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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.
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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