Hey guys, sorry for being MIA work has really picked up after the holidays. Great looking work in here!
SKI - Love the Sherman so far. The concrete and wood really makes it pop and grabs the attention. Your already making me want to pull my M4A2 out. Really look forward to more.
CARL - Great work Gages, interior, seats, and the rear - NICE details. Still, love how you blend your colors!! You are the master with the pastels making a beautiful finish
WW2 - Primer
Was able to put some bench time in late last night and here are the results.
Return rollers before any mod
The kit, the rollers support arms are high almost to the center of the roller. They were also thick. This is probably accurate but this would not let the Friuls sit down onto them. So thinning out the arms had to be done. This could have probably been done better if they were still in pieces.
Here is how the the track link now sits. The roller now fits into the track.
Bit more cleaning and this is now the new roller assembly. Not the prettiest but the top section will be covered by the track.
For those of you that use Friuls on these, As said the assembly itself had to be thinned and top section taken out. The wheel itself had to be trimmed also. The part of the wheel needed cut off was the hub / axle section which would have been no problem to do if done before assembled.
Moving on, here have added the weld bead that joined the two pontoon armored plates. This is in the middle of the pontoon. Can also see the addition / modification on the fuel drain.
One side of the hull has been attached and started work on the interior details. Has both some added and deleted details. There will be a few more additions to go in here a little later on.
Finally the other half of the hull has been attached. Interior details still need to be added which will be done today.
One thing to watch for here when putting on the pontoons is the idler wheel. The holes for the idler do not line up properly making the idler sit crocked. Had to dry fit the pontoon onto the side hull plate and drill the hole out (further down) in order to have them line up. They are still not perfectly straight but could not go any lower with the hole without coming off of the idler mount. Think the way it is now will work out fine.
There were small problems trying to get ll the hull pieces to line up correctly, care must be taken when putting the pieces together. There were some very small gaps in the cargo bay which have already and easily filled with a little Squadron Putty. I concentrated on lining up the top sections of the hull thinking they would be the more visible areas and for the most part the fit came out smooth. The bottom section of the hull is where there are some gaps. They are nothing bad and not even worth taking a picture of but there will be some filling and sanding to do on the bottom side. One thing to watch for BEFORE gluing all the hull pieces together is to make sure the deck section is nice and straight. I say this because the deck is two pieces, the bottom (outside actual bottom of LVT) and a top section (the deck seen in the cargo bay). When these two pieces are together, there is a difference in the width of the two. Had to sand the two flush with each other and keep dry fitting the hull sides on to ensure a nice straight fit.
Took this last pic to try to show the size of this beast. Have thrown in the fig for a little reference. Still remember the top and track still need to be added once again giving it some more height.