After a lot of work, I have finally finished the first stage of my 1/12 Sheridan toy rebuild project.
This stage was the "de-toyification" of the tank, to convert the original toy into a reasonably accurate base for rebuilding.
This mainly involved both removing all the crude moulded detail (fuel tanks, tow hooks, etc) and correcting the major inaccuracies. The toy has three serious accuracy problems: the inaccurate suspension/wheels (4 main wheels with a bell-crank suspension, rather than 5 independently-sprung), gun barrel (far too long), and turret location (back-to-front, with the turret at the back of the hull and the engine at the front)
The first problem I haven't been able to fix (so far), the second problem was much easier to fix (just saw the gun down
to the correct length) and the third problem I fixed simply by cutting off the hull roof and reversing it, so the turret
is at the front, and the engine grilles at the back, as it should be! I needed to remove the hull roof anyway to gain access to the interior for detailing.
I also removed the glacis plate, and glued tabs on to the hull sides to allow the roof and glacis to be removable once the model is finished (so all the interior detailing isn't lost to view forever). I still haven't worked out how to get at the turret interior..
All of the areas where the moulded detail originally was were re-skinned with thin Plasticard, which will also provide a more suitable base for attaching detail parts.
Finally, I added a new interior floor to the hull (styrene sheet), created a proper circular hole for the commander's cupola, and removed the loader's and driver's hatches and the engine grilles. I put the hatches aside for later re-attachment (hopefully with hinges), but I'm now scratchbuilding some new engine grilles/covers, with proper louvres and mesh.
Anyway, there's a lot of work still to be done, but the tedious part is over - the tank is now ready to be detailed and rebuilt into a model. I have already started on a couple of sub-assemblies although I haven't attached them yet.
So far I haven't done any work on the interior, I still don't really have enough reference material for all the areas, particularly the engine (I've downloaded and printed out the AFV Interiors page though). The M551 has a VERY complex interior, particular the turret, compared to a WW2-era tank.
When it's (finally) finished it should be a very impressive model of this very distinctive and interesting (though not exactly successful) AFV!
I will probably finish it as a Vietnam-era vehicle simply because of the greater possibilities for add-ons, external stowage, etc. On the other hand, the later, European-theatre vehicles did have more interesting colour schemes with their NATO camo so I might possibly change my mind and paint it as one of these.
Were any Vietnam M551s camouflaged, or were they all left in the standard olive-drab?
Incidentally if anyone wants some information on the Sheridan, I found this site when searching for reference material - http://www.eaglehorse.org/4_ftx_gunnery/equipment/m551_sheridan/sheridan_intro.htm - which has a very detailed history
of the tank, all the way from the design stage to its rather ignominous end as a base for mock-up Soviet vehicles, along
with many pictures.
I also found this site http://www.infinetivity.com/~jsampson/tank/ with some pictures of a VERY impressive 1/8, completely
scratchbuilt, motorized Sheridan model. Interestingly, this model is constructed mostly from wood and metal, not plastic. Not really the materials I'd think of using for a model tank, but the finished product certainly looks good!
Here are the pics, anyway (of my tank, not the 1/8 one, obviously!) :
The original toy tank (not actually the one I bought, but a photo of a similar one on Ebay; I forgot to take a photo of
mine before I rebuilt it)
Three views of the tank in its current state - now it actually looks like a M551 (if you don't look too closely at the wheels :P). Note pot plants unsuccessfully masquerading as the South-East Asian jungle :D
Also you can see that the cut-off hull roof does not sit properly on the rest of the tank, as it needs more trimming and filing (I'll fix this problem soon)
New commander's cupola and engine grilles under construction, along with the original driver's and loader's hatches
awaiting modification.
Finally a few words about my other "big tank project" - the M2A2 Bradley is -finally- finished (assembly-wise) and I will start painting it soon. I'll post some pics once I've sprayed the base coat.