Evening fellas!
Another week, another update. The big issues needing work slowly got done and finally we are making real headway. In fact, everything is all set to go except the tires and tracks (I will be using the DS tracks for the M26A1, so I will be test fitting to see if I need to cut and alter length.) Hopefully I can get enough bench time this week to get it done and then it will be on to paint. But I am getting ahead of myself, so let the update begin!
First thing that got worked on was that large gap where the bottom and glacis meet. I took some .020 styrene rod, cut to length, and used plenty of Tamiya thin. I let it dry thoroughly and then attacked it with the No.11 blade and sanding sticks. It is now beautiful!
With that problem fixed I moved on to adding all the smaller and more fragile parts, including the front turnbuckels. Here I ran into another problem. I had clipped one off the sprue and two parts landed on the bench...yup, it had snapped where the rod and fender side tab meet. I took care on the next one to make sure it did not happen again, but it did. I now realize both must have been snapped before I even got to them. Oh well, it just meant being real fidgety with it. In extreme close up you can see where the snap was, but at normal eye distance the Tamiya thin did a good job of blending and making it disappear.
With the front all set it was back to the rear. Here the rear turnbuckles went on fairly easily with a little caution, but I ran into yet one more issue. The right side fender was overlong and stuck out from the side by about about 1/16th of an inch. I sanded mostly on the inside of the fender (where it mats to the hull) and finished up the last of the distance on the outside. One more problem down.
I was flipping through my Squadron Walk Around of the Pershing and I noticed that by Korea all Pershings had phones installed on the rear to communicate with infantry on the outside. The thing is that there was no phone box shown in the directions. I was kind of annoyed, but as I was sifting through the sprues I noticed 2 parts to build up the phone box included. Directions be damned I snipped them off the sprue and added the phone box to the rear.
Moving back up to the hull I found yet another issue, though I think one of my own doing. I had never realized that the coaxial tube to the left of the main gun was pointing off at a wrong angle from the gun (not much use in a machine gun that fires 30 degrees to the sky from the main gun 
). So I snipped it off, but it wet off to the grave of the carpet monster. Thankfully it was a simple shape of which I had dozens lying on my bench (the over fill cylinders that get nipped off some parts) that only required me to snip to the correct length and angle, then have the hole drilled out. Voila.
I also went ahead and gave the entire turret one last blending of Mr. Surfacer which was lightly stippled with a No. 5 brush.
And these last two shots show where everything is up to this point.
So I hope to get the last nitpicky stuff done mid week and get on to the start of paint by weekends end. I am probably going to one more good once over and fix any tiny gaps or mistakes. But that is for next week.....
Brian