Takom M3 Lee (Late)

[tony]

What can I say?
Uncle Tony

[BUCKY]

Another cool build coming down the pike!!

[tony]

Well Bucky i've gone down the Sherman road so I thought I would put it in reverse and take them back the other direction.
The lower hull is assembled for page one and the bogies on page two,pictures tomorrow.

Beekster, did the US leave these OD in North Africa or did they give them a desert scheme color? Maybe they smired mud on them?

Thanks
Tony lee

[ARMORGUY]

I like riveted tracked stuff !

[tojo72]

Should be a good one

[Beekster]

Tony, they were all OD overall. Pictures of striped Lees in Tunisia are local mud smeared over the surface. The Lee was typically pretty boring as far as colors & markings are concerned; always OD from the factory and at most something like the red/white/blue star & roundel seen during stateside training or the yellow stars, horizontal turret stripes, and tactical symbols seen sometimes in North Africa. The British Lees in North Africa could be more colorful. They got some along with the Grants, and were painted the same as their Grant cousins. Lees that made it to Burma stayed OD. You don't really see camouflage on Lee variants in US service aside from some of the T2/M31 TRVs.

I haven't started either my Grant or my M31, so I will be interested to read your commentary on the Takom kits. They look great in the box, but so did the Academy versions...The only thing I'm doing with my Takom M31 at the moment is using the lower hull as a pattern to add the winch cable rollers on the underside of an Academy/Legends M31 conversion I started long before the Takom kit was announced.

Greg

[tony]

 Thanks Greg.
I didn't remember seeing any other than OD in videos or photos but it doesn't hurt to ask,right.

Ok this is what I got done last night after it was delivered:






All the joints on the tub lower hull are really a tight fit without a hint of gap. The bogies are workable but have a lot of unglued parts to hold in place while gluing the outer housing half on.
Going to tackle the tracks next,they say they're one link short. The instructions show some sag behind the sprocket and even provide a jig but on a moving tanks that sag wouldn't be there and i'm thinking by leaving that sag out you just might eliminate the shortness.

Today will be busy with other things on the to do list but i'll try to get one side assembled,link and length tracks go together quickly.
Later guys
Tony lee

[Mence]

Sweet start Tony.

I promised myself one or two of these when they were first released, still haven't got one.

[JCON]

Nice start Unk!!!

[Beekster]

Looks good, Tony! The sag was an early feature that tended to disappear later. The bogies were sometimes fitted with pillow blocks to raise the return roller an inch or so, which was considered desirable when fitting steel tracks. A change in the position of the idler wheel could also take out that bit of sag. On those hulls that were converted to other variants and refitted with the later heavy-duty Sherman VVSS bogies, they always looked no different than a Sherman variant...no sag. The idler is adjustable, so positioning it straight down instead of aft will also compensate for being a link short. Though the instructions show how to bend the upper run for the sag, the parts on the sprue are flat so you don't have to introduce the bend at all.

[JEFF]

Nice one, Tony and a good start.

[tony]

Howdy,it's time for an Update

I only got to work on it off and on all day Sunday,if I could've put in a full day the construction might be complete by now.








I've never built a kit with so many mitered corners before but Takom has done an outstanding job of engineering and with attention to detail and staying one step ahead in my mines eye all those corners are water tight not a hint of gaps.

If you hear people or read reviews of complaining  about gaps I assure you it was not the fault of the kit.

See Ya Later Guys
Tony lee

[Mence]

Fantastic work Tony and good to read fit of the parts is good too, keep it up...

[JCON]

Doing a very good job there Tony!!!

[Beekster]

Progressing well, Tony! The Lee/Grant series is probably the most challenging family of American armor to build precisely because of the odd shapes. The whole design was a stop-gap. We wanted a 75mm gun and so did the British, but in the late spring of 1940 when the Lee was designed we had not yet designed or cast a turret large enough to handle the recoil of the 75mm cannon, so the sponson mount was required. The rest of the hull shape was a slightly up-scaled version of the M2 Medium. That tank was essentially a test-bed for manufacturing techniques and crew training, and had the driver sitting atop the transmission. The M3 series retained that, so the hull shape was dictated by the gun and driver positions and the size of the radial engine at the back. Tall, bulky, and awkward was the result, making replicas challenging to build seventy-eight years later.

[JEFF]

Simply outstanding, Tony. Those seams look awesome.

[tony]

Another Update

First thing I did was assemble the duplex turret then added some do-dads.







The two main gun barrels have open bores but you'll have to drill out the two MGs





It's back to work on the tracks and once that's done the fenders and mounted items can be placed.

Having a good one today even the sun came out.
Tony lee

[BUCKY]

Great progress, UNK! This is lookin' gooooood!

[JEFF]

Pretty tough to beat an "added Do-Dads" update. Right smart, Bub.

[Dukemaddog]

This is looking excellent as always Tony! Stunning work!