Sherman ARV Mk.1 South Alberta Regiment

[MARCO]

Nice build, nice tips about alternative materials!

[Beekster]

I may shriek and never stop. Verily I tell you, I may shriek and never stop. I have already complained about how tightly packed the brass fret is for this model, and how the fold locations are all on one side which is the cheap way out. Well, that has now bitten me. If you scroll back to the instructions, you'll see that etch subassembly in the upper right corner using parts E1, E2, E3, and E4. Well, the leg bends on E4 cannot survive the handling required to fit the other pieces. Once broken, there's no getting them back into place. Note that there are seven of these assemblies to be made for the widgets on the side and glacis, whatever they are...not grousers, that's for sure.

So here's the plan: I will saw the widgets off their resin pour plugs, sand the backs smooth, and superglue them to .010" sheet so that I can glue them to the hull in the usual fashion. I will use the brass parts as a pattern to scratchbuild the racks using .010" styrene stock, which might not actually take longer that trying to work with the brass. The way the fret was packed together ensured that there are lots of nubs to be removed with nippers and file, and that's both slow and risks bending the part in ways you don't want it to.

In other news, you can see here that I have the Hollebone draw bars finished and installed with their brackets:




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The planks have been sealed with Dullcote and are mocked up here; soon I will glue them down and start work on the frames that hold them. Boy, have I got a lot of work ahead with my NWSL Chopper tools and strip stock.

I've also got the other two hatch handles and the cable retention fittings installed on top, and the vise and skate rail back on. The instructions have you secure the tow cable eyes with some bit of brass, but the way that part is made there would be no way of getting the cable back out again. I will have mine look like this mock-up, with the ends secured to a shackle. That cable is a scale hundred-footer, which was part of the standard kit. A second one is 50 feet, and I can make two others if I wish at a standard Sherman length (25 feet, I think...need to make sure).



And finally, you can see some casting marks on the center diff section just peeking out from beneath the big snatch block:


This one is now going to slow down quite a bit. It will take time to build all those infernal widget racks, and with my airbrush station fully sorted I'll soon be painting the Mack transporter and the Madill again and reporting on those threads.

[BUCKY]

In spite of the pitfalls, you are doing a great job on this build! Keep up the momentum!!

[JCON]

Very well done and getting quite busy to look at!!!

[ogrejohn]

Very busy indeed, nice work beekster! 

[Beekster]

Despite a busy weekend, a couple of things saw progress. I measured up one of the brass racks and started chopping strip stock, and after some trial and error hit upon taping down my small steel square and a second steel ruler to hold strips in place while I started construction on the racks. The first one was really slow to do, since I wanted to get the crossbars about even side to side. Once that first one was done and cured, I could start building the remaining racks. Here you see four; a fifth is setting up now so two more to go:

This is, of course, just step one. Step two is to make four standoff legs for each of these and glue them on, twenty-eight more parts. Step three is to make the rest of the structure that is built part-way down the legs; that's another twenty-eight parts. Step four is to attach the widgets to the hull, followed by these assemblies, along with base plates for each of the legs. Sure enough, there is another twenty-eight parts. If you are counting, that is 112 individual pieces of strip stock... Finally, there will be seven P/E brass parts added (one each) to finish these little buggers.

Also, I ruminated on the standard pioneer tools and where to put them. Pictures show where the shovel and track tension spanner go, but not anything else. There are no images of the engine deck on these things which shows anything useful. The view is always blocked by the pile of large planks and other stowage such as rows of jerrycans. I made the assumption that the tools were relocated to the deck, and made my own compact arrangement. It's similar to what you would see on an M3 Lee/Grant or an M7 Priest. I'll finish this off with a long strap to tie them all together, though that is probably overkill. Gravity alone would keep these tools in place in their fixtures, I think.


I won't know until I have the plank stack and related brackets firmly in place, but I suspect there is still room for a rack of jerry cans or a couple of ammo boxes to stow additional gear.

[JCON]

Nice rack parts!!!

[BUCKY]

Good looking scratching, beek!

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

You're a Brave Man Beekster!

[Beekster]

Feb 6, 2018 10:01:53 GMT -6 dogfish7 (R.I.P.) said:

You're a Brave Man Beekster!

Brave?  No, not so much.  Simply irritated at cheapskate conversion kit engineering and determined to bull my way through the obstacle.  Nothing hard about what I'm doing with these racks, just tedious work that progresses only slowly.  As always with scratch work like this, patience is the cardinal virtue.  Glue one of these buggers together, and walk away until the glue is thoroughly dry.  Eventually things come together.

[reserve]

Nothing like a bit of PE to make your day

Coming along nice your patience is showing

Regards,
Mark

[JED]

Cracking job beekster

[MARCO]

Oh man, this thing looks better and better!

[Beekster]

This thread has been quiet for a while, and here's why: Those widget racks have been a real pain in the patookus, both tedious and fragile. The first one is finished and on the glacis:



The racks are coming out a little wider than I had hoped, but that really only shows in this location where gravity would cause the widgets to slide down the glacis to the bottom of the rack. The others will hang vertically on the sides where the extra width will be split on both sides and thus less noticeable. I may disguise this one with some chains in there or something. Now, only six more to finish and put on the model. There's only 21 separate pieces to each of these racks all told, with the hinge rod at the end, the etched brass clasp, and the wingnut...

[JCON]

Throw a tankers jacket over it and call it good!!!

[ogrejohn]

Those do look tedious and fragile. They turned out great! 

[BUCKY]

They look fine from Tennessee! Keep up the great work!

[JCON]

Good thing you went to the eye doc so you could see it from there Boss Man!!!

[BUCKY]

Ahhhh....the majik of the WWW!!!

[reserve]

If you'd not pointed this out I'd have likely not noticed it. Have at it Beek the racks look excellent, and remember you can get used to just about anything if you're tangled up with it long enough

Regards,
Mark