I’m beginning to build a diorama based on the ‘67 war. I’ll be building Academies M51 and Dragons M51 (3529). It appears that the Dragon kit has some steel texture and i’d like to practice texturing on these builds. Would it be appropriate for these Sherman’s to have steel texture?
My plan for this diorama will be to have the two Sherman’s moving through the desert. The diorama base is a board that you would use to display your house address near your door. I am going to build a desert scene across it with some micro terrain in order to display the tanks more effectively. I think this would be a fun way to show vehicles on line together rather than on a traditional square base.
Sherman castings were usually pretty smooth, and Dragon’s kit with the cast hull has a very over-the-top, pitted texture.
BTW, you may want to edit the thread title, I thought this was going to be about the M51 armored recovery vehicle, the one based on the M103 heavy tank. Only when I read the post did I realise it’s about an Israeli Sherman
@Jakko didnt even think of the M51 till now, good catch.
It seems like most Sherman’s since a nice casted turret when you look at it. Seems like the hulls are more inclined to have the texture. Maybe I’m wrong, i was looking at an M51 and it appeared that the lower glacier plate on the hull had texture. I’ve seen some videos of people doing texturing on the turrets. Figured it’d be a fun attempt.
Turrets were cast, so they have some texture to them, but as Jakko pointed out, this is sometimes overdone.
Hulls were welded plate. The plate has very smooth texture.
M4A1 hull was cast (the rounded hull). Most, not all, M51s were cast hull with some texture. Again, this is often overdone.
How much texture you want is your decision. I would just try to make the texture on the two models look somewhat similar. Not exact, but similar, so that one does not look fake or “off” compared to the other.
Ken
The Dragon M51 kit has an M4A1 hull, and it has really bad texture, way overdone — it looks more like ten layers of flaking paint than a cast piece of steel. I felt it was bad enough that I swapped the hull top for one from the Italeri M4A1 when I built this kit 20+ years ago (now all I need to do is paint it one of these days …).
I don’t know about the Academy kit as I’ve never seen it in the flesh and don’t recall offhand what its configuration is.
@tankerken thank you for the insight. I only plan on doing a thin texture. It is something I’ve wanted to try for the past year and felt like this would be the best way to attempt it.
@Jakko i saw the texture on the dragon kit and had the same thoughts. Hopefully i can make it look better with a little TLC
Putting a wash of highly thinned putty over it will probably work, to fill the worst parts of the texture without really affecting the higher parts. Alternatively, sand it down to achieve much the same. In both cases, you will want to be careful with the existing details, and taping some of them up to protect them may be a good idea.
If you can get an Italeri hull top, though, like I said, that will fit fine — you’ll have to cut out the engine deck and put in the Dragon one, of course.
Aha, here we go, I knew I had some photos of it that I took a few years ago:
IIRC, I sanded down the texture on the final drive assembly, but CBA to do that on the hull top, given that I had an Italeri M4A1 hull top left over from something else anyway (though I’ll be damned if I can remember what I did with the rest of that kit ). The reason this fits, BTW, is because all of the Dragon Shermans are based on the old Italeri one to some degree or other.
@metalhead85 that looks like an exciting concept. Makes me think of big red one with the Africa korp M51s.
@Jakko that looks great, amazing work and that is some interesting information on the dragon Sherman’s being able to fit the italeri hulls due to the copy of them. I never knew that , is that common amongst model companies ?
I due have a sanding tool if the texture comes out poorly, i think I’m going to attempt texturing it myself just to get a rep in at it for future builds.
Did the lower hull coat of texture just over the transmission cover. I’d say not to shabby, had to work it a couple times, this is with Mr putty white.
Nah, it’s got all the problems of the Dragon kit, minus the excessive hull texture
Not really. There is a degree of companies releasing other companies’ kits wholesale or with minor additions — Italeri used to rebox a lot of Dragon kits 20–30 years ago, Tamiya brings out a good number of Italeri and ICM kits usually with some Tamiya figures or accessories thrown in, Revell has/had a number of Dragon and ICM ones in its range, and so on.
The Dragon Shermans, though, clearly started out by using Italeri parts. The whole way the VVSS bogies go together is obviously the exact same as that of the Italeri kits, just refined a little in places. IIRC, many parts are completely interchangeable, or at least will fit on the other brand. However, the more recent the Dragon Sherman, probably the less this will be the case.
IMHO, it’s still a good deal too thick. However, if you sand this back but not all the way to the bare plastic, it will probably look a lot better. I’ve found that sanding the putty is the trick to making a convincing cast texture. What you’re after is a mostly smooth surface with small, irregular dimples in it, rather than the surface with bumps that you generally get if you apply thinned putty to plastic.
@Jakko ive noticed that tamiya has done releases of ICM kits in the past and upgraded them with a few things. Wasn’t sure if they had acquired the company or maybe those kits.
Thank you, i let it dry overnight and will work ok sanding it today. I’m just glad i reapplied the texture because it was on thicker in the first picture and didn’t look as good.
Was able to get a lot done this week on the academy M51. I rewatched some of night shifts videos on steel texture and attempted to copy them. I will start by saying i am using Mr. white putty and not tamiya. The academy kit will be done with Mr white putty and the dragon one will be with tamiya putty to see if there is a vast difference or not. I’m pretty happy with the texture but it may be a bit thick to some. I think once it is painted it will look better.
@SableLiger that looks great, what color did you use for the paint? I have vallejo air idf colors on the way and am planning on doing at least one in Sinai grey. I’m open to a few other suggestions as I’ve seen call outs for tan and Sinai grey.
Did you scratch build that flag on the side of the last picture?
The paint was a mixture of Tamiya acrylics that I found online. The flag s on the sides came from the Meng 1/35 Magach 6B Gal Batash kit. I bough a resin covered bustle rack and those flags were extras.
@SableLiger that looks great, i didnt think of doing tan and buff for a coat. The only extras i got for this kit was some friul tracks that im going to paint rather then dunk in the rust solution.
