Desert Rat Achilles

[Beekster]

Sometimes the simplest approach is the best. I place the seats according to reference photos and glued the mounts to the sidewalls. Since my springs are real springs (and made of some exotic alloy intended for high-voltage, high-vacuum use a quarter century ago), I gently teased them into position. They are subject to the tiniest bit of compression, which tends to keep them there naturally. Not being willing to trust to that, I used an old curved dental pick to add drops of thin superglue top and bottom to lock them in place. I like the effect!








The seats still have a bit of flex to them, so they won't break off when the painting happens. Now that they are in, stuff like junction boxes and basic wiring can be done. I also need to make a particular kind of junction box for the driver's side sponson, and add a box or two for grenades down on the co-driver's floor. But the lower hull interior is coming together quite nicely now.

[JCON]

Looking nice and busy!!!

[JED]

Great work Beekster

[Beekster]

Work on the turret is nearly done. I've added stowage rails to the applique armor, and fitted the tarp props and vane sight. I drilled out the top holes on both ends of the sight to improve the looks, and added two bolt heads that Tamiya missed. The gun barrel and mantlet are mocked up to show how things look, but the fit is pretty precise. I'll need to be careful of those tarp rods and the gun recoil guard when it comes time to paint.




Speaking of the mantlet, it needs a little help. The overall shape is about perfect; perhaps a bit too sharp at the forward edge. I've taken a file to that to round it off a bit more. There's also a wedge-shaped piece on the bottom that every kit manufacturer has missed; it helps deflect bullet spash & fragments from entering though the front when the gun is elevated. You can see the addition here; easy work with some strip stock and a needle file. This addition isn't an artifact of the gun conversion; every M10 mantlet should have this added.




There's more work to do on this part. While Tamiya's collar for the 17pdr fits perfectly well, the weld seam detail is compromised by the way they engineered the join so that needs some attention...probably with a wee bit of epoxy putty laid in and textured with a scalpel blade. Tamiya also missed the prominent casting marks on the mantlet, and on the differential covers too for that matter. Archer Surface Details resin decals will come to the rescue for all the missing casting marks.

[JCON]

Coming together nicely...

[Beekster]

Work progresses on the interior, and that is satisfactory. However, I've also started to work on the suspension...and I'm not happy. Tamiya's design is interesting, to say the least, and quite unlike the way any other manufacturer engineers their VVSS bogies. On the upside, they are very rigid. On the down side, they are very rigid...no movement of the gudgeon arms is possible at all, not even the usual back-and-forth rocking we're used to from Italeri or Dragon. The downside of that rigidity is that there's no adjustment anywhere to tweak the suspension to keep the wheels flat on the ground if there's the slightest misalignment anywhere else in the assembly of the hull...and there usually is. I've finished one bogie and it looks rather too chunky as well; too deep front to back. I'm looking at everything closely and taking some measurements and thinking, but I've just about reached the conclusion that the smart move is to bin Tamiya's suspension entirely and replace it with Tasca/Asuka parts which offer the ability to adjust the suspension. From an assembly perspective this isn't a big deal, but it also means that somewhere down the line I need to budget for three more aftermarket suspension sets for these four tank destroyers.

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Always sumthin.

[Beekster]

Jun 8, 2020 23:28:03 GMT -6 dogfish7 (R.I.P.) said:

Always sumthin.

Yep...  I'm going to build up a Tasca suspension, I've decided.  In addition to the rigidity issue, there's something about the chunkiness that bothers me.  The Tamiya parts measure a full .2" thicker front to back than Tasca/Asuka, which is seven scale inches.  Nobody has ever said that the Tasca/Asuka bogies are out of proportion, and they sure look right on every model I've ever used them on (Tasca/Asuka or not).  The other issue to deal with is perceived realism.  Those extra armor plates had to have added three or four tons to the weight of the tank, and that's enough to cause a bit of squat in the suspension.  The Tasca/Asuka parts allow for some vertical movement of the volute springs so that the suspension arms can extend or compress.  My incomplete Madill 071 yarder shows an extreme example of this at the front.  The physical action of the parts isn't the way the real thing works, but it looks right when finished and that's all that matters on a model.  So aftermarket I will go, and shim the volute springs to allow a bit of flattening to the gudgeon arms.

I managed to get rid of it, but circulating on the internet ages ago was a chart someone did comparing the dimensions of Academy, Italeri, AFV Club, and old Tamiya VVSS suspensions to each other and referenced to what the actual scale measurements should be.  I'm kicking myself for that because I can't find it any more, but right now I'd really like to see that again and compare this new Tamiya set to everything else.  As I recall, there were various small errors among the various kit parts back then (pre-Asuka, Rye Field, and others) but none of them were way out (like seven inches) anywhere.

[rustybaer]

I love this: a whole field full of rabbit holes! And I agree, the extra armor plate would have been plenty heavy enough to noticeably collapse the suspension.

[Beekster]

More work has been done over the last few days, so it's time for a progress report. This is what the mock-up looks like now with the Tasca suspension assembled, detailed with necessary holes & bolt heads, and attached to the sides:




If you notice something odd about the rear, you're right. I've decided to add the remnants of the deep wading gear. Several images from multiple units show these remains right up to the end of the war. The Desert Rats came ashore from D+2 onward, and their Cromwells definitely had the deep wading gear installed so it makes sense for the AT regiment vehicles to have been fitted thus as well.

Inside, I've cast up the British pattern canteens and added them, and made simple brackets to hold Tasca headlights on both sides. Lenses, clear or blackout, can be fitted right at the end. Also seen are some of the wiring inside, and there's more of that to do and other widgets to be fabricated.







Back outside, I've added casting marks to the mantlet. The part number was done old school using the shave-off letters & numbers that come with all the Academy TD kits. The others are Archer Surface Details. More of the latter will be used to put proper marks on the diff cover.

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Over the Top Beekster!

[JCON]

Nice work sir!!!

[Robbo]

Oh wow, top draw modelling

[Beekster]

More wiring in the front compartment, and I fabricated a power distribution box for the driver's side. Inside the glacis, I've fitted a fire extinguisher, periscope holder, dome light with power lead, and the clutch lockout levers. Those levers are unique to the diesel-powered variants of the Sherman family, which had two inline-6 diesels coupled to a common output. If one engine was inoperative, it could be clutched out and the tank could continue operating (slowly...) on a single engine. More stuff happening in the background too; I'm about to mix up RTV for a mold to make copies of periscope boxes and grenade boxes.

[JCON]

Nice additions!!!

[Robbo]

Seems such a shame to cover all this good work up

[Beekster]

Jun 22, 2020 11:36:43 GMT -6 Robbo said:

Seems such a shame to cover all this good work up

It won't be completely covered up.  All of this is visible to varying degrees through the open hatches for the driver & co-driver.

[Beekster]

I've been running down a rabbit hole lately with respect to the stowage diagram:

I've already done most of this, and some stuff like greatcoats & blankets would get stuffed wherever they fit, like behind the radio. I probably won't try to include any of the soft stuff. But sticking straight up in the middle of that diagram is the cylindrical object labeled "case, rangefinder No.12". That got me intrigued, so down the investigative rabbit hole I went. That rangefinder was about a meter long and was commonly used to locate targets and range them for the Vickers heavy machine gun. The TD units didn't use the Vickers; that was an infantry or field artillery item and the only MGs associated with the M10 variants were US types. So what gives? I can only assume that someone in authority thought it would be useful for long-range shooting using the big gun. I've never seen one of these in use, but it is so unusual I decided to include it:


Evergreen tube & strip, punched discs, wine bottle foil for straps, and an Aber buckle.

I also rejiggered the wiring on the sidewall and moved one of the switch boxes for the No. 19 radio set to that location.




Also, Tamiya in their usual fashion simplified the details of the main gun ammo stowage in the sponsons. The rounds were held in wooden racks, rather like wine bottles. The racks were sliced horizontally so that pieces could be removed to access the rounds and replaced when the rack was refilled. When the racks were in place, everything was held together by canvas straps held snug by a buckle just above the level of the sponson floor. Since this area will be largely obscured by the turret, I elected to do the simplest rendition of this I could: Evergreen strip bent and glued around the racks, with a buckle from the Academy accessory sprue tacked on. It doesn't look quite right, but under paint and with the limited sight lines this method should be fine (as he waves his fingers around, Jedi-fashion...).

You are seeing it here under substantial magnification.

[Beekster]

Oh, also visible in the co-driver's area are a couple of boxes for spare periscopes and British grenades. The periscope box comes from the Tamiya M10 kits and the grenade box is another Academy Achilles item. You'll notice mine are a uniform cream color, which means what you think it does: These are castings from an RTV mold for these parts.

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

You never cease to amaze me on how much details you can add to a model. Awesome!