Lol, thanks Bob- maybe I'll name him Sergeant Kelly!

I think US crews used pretty much whatever they had available to tie stuff down- cable like I used, canvas straps like you referred to,  I think they often just grabbed whatever they had.

Looking really good guys!  Gamera, if Clint Eastwood can man the .50 in Kelly's Heroes, then he can too

Despite my ankle still hurting a bit, I couldn't keep myself away from the bench.  I attached the tow cable and I'm ready to attach some stowage.  I'm assuming things like fuel and ammo cans would have to be tied down, what would the troops have used?  The pictures on the box show some kind of strap that I could  make out of masking tape, but I see you've got some rope on yours Gamera.  Which would be more likely?  

I also don't think I'll be able to really get Karl's acrylic craft paint weathering down, so I'm going to go and pick up a Tamiya weathering set tomorrow.  From what I've been able to gather, they look good and are easy to apply.  Here's where I'm at so far:

As you can see, I've got some silvering with the decals.  I just couldn't make them cooperate.  And here's a pic of the .50.  I didn't like the kit part, so I grabbed one out of my Academy US Weapons Set.

Hey Ghostrider- thanks!

Guess you can always use extra ammo cans tossed on her somewhere.

I don't remember where I got the ration boxes, they are Tamiya- I think they were from one of the accessory kits but I don't remember which one. The large box is actually a British ration box, I figured they might have met up with some British troops and swapped rations for a change of pace- heck it sounded good to me....

Nice jumbo there, where'd you get the K-ration boxes?

So, I noticed something funny in the instructions for my M4, they tell you to make 8 of each .30 and .50 ammo cans, but the stowage diagram only uses 3 of each.

Hey Ghostrider, still lookin' good!

Ok, so the figures still need a little work and there seems to be dust on the thing in the photos ( I swear you can wash something off around here and two hours later it will be covered in dust again) but essentially she is done...

PS: Yeah I know considering the hull mounted .50 cal MG and the coaxial turret mounted MG there's not much point of the guy riding on the back firing the AA MG but hey I thought he looked cool back there and it's artistic license!!!

ok, so that leaves the commander figure and some gear to pile on and I'll be done, just in time for VE day tomorrow.

Update:

Painted the commander figure:

Of course, after I got him painted up nice, I installed him in the turret and realized that you can only see the top of his head.

I was going to do more figures, but then I realized, it's December 1944, somewhere in the middle of Belgium, the rest of the crew probably want to stay buttoned up and warm inside the tank.  That's probably one of the reasons why the commander is just barely sticking his head out.

That reminds me, I need to repaint the vision blocks on the commander's cupola.

Bob: Yeah hope you're feeling better soon. You're not the only one here, I mowed the lawn the other day and ended up with my sinuses so congested I didn't get anything done for a few days there.

Ghostrider: I really like what you've got going there. Sometimes I see whitewash that's just too perfect- seems much of it was applied in buckets dumped over the vehicle and spread around with a broom.  What you've got looks great!  

My Sherman is done barring anything going wrong. I think I'm down to applying a matte coat to the two figures I'm putting on the tank. No idea when I'll have the dio done but I should have photos of the tank herself up this evening or tomorrow to beat the deadline.

that sucks, I hope you feel better.

I got the whitewash on, and added some more dirt.

Well, I hurt my ankle at work today, and as a result I'm unable to walk downstairs to my workbench. Hopefully tomorrow or the next day.  I also won't make the deadline because of this.  I'll keep working on it when I can get back downstairs and be done as soon as I can.

I used raw umber for a pin wash, I didn't go too heavy with it.  I think if I can't make the acrylic paint weathering work I'll take a trip to the store and pick up a Tamiya weathering set to dust the Hellcat up.  I'll get some pictures posted of where I'm currently at tonight.

Looks good to me to. I do like those MiG pigments.

the wash is MM Enamel Burnt Umber, very heavily thinned, for the mud I used Mig pigments European Dust.

Looks pretty good to me, just like a Sherman that's recently driven though a muddy field.

I think the weathering looks pretty good to me.  What did you use for it?  I'm trying to replicate Karl's acrylic craft paint weathering he did on his Vorpanzer in the Armor Forum, but I'm not having a whole lot of luck with it.

Well, I've got it weathered.  It's my first real attempt at a wash, so I might have gone a little heavy, but damn, at least in person it looks like it jumped out of one of those WWII documentaries.

I'll start the winter camo in the morning.

Very cool Ghostrider!

got the tow cable on, one last pic before I get this thing dirty:

thanks,

I got all the tools and stuff on the back deck, they aren't glued down yet, since I'll probably have to take them off for the whitewashing, now I'm working on the tow cable and brackets for it, which should be the last bit I need to assemble on the tank itself.

Dan: She really looks good! Nice lineup there.

Ghostrider: Very cool! Always great to get the 'fiddly bits' like the lights and siren protective frames out of the way.

Thanks, Bob.

Ghostrider, the Sherman's looking good.

ok, got all the stuff on the glacis and the turret top done, moving to the tools on the rear deck next.

Wow, go out of town for a couple of days and things take off here!

RBaer: Fantastic job!  I really like your base and the figure really shows off the size of that beast

Ghostrider:  Looks great!  I can't wait to see how you weather it up and then the whitewash.

Dan:  Great finish!  Subtle weathering makes it look like it just arrived in theater.

I'm still plugging away on my Hellcat.  I was able to get the decals on last week.  Those were the most stubborn decals I've ever used.  Multiple applications of Solvaset didn't make even make a dent.  Hopefully tonight I'll get a chance to do a pin wash and get it sealed.  Then I'll start weathering.  It'll be tough to get this done by the deadline, but I'm not giving up yet

Thanks Bish, yeah I decided to try that with putting the tools on and painting them with the over all coat.  Think I'll go back to leaving them off.  I'm about halfway done with the weathering on my Stug, might get that stage finished today.

Nice, 2 in one day. Really nice looking build there Dan. I always leave my tools off and only add before the final weathering, I just find it much easier to paint them that way. I have added your first pic to my post on page 3.

Nice little collection you got going there as well. Looking forward to seeing your StuG finished now.

Thanks Gamera,

Thanks Rbaer: Excellent job on your Pershing, and your base is lookin' good. Was tring to get a M26 from Squardon.com during there hobbyboss sale, they never got them in stock.

Thanks Bish.

Ghostrider114: Your M4 is coming along great, like the lighter olive drab.

Well I'm going to call her done, was able to spray model master dullcote last Thursday and it's fully dry today.  I'm really happy how it turned out, think I'll be leaving off the tools and other items on future builds to paint them separately.  For me it'll make it easier.

My allied armor and vehicles portrait.

And my allied group build photo.

Looking really good there Ghost!

As Bish said I'm assuming they just slopped the whitewash over the vehicle including caked-on mud, dust, dirt and whatever else might be there.  

Anyway one last photo I took of the diorama before I decided to rip up the base and toss everything else into the solvent to hopefully clean the goo off.... 

Dan, coming along really nicely there.

RB, really nice finish there. Great work on the weathering and great looking figure and base. ye, I will add one of your pics, but it will have to be on page 3 where my first post is.

Looking good ghost. I would imagine the white was applied over the vehicle as is. Unless you have a high pressure steam wash, cleaning an AFV is a nightmare, and the white wash would not have been on for long anyway.

Raven728

Gamera

Sounds cool Raven, I like the individual link tracks, but gee friggin' whiz the rubber band ones are a lot less work.

I don't know what the 'vinyl' tracks in this kit are actually.made from, but I found out the hard way that neither primer nor superglue will adhere to them. The instructions say to use a hot screwdriver to melt the ends together, but that didn't work either, not even a little. So I ended up with superglued fingers and a workbench and model covered with paint chips with nothing accomplished. Pretty sure at this point that this kit is going in the back of the closet, for a while at least. Sorry to say that I can't see getting it done in a week with these miserable kit tracks. 

I've had issues with some brand's "vinyl" before too, try using acrylic paints instead of the enamels, those usually work better.  You can even seal the track with a coat of acrylic and then paint over that with normal enamels.  The heat riveting usually works for me, you might just need more heat, I usually use an X-acto blade instead of a screwdriver, the key is to press down nice and hard so the rivet melts into the top piece.  If that still doesn't work, some superglue brands have glues that are specially formulated for vinyl.

Ok, I guess I've been lousy about updates, but I finally got major assembly done and the main decals on, next I'll start on the little bits like the headlights and machine guns.

After that I'll get into the camo and weathering.  By the way, how much if at all did they clean these things before they applied the winter camo?  I'm wondering if I should weather it before I put the camo on.

RBaer: Looks fantastic! I've got to pick up another M26- been forever since I've built one.

BTW: I'll try to get photos of my Jumbo up by the cut-off date. I think I said earlier that I sprayed the base with some adhesive material to stick the debris down and it didn't dry. Well, I pried some parts up and found they are coated with about a millimeter of sticky goop so I just tore the whole blasted thing down and am soaking the sandbags and destroyed PaK 40 in Simple Green to hopefully get all the adhesive off them. Of course it will take the paint off too, so looks like I'm starting the base all over again, at least it's not the model though....  

I'm done, onward and sideways,

I really enjoyed this build, next is probably going to be another Pershing.....