?any concerns or issues that he might face?,his been building for quite some time now,and has used resin upgrade and detail sets,but this will be are first attempt,with full resin.Is this a decent model?we believe its out of production,and was quite pricey when new.Where can we find referance material on this M2A1.
thanks,Joe

The M2A1 kit is a real rarity, Joe. It was the precursor to the M3 Lee/Grant series. There are decent no. of photos in Hunnicutt's "Sherman" book. The best way to obtain this is to request it through inter-library loan at your municipal library.

Frankly, the CSM stuff can be a bear. They were one of the earlier companies who made resin stuff. I've found them to have multiple broken parts and often short pours and bubbles (leaving lots of filling and correction)If your son hasn't done full resin kits before, I wouldn't recommend this one if he wants a somewhat easy build.

I have their M1 Combat car and Mk V1B light tank -- those are gonna be JOBS!

thanks for the help and info,Roy.i figured this one wasnt going to be easy,this will be a good project for him,his skills have come a long way thru the years.
Joe

I built the master for this kit.

I have learned a few things after I completed it and if there is anything you want to know (especially about the instructions, which were always horrible on Commanders kits, no matter how much information I supplied) please don'tr hesitate to post here, PM me or email me direct.

One thing to watch for right away is that as single block castings, the large flat surfaces have a tendency to be somewhat concave due to resin shrinkage. The turret and hull surfaces would probably benefit from a layer of putty to fill in the dished contours. There is a photo of my build on the Track Link site gallery.

If you have a Tamiya Lee or Grant laying around, you would be well served by reppacing the resin suspension by parts from those kits and Italeri road wheels and tracks. With the Academy M3 coming out, that would be a single source of all three although there are some small mods to be made to stock M3 bogeys to get back to the M2 style.

For the purist, my use of the Tamiya bogeys and Italeri wheels and tracks means that my suspension is about 1-1.5" too wide as the M2 had slightly narrower wheels than the M3 & M4. If this matters to you, then you are on your own to try and fix it. :-)

If your son doesn't want this kit, I would be glad to offer you something for it as I would like to build another one.

Paul

If I remember correctly if you can find a DVD copy of the movie "Objective Burma" there is a color short called "The Tanks are Coming". Outside of it being a typical propaganda film there are a lot of color footage of the M2A1 medium tank.
Eric

thanks everyone for the reply's and help.he's was excited about geting this model.he's already built Tamiya's M3,but after seeing the reviews here,and reading up on building full resin models,he's not sure if he want to try tackling this one,he's at a point where he'll ask me for help,advise &tips,but co-working on a project,......well i'll will just get in the way.
he's doing good with resin upgrades and conversions,but full resin?as much as he'd like to build it,he'll most likely shelve it.