I see you're keeping the side skirts on the Sherman.  It was rare for them to be worn in combat, but they do look good.  I like the interior detail in the Hellcat.  How did the kits go together?  Were there any issues with assembly?  

-Chris

ridleusmc

I see you're keeping the side skirts on the Sherman.  It was rare for them to be worn in combat, but they do look good.  I like the interior detail in the Hellcat.  How did the kits go together?  Were there any issues with assembly?  

-Chris

 

No major issues with the M18 assembly so far Chris. Even the "infamous too-tight tracks" went on without too much drama. BUT, a really horrible feeling is beginning to dawn on me that I might've got them on back-to-front. I'll check on that, but if I have indeed fouled-up then I'll just live with it cos there's no way they're coming back off again..!!..

The tracks on the Sherman were an absolute nightmare....

Way too hard and inflexible, and so brittle that they broke on me every time I tried to fit them around the drive sprockets, (old?? -- it is after all, quite an old kit). Superglue didn't work to keep them in place either -- well, not the locally bought stuff I was using at any rate. I eventually used a hairdrier to soften them up enough to get the things formed around the drive sprockets and secured in place with tiny drops of 2-part epoxy, which really was about as much fun as it sounds. 

If I had easy access to aftermarket tracks the horrendous kit tracks would've simply been trashed and replaced, but with the Christmas postal rush coming up I decided to just keep plugging away at them. Might revisit them sometime next year though.

The broken links were glued individually in place on each of the the top runs -- which is the reason why I decided to use the side skirts on this particular model.

The main assembly process on both AFV's is pretty much finished now, although they do need a bunch of additional painting and detailing work -- the Hellcat more than the Sherman of course. I'll be getting on with them next week and hope they'll be completed by the weekend as I've got dozens of figures that I need to swing over to doing.

Cheers

Incidentally, I originally intended to finish the Italeri offering in British service as a Sherman IIA, but on reflection, think I'll revert it back to an American operated tank and go for the Dragon "Operation Cobra" version in the New Year -- if I can get my hands on one, that is.

Cheers 

UPDATE -- both hobby shops in Hong Kong that I normally order stuff from have plenty of options for ETO Brit Shermans.

Everything looks great, I'm looking forward to more of your WIP.

Toshi

T26E4

Harry: totally up to you but a fairly well-known mistake about the Italeri M4A1 is the step in the gun tube about 3cm from the mantlet. It should be smoothed in with some putty. The Italeri designers used a de-milled fake barrelled display M4A1 when they drew up the specs for this kit. I'd recommend you swap out the awful tracks too. Make sure you glue movable suspension parts so that all twelve road wheels are flat on the ground -- another error with those super tight vinyl tracks. All roadwheels should be an a level plane. Hope these help

 

Duly noted Roy, and I had to go back upstairs to take another look at the gun barrel before my old eyes could see it....

Thing is; I'm unsure how much additional cash I'd invest in such an old kit, (replacement barrel & tracks), plus this one is now earmarked for the back of a country road in a different diorama which is planned to be set around November 1944. While I do want models I build to be reasonably accurate as well as "looking" right, I can live with some netting over the 76mm and gunk covering the tracks in this particular case.

However, the Brit tank diorama I have planned -- and which this Italeri kit has now been transferred out of -- will be set in an urban scenario, so thanks for the advice regarding roadwheels. The approach I've been taking has indeed been to make any suspension parts moveable, (when the kit is designed that way of course), and then once the tracks are on and I'm happy with the "sit", then I'm actually fixing the suspension in place with superglue. 

What I need to do now is decide on which particular kit I ought to do for the Brit diorama. I suppose one of the Fireflies will work, and I'm swinging toward the Tasco Ic Composite Hull version at the moment, but we'll see.

The Academy M18 is not quite the right shape either according to several reviews I've seen on the web. I think these kind of issues eventually come down to what each of us will deem to be "reasonably accurate", and that's always subjective. At this point, having only worked on four armor kits since returning to the hobby, I'm finding that my own personal "toleration level" for kit inaccuracies is quite forgiving -- but that's not saying I'd accept gross errors included in kits -- they're somewhat too expensive for that to occur just too often.  

Cheers

Toshi

Everything looks great, I'm looking forward to more of your WIP.

Toshi

 

Thanks Toshi, and I'll update the WIP over the next several days.

Cheers

Just my two cents, but I s--tcanned the Italeri tracks for my M4A1 right away. Thru Amazon, I got a set of Bronco T48 tracks. They are a project all unto themselves, but I'm hoping they'll fit. Came from Hong Kong in about two weeks. That is all thanks to the good folks on this forum.

After hearing from others here, I hit the barrel step with sanding sticks and paper. It looks pretty good after that

Good stuff! I'll  look for these next time. Thanks!

Cool Harry, looking forward to seeing how they come along.

Maybe a stupid question here but Dragon, Hobbyboss, Trumpeter, etc being Chinese companies it just seems odd to me you can't get their stuff there? Do they export almost all of it?

Looking real good. What are the figures going to be doing?

captfue

Looking real good. What are the figures going to be doing?

 

I've got three 1/35 scale WW2 dioramas definitely planned, (along with a few other ideas I'm kicking around), and hope to get them completed over the next few months.

1/ ETO: Outskirts of the Hurtgen Forest Nov-1944

2/ Tunisia: Winter 1942 - 1943

3/ ETO: Based on Band of Brothers episode 4, but not necessarily exactly as depicted in the show. Not sure yet whether it'll be Holland 1944, or Belgium/Germany early-1945.

The figures are the 101st Tank Riders from MB.

Gamera

Cool Harry, looking forward to seeing how they come along.

 

Maybe a stupid question here but Dragon, Hobbyboss, Trumpeter, etc being Chinese companies it just seems odd to me you can't get their stuff there? Do they export almost all of it?

 

I'm sure they exist in Beijing or Shanghai, and I'm certain sure there's a few in Shenzhen, but I don't know of any scale modelling hobby shops outside of Hong Kong, which is around 2,000 miles and an almost 4-hour flight south of my location.

Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region, which means anything bought there is classed as an international import for Customs purposes, and therefore subject to Customs search and import duty, plus it's a minimum transit time of two weeks to the Chinese mainland -- and there's restrictions on the value of goods that can be imported. Oh, and if they do decide to search through any particular item then believe me, they're not gentle as to how they carry it out -- I've a few horror stories involving hobby items being utterly destroyed, but that can keep for some other occasion I'm feeling grumpy about it. 

I have been able to bypass the situation a couple of times by persuading vendors in Hong Kong to send me stuff direct from Shenzhen -- which means domestic post or courier, and no unwelcome attention from Customs -- but getting around the language barrier can be...."challenging". You'd kind of expect English to be universal in HK, (well I did), but that wasn't the case even as recently as 1996, far less now. I've been able to hit up on two different vendors in HK who have sales people with reasonable English language skills and these are the hobby shops I use for the majority of my orders. If they don't have what I want, then I'll go to Historex Agents, Fields of Glory or Hannants in the UK, or Sprue Brothers Stateside, who all offer excellent customer service -- and keep me relatively sane.

Please be aware that certain UK or USA vendors have a policy of not shipping to China, which just adds to the fun after you've gone and registered on their website, gone through the catalogs, made your choices, gone through the order process -- and then when it comes to payment -- you find out they won't ship your order........and the wife is wondering why you're dancing around the living room with steam blowing out your ears.

I'm being facetious of course, but there's no denying a touch of frustration at times when you have to source and import consumer goods that actually originate from China. 

If anyone knows of any non-Hong Kong-based hobby outlets in mainland China, where communicating with them isn't a thrilling adventure ride complete with unexpected surprises, then I'm all ears....

Cheers

Well, the overriding reasons I joined this forum was to seek feedback, improve my modelling skills and act upon good advice. So thanks to all who have offered to help out.

The initial photo here was taken last night. That step on the gun barrel can be clearly seen and to be perfectly honest, the "lazy option" of hiding it under a bit of camo netting simply didn't appeal -- that's not going to improve my modelling skills one little bit, is it?

So having slept on it, the first stunning idea I had this morning was to replace the barrel with the spare one I had left over from the Hellcat build.

Hmm, nope -- that ain't gonna to work. Nothing else for it than a bit of scrub-a-dub-dub with the sanding sticks then. I'm not sure if it's evident in these photo's, especially as the subsequent coat of thinned Mr Surfacer 1200 was still wet when I took them, but it does look like the barrel profile has been improved somewhat. I'll know better after that primer coat has been given time to cure enough so's it'll take another very light sanding session and then get the topcoat of OD back on. (Probably tonight).

Meanwhile, there's still plenty of additional M18 detailing and painting to get on with.

Cheers

Barrel looks better Harry.  Looking forward to the Diaroma as well.  Thanks for sharing!

usmc93

Barrel looks better Harry.  Looking forward to the Diaroma as well.  Thanks for sharing!

 

I'm just on the point of posting a completely different diorama mate. Once that's done and I get my coffee break finished, I'll head back upstairs to getting the M18 completed.

Cheers 

Oh wow, I had no idea things were that crazy! Thanks for answering my question. I thought about Lucky Model but yes they're out of Hong Kong too... And I didn't know there were vendors who wouldn't ship there, gee whiz.

The M18 and the M4 you have both had a 76mm gun so the barrel should be the same. The muzzle brake might be different, someone else here would probably know more.

Gamera

Oh wow, I had no idea things were that crazy! Thanks for answering my question. I thought about Lucky Model but yes they're out of Hong Kong too... And I didn't know there were vendors who wouldn't ship there, gee whiz.

The M18 and the M4 you have both had a 76mm gun so the barrel should be the same. The muzzle brake might be different, someone else here would probably know more.

 

Well that's what I thought -- both barrels being for a 76mm, but naah, for some reason the spare M18 76mm barrel is too big compared to the M4A1 kit example. That's why I placed it on top of the Sherman turret for the photo's. A bit more work ought to make the original look acceptable though.

Oh yes, I could indeed relate several "fun" stories connected with the pursuit of a relatively harmless hobby here in the Middle Kingdom, but shall leave it at that....

Cheers 

Well, that's the best I can do with the gun barrel on the M4A1 so I'm calling it a day. 

Harrytheheid

Well, that's the best I can do with the gun barrel on the M4A1 so I'm calling it a day. 

I put in another couple of hours on both AFV's tonight. Time to leave them both alone now and begin the weathering tomorrow morning.

Cheers

 

Toshi

Well harry, seems like you have more challenger senjoying this hobby than most of us do. I just never imagined it would be that hard. I often buy from Chinese and HK sellers on e-bay and they are always great to deal with.

All the more credit to you for sticking with it and producing some nice builds. Allied armour ain't my thing,but looks like you coming on well with those and getting all the advice you need.

Bish

Well harry, seems like you have more challenger senjoying this hobby than most of us do. I just never imagined it would be that hard. I often buy from Chinese and HK sellers on e-bay and they are always great to deal with.

All the more credit to you for sticking with it and producing some nice builds. Allied armour ain't my thing,but looks like you coming on well with those and getting all the advice you need.

 

Actually, things have eased up over the past 5 or 6 weeks since I presented myself down at the local Customs Office (again).

The two lady officials we saw initially threatened to send three of my international orders back to their point of origin. Why? Well the excuse this time was "too many parcels". This was the same two beauties who sent a US$650 order straight back to the States last year -- cos they told my wife the "box too big", (??????). I was stuck in the Middle East at the time and couldn't do much about it.

They were eventually persuaded to release the three orders on payment of a nominal amount of import duty -- isn't it amazing what a bit of heart-rending pleading and basic grovelling can do? 

To cut a long story short, a small package from Historex Agents had been delivered to our place by Postman Pat earlier that morning -- and on the way home, we stopped off at the Post Office around the corner and picked up a 5th parcel with no problems. Make of that what you will, but it's a true story.

Only way to handle the situation is with a wicked sense of humor; which thank Gawd I do happen to have; in spades at times..!!..

There's been no further problems with any hobby deliveries since that latest farce -- but this happy state of affairs won't last, and then we'll go through it all over again. Sometime I really do think it's just a game. You know? "Yeah, things have been quiet, guess it must be time to play the Let's Bug The Foreigner Game again"....

Well, that's the decals onto the Sherman and the first stage begun in the weathering process.

Unfortunately, the kit decals for the Hellcat have proved to be a real bear, but I'll get back to them after a coffee break.

Guess I growled too soon. It's two hours later -- and that's those horrible kit decals on at last, plus I got the weathering started on the M18 as well. And it's beginning to look better already, (I think).

Going to wait a while and then the decals on both AFV's are in for an overnight soak with Micro-Sol -- that'll sort 'em out..!!..

Looking good so far!

MrT

Looking good so far!

 

 

Cheers MrT.

I just this minute finished weathering the lower hulls on both models. I'll post a few more snaps in the morning (my time). That'll give it all a chance to dry out and I'll see what needs to be done next.

Hmm. Seems like between your travels and adventures with the locals, you have a very exciting life! Does the hobby help keep you calm? Lol

M1GarandFan

Hmm. Seems like between your travels and adventures with the locals, you have a very exciting life! Does the hobby help keep you calm? Lol

 

Yeah, point taken -- and you're right; time I stopped grumpin' and get back to finishing off these two models....