Need some advice on my M4A1 Sherman

i looked back at the jumbo i'm doing (Tamiya) and I don't have the gap (although the jumbo does have an extra armor plate in front, i still wouldn't see a gap without it) ........ italeri is notorious for that kind of stuff, i think.

That's just a sheet metal fender on the real thing, but it should fit a bit more closely than it is. Of course you could just call it "bent" and move on. I don't think it'll affect the over all look of your kit. Fenders do get bent. It could be your kit though as I built this kit about 20 years ago and looking at mine, the fit is much closer.

Looked at several real Shermans (one M4A1 and two M4A3s) some months back. Dug out my photos (used two rolls on them) and looking at them, some fenders are flush, one missing, one bent in and another that was bent up a good bit, enough that I remember I could slide my hand between it and the transmission cover.

Where the regular part of the fender, i.e. the portion that would be there even when there are no sand-skirts, there should be no gap. The reason that there should be no gap, is that there is a narrow flange on the bottom of the fender that overlaps and sits on top of the transmission housing. What Italeri did for their M4A1 is to mold this fender flange onto the transmission. Actually your photo even shows this; it is that raised strip on the edge of the transmission, about 1.5 millimeters wide. Fill in the gap between the this strip and the vertical sides of the fender because in real life they were the same part.

As far as the sand skirt where it is in front of the fender flange, I really have no idea of whether it also incorporated a flange like the regular fender, or whether it just went straight down to bolt to the tranny's side cover. I don't think that I have any photos that would really show the detail. Regardless, it doesn't seem like there should be a gap between the front vertical portion of the sand -skirts and the transmission case. Either a flange would hide the gap, or the vertical would be bolted tight to the transmission.

One thing I noticed aside from the fenders, is that the bolt strip is incorrectly located. The bolts are supposed to be located in the recessed strip in the hull, just above the transmission and not on the transmission itself. Also, the bolt strip is upside down. The edge in which the bolt recesses are extended to the edge should be on the top rather than the bottom. This should be a minor fix at this stage of the game before paint.

My little squadron book says no gap.

Thanks for the help everyone! I've decided to model this rascal with a missing front skirt and a damaged front skirt. That'll correct some incorrect alignment on my part as well as add a little character to this beast. I especially appreciate Abarne's comments about the incorrect position of the front bolt strip. I completely missed that important detail. The instructions were pretty lacking in that regard and I've since removed it and repositioned it according to a reference photo from my collection.

The hard part will be thinning the damaged skirt to a reasonable, realistic thickness. ..

Thanks again everyone!

Dennis

Here's a good "tweaks" list for the great Italeri M4A1 kit.

www.usarmymodels.com/ARTICLES/articles.html

BTW, I noticed the upside down bolt strip, too. However, I'm almost positive that the bolt strip was part of the nose/transmission cover and NOT the hull. It was the upper part of the one part casting and the bolts secured it to the glacis

Ooops!

Regarding the bolt strip: my reply isn't totally correct. The earlier poster is correct in saying that where you located the strip is wrong. I looked at the photo again and see that you glued the strip too low. It should abut the hull immediately below the MG port opening -- where there's that ridge. The bolt recesses should look like "U's". The lower portion of that bolt strip should be smoothed in with the top ridge of the transmission cover.

What you've done is glue the transmission cover too far back. That's why the gap appeared on the fender. It should be forward about 2mm.

<img src="http://www.network54.com/Realm/modelpix2/DSC00642.JPG">

Dennis,

If you do decide to keep the front fenders, my earlier speculation regarding the gap or rather lack of gap on the sand-skirt portion of the front fenders was not entirely accurate. I was flipping through one of my references and saw a clear photo of a Sherman, sitting in clean in front of a warehouse, and there was a clear shadow line between the edge of the tranny and the vertical part of the fender below the flange. After puzzling on that for a bit, I realized what the deal is. The vertical part of the sand-skirt does indeed seem to bolt to the tranny's side cover. However, the outside of the side cover is not flush with the outside of the tranny but stands proud of it by whatever its thickness is, probably 3/4 of an inche or so.

So, the sand-skirts should probably be positioned to just touch the edge of the side cover which would give you the gap that you probably have there currently. What I had said previously about filling in the gap between the back section of the fender and the flanges that are molded on the transmission, is still correct.

For thinning out the fenders so they look more plausibly like sheet metal rather than armor plate, one handy trick is to simply bevel the edges. Because it is not real noticeable if the entire fender is of uniform thickness, the main thing is to simply get a fairly thin edge.

If you really want to crumple the fender, you could take some heavy duty foil, form it around the plastic fender, and then crumple. To give added strength after crumpling and perhaps some added thickness, fill the underside as needed with super glue.

Andy