Nice kit bashing it looks great.
Cheers,
Ralph
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Excellent job Jakko . You’re making great progress. Those sand bags look excellent as well! I’ll probably be making some for my M4 also. Very inspiring work!
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Thanks. The sandbags are easy enough to make: just roll some epoxy putty into a sausage of maybe 5–6 mm diameter, then cut it into lengths of perhaps 8–10 mm long. Knead those into rectangular blocks and press them onto the model. I make the openings with wide tweezers, by using those to pull the putty together into a blob at one end of the bag, and then opening it out with a sharp sculpting tool or knife tip. I use the same to scratch a seam into the side, and done.
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The final stretch. On the glacis plate, I added mirrors, I think from an Italeri Sherman (I’m sure about the Italeri bit, not about that they came from a Sherman) and also the barrel support:
In the main photo I’ve been basing this model on, I noticed there was a box on the right rear plate, most likely for an infantry telephone, and from shadows etc. I could make a reasonable estimate of its size:
This one is made from rectangular plastic tube with plastic card ends and a bit of plastic rod to represent the tube for the lead to connect it to the tank’s intercom system. That tube is completely speculative, because you can’t see it in the photo at all due to being obscured by the wading trunk, but something like it must have been there.
And I finished one track:
77 links, Asuka tells you you need in the instructions for one of the kits that includes these, and that seems to be correct. I did have to glue two roadwheels onto their axles and stick them onto the tank temporarily to work this out, though. Now I just need to make the other one, but the links go together well, so it shouldn’t take too much time and effort.
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At long last, I’ve done some more work on this model. I put a coat of primer on it yesterday, once more cheap but cheerful stuff from an aerosol can from a discount store, but now white instead of grey. I must say I prefer the grey one, as it covers better. Then today, I sprayed H78 olive drab (2) by Mr. Aqueous over the whole tank:
I had already sprayed the tracks grey some time ago.
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