I swear I planned to build it out of the box. But...
I also wanted it to look more or less like M10. And Academy kit was definitely on the "less" side . So much "less" that I could not accept it and decided to improve it at least a bit. Egh... a LARGE bit
So far I scratch built the new turret shell, heavilly modified the gun mantlet (covered with primer on photos, so changes are not obvious) and "duckbill" counterweights, modified the upper hull changing all angles, scratch built new skirts, shortened and widened front fenders, modified transmission cover and moved the entire upper hull by a couple of millimeters forward relative to lower hull tub. I'm now looking for a replacement gun barrel - probably will get one from AFV Club kit and modify it to fit to this model.
And I don't plan any superdetailing! As soon as the overall shapes of the model start looking like M10, I'm going to use all detail parts from the kit and at least in this area return to the "out of the box" concept. My modifications do not make the model fully accurate, as I took a few shortcuts, but to my eye they greatly improved the look of the model and make it much closer to correct shapes.
Pawel
Hosted by Darren Baker
M10 out of the box... yeah, rigth...
Vodnik
Warszawa, Poland
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Posted: Saturday, April 14, 2007 - 05:13 PM UTC
Eisen
Pennsylvania, United States
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Posted: Saturday, April 14, 2007 - 05:34 PM UTC
Nice work! I'm always impressed by you scratchbuilders. Must be nice to have the skill to fix things instead of waiting for or paying for an expensive aftermarket modification kit. Look forwards to the finished product.
PantherF
Indiana, United States
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Posted: Saturday, April 14, 2007 - 06:17 PM UTC
Looks great so far Pawel! What size stock did you use for the turret?
Jeff
Jeff
Vodnik
Warszawa, Poland
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Posted: Saturday, April 14, 2007 - 06:56 PM UTC
Quoted Text
Looks great so far Pawel! What size stock did you use for the turret?
Evergreen 0.75 mm / .030" styrene.
Pawel
mark197205
England - East Midlands, United Kingdom
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Posted: Sunday, April 15, 2007 - 01:32 AM UTC
Hi Pawel, I had never realised the Academy M-10 was so out of whack in terms of accuracy, not sure I fancy chopping the entire hull about though....
wbill76
Texas, United States
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Posted: Sunday, April 15, 2007 - 02:28 AM UTC
Pawel,
Barrel Depot makes an M10 aluminum barrel if you can get your hands on one. Nice work on the "OOB conversion" so far.
Barrel Depot makes an M10 aluminum barrel if you can get your hands on one. Nice work on the "OOB conversion" so far.
Vodnik
Warszawa, Poland
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Posted: Sunday, April 15, 2007 - 03:43 AM UTC
Quoted Text
Barrel Depot makes an M10 aluminum barrel if you can get your hands on one.
Yes, I know about it, but their barrel is the same length as Academy kit part and this means that it is a few millimeters too long (note black tip of the barrel on my photos - this black area shows the distance by which the barrel is too long). I hope AFV Club barrel is more correct length and I found a way to order it from them (through someone in Taiwan). I will need to modify it to fit to Academy kit, but it shouldn't be too difficult.
Pawel
rct75001
New South Wales, Australia
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Posted: Sunday, April 15, 2007 - 03:50 AM UTC
Pawel - thanks for the photos.
Do you use some form of computer programme to determine the angles / shapes of the turret components - especially at the rear. The pieces you have cut look like they fit together cery accurately - which mine never do.
Thanks
Richard
Do you use some form of computer programme to determine the angles / shapes of the turret components - especially at the rear. The pieces you have cut look like they fit together cery accurately - which mine never do.
Thanks
Richard
Posted: Sunday, April 15, 2007 - 04:43 AM UTC
Hello there Pawel
It looks like you've put in a lot of work on that kit.. I'm just wondering one thing.. what reference's are you using to base your rework on.. The reason I ask is that many reviews I've read of the academy kit have mentioned that the dimensions are fairly accurate...
It looks like you've put in a lot of work on that kit.. I'm just wondering one thing.. what reference's are you using to base your rework on.. The reason I ask is that many reviews I've read of the academy kit have mentioned that the dimensions are fairly accurate...
Vodnik
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Posted: Sunday, April 15, 2007 - 01:02 PM UTC
Quoted Text
Do you use some form of computer programme to determine the angles / shapes of the turret components - especially at the rear. The pieces you have cut look like they fit together cery accurately - which mine never do.
No, I don't use any software. I used scale drawings to prepare parts, but always cut them from paper first and only when I had paper parts fitting I cut styrene.
Quoted Text
what reference's are you using to base your rework on.. The reason I ask is that many reviews I've read of the academy kit have mentioned that the dimensions are fairly accurate...
If you for example mean PMMS review, then I discussed it with Terry Ashley and he admits that his older reviews were not always good in terms of accuracy evaluation. Academy M10 review was one such example. You can always use "search" function on MissingLynx "Allied WW2" forum and you will find a lot of discussions about accuracy of Academy and AFV Club kits and someone even posted results of his own measurements of the real vehicle. Some things, like angles of hull plates are well known from vehicle specifications (55 degrees glacis, 38 degrees side armor and skirts, 30 degrees rear hull plate - note that some sources, including Hunnicutt "Sherman" book give this as also 38 degrees, but this was proven wrong by measurements and simple observation of real vehicle. Also drawings in Hunnicutt book show correct 30 degree angle - it's just the specification table that includes the error, unfortunately repeated in several other publications) and Academy kit hull is wrong in practically all these places, but particularly at the rear where in the kit the angle is only 20 degrees! Academy turet is noticeably too narrow and angles are wrong - this is very noticeable it you compare it to any overhead shots of real M10 (Hunnicutt book includes a couple of such shots). The only thing that is really quite accurate is the interior.
AFV Club M10 kit has much more accurate hull shape, but interior is much worse than Academy one. And turret is too big and some shapes there are also wrong...
For references of the turret of my model I used scale drawings in "Achilles 17-pdr M10 SP" book by Wojciech J.Gawrych in Armor PhotoGallery series, as they looked good to me when I compared them to photos and matched dimensions and angles measured and posted by someone on ML. I based hull angles of my model mainly on specification values of angles, but also used drawings in the book mentioned above (although the hull on these drawings has 38 degree rear plate...) and also drawings of M36 hull in GroundPower No122 (these seem to be very accurate).
Pawel
ti
Dalarnas, Sweden
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Posted: Sunday, April 15, 2007 - 02:21 PM UTC
You're a freaky genius Pawel. Great work.
trahe
Virginia, United States
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Posted: Sunday, April 15, 2007 - 04:00 PM UTC
Pawel,
Nice work so far. Looking forward to further progress.
Nice work so far. Looking forward to further progress.
Jamesite
United Kingdom
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Posted: Sunday, April 15, 2007 - 04:48 PM UTC
Amazing attention to detail and tonnes of respect, i'd never even consider doing this!
James
James