Academy M7 HMC: out of the box build

T26E4,

     Very nice build! Like you said, you can hardly see the weathering. I would make it a little more worn but as this is a commission build I imagine you have to build it towards the buyers taste. Nice model otherwise. How is the kit itself? I've been toying with the idea of getting one.

-Stephen

Hi Stephen: I'm glad you like it.  How's the kit?  It builds up w/o too much fuss. Annoyingly there's a mash-up of early, mid and late features on the HMC itself.  Steve Zaloga deals with those issues in an article in another modeling magazine.

Terry at PMMS has this review too:

http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/vehicles/academy/acd13210.html

wbill76 wrote:

I'm sure the recipient will be proud to have it Roy, clean construction on an OOB project and the light weathering touch make it a winner. Must have been hard though not to introduce some corrections along the way I bet!

I had to keep murmuring to myself: "No Evergreen!  No Evergreen!"   LOL

I'm a stickler for scale thickness of walls and if and when I build one for myself, I'd swap out the kit walls w/sheet styrene.  

I did place one piece of plastic down the middle of the howitzer's slide -- there was no other way to fill that seam.  The two other diversions from the kit instructions was to correctly place the MG barrel clamp and omit the cleaning rod rack on the left hull.  Other than that, it's essentially OOB.

Hans von Hammer wrote:

Just a minor detail... The breech block and operating handle of the 105 should be silver.  They weren't painted.

Roy - To be even closer, the block should be a steel color such as Alclad steel and the slide block would be polished such as Alclad polished aluminum. The block handle would be black or bakelight brown.

Most of the photos people look at show repainted display units and they usually paint the block. Any working howitzer, the block is not painted and on weapons with a sliding breech, that part would be polished.

One safety reason for not painting the block on this howitzer is the witness marks for the placement of the gunners quadrent (to check elevation) are on the top of the block. 

As for the rest of the build, its clean but very well done. Ammo tubes are correct color but the end caps are usaully sheet metal and are satin in finish compared to the flat black tube.

Rails are showing shiny wear (use same color for sliding block) but would have a tinge of light brown for a light coat of GG1 grease on them. I can't tell though it looks like you did.

Elevating and traversing hand wheels should show some ware from being turned.

The ammo fibers were marked with white lettering, showing shell type, lot ect. If thats an interest, I can give you the exact markings. 

Just forward of the breech is the firing mechanism. A small section of OD green thread with a small black ball at the end makes a nice lanyard.

Hopefully this helps.

Generally a nice build. I spent toooooo much time on 105mm howitzers. I could go on....well you understand.

Rounds Complete!!

It really looks great. Don't worry about the subtle weathering it doesn't make the model look less nicer.

I can only wonder how much it would take for Academy to provide clear headlight lenses with the kit. 

This is the towed 105, M101, but the gun's the same on the M7.  Here's a few details.

*Note* The witness marks that Redleg spoke of are two tiny squares on the top of the breech, about 1/2"x1/2". 

Hans - Thanks for picking up the displacement!!

Rounds Complete!!