Mothballed Sherman Progress Pics

Well here it is ...... official post #5,000.

A number of years ago, while drooling my way through Hunnicuts "Sherman, A History of the American Medium Tank", I ran across a couple of pictures that intrigued me.

Now most everyone has heard of the "Mothball Fleet", where the U.S. placed a substantial number of capital ships into a mothballed condition for future usage. Little known is that the U.S. did the same thing with the Sherman so that it could and was in fact used in future conflicts.

Over the years I considered building one of these "Canned Shermies" and recently I jumped into it.

Only having 2 pictures to work with made the build rather interesting but so far I am pleased with the results.

Here's the 2 pics that I used for reference for this build.





The kit that I chose to use for this build was the Tamiya M4A3 105 with the HVSS tracks from AFV Club. These tracks are listed as workable ..... notice I say listed as. The only thing workable about these things are the amount of work that goes into them to make them stay together.
The dust cover is tissue paper soaked in white glue / water
All structural work is sheet styrene and engineering plastics.
A few more odds and ends and she's ready for the paintbooth.

Here's a couple of pics with the "house" on





And a few more with the "house" off (the tracks are just set in place for these photos)











And just to complete this photo array, here's a couple of shots of the "twins", just about ready to go in the booth too. Just a few more bits to add.



This next shot shows the detail on the dust cover with strips of brass cut from a sheet and bolt detail from Grandt.



Hope you enjoy these progress pics.
All comments and critiques welcome.