Post by Beekster on Jul 8, 2020 17:20:18 GMT -6
This is another one of those slow-burn projects that has been on & off the bench just about forever. I'm back at it while paint dries inside the Desert Rat Achilles and lacquer cures on the Ram Badger. You're asking yourself, "what's wrong with the AFV Club turret, or indeed the Academy or Italeri ones?" I'll tell you: The Academy turret is shrunken, about 85% of what it ought to be. Like the Academy M10 variants, this is because their hull is nearly four scale inches too narrow which throws the proportions of both hull and turret into a cocked hat. The Italeri turret is a wee bit too large overall, and the seventies-era details are very soft. That leaves AFV Club. I will leave aside for now all the other myriad things wrong with all three manufacturers M36 kits, and just deal with the AFV Club turret. I've got two to rework, and I don't know what I'm going to do with them just yet.
The AFV Club M36 turret has two major flaws:
The first is the gun barrel, which has a strange step in it. This is probably because AFV Club looked at a tank that had been up-gunned with the 90mm M3A1 post-war, which had a single-baffle muzzle brake and a bore evacuator. The step corresponds to the place where said bore evacuator ought to be; the tank they looked at no longer had it. So the barrel has to go, and that requires choosing a path: MR Modellbau makes a straight-tube barrel for AFV Club, which would be fine for one of the first 600 M36s produced. But for a later, threaded barrel with thread protector fitted, some modification will be necessary to fit a barrel intended for Academy/Italeri M36 kits (for WW2). Same goes for any M26 Pershing (late WW2 and beyond, double-baffle muzzle brake) barrel, or post-war M46/M47 barrel. Which barrel you choose will be determined by your particular subject...and I haven't quite decided.
The second is that the bustle is about .080" too short. Unfortunately this can't be solved by adding a slab on the back and shaping it, because the error is at the front where the bustle meets the turret and the little stub roof goes over the extreme rear of the turret compartment. What this means is surgery:
You must use a fine saw to cut aft along the top of the turret to separate the roof from the sides, and then cut the lower part of the bustle from the turret shell. As you see it in the photo above, this has been done and a jury-rigged frame glued into the turret opening. This does two things: The rear face of the bar across the top is located as a bump stop for re-attaching the bustle. The rest of the structure reinforces that and the whole shell so it doesn't go wobbly during filing and sanding...and there will be a fair amount of that to blend new material in and even up the opening. Visible to the right is the assembled bustle, with material added to shift the bustle aft like it should.
This image shows the modified turret back together on the left, with the unmodified one on the right. The difference is noticeable, but subtle.
And from the front, looking inside the bustle:
There is much more work to do; the joint on the inside must be cleaned up and the seams need more material added to fill the gaps. Then all of the weld seam detail has to be restored and more added that AFV Club missed. And eventually all the footman's loops, and lift rings, and grab bars, and so on...to say nothing of work to detail the interior and the gun breech. But the most ticklish part is complete on the first turret, and it took many tries to get the additional material solidly attached and then shaped to more or less match the contours of the back of the turret. One more turret to go, but having done it once I'm more prepared for the pitfalls. I even managed to get that whole brace unit out in one piece, so it can be used again.
The AFV Club M36 turret has two major flaws:
The first is the gun barrel, which has a strange step in it. This is probably because AFV Club looked at a tank that had been up-gunned with the 90mm M3A1 post-war, which had a single-baffle muzzle brake and a bore evacuator. The step corresponds to the place where said bore evacuator ought to be; the tank they looked at no longer had it. So the barrel has to go, and that requires choosing a path: MR Modellbau makes a straight-tube barrel for AFV Club, which would be fine for one of the first 600 M36s produced. But for a later, threaded barrel with thread protector fitted, some modification will be necessary to fit a barrel intended for Academy/Italeri M36 kits (for WW2). Same goes for any M26 Pershing (late WW2 and beyond, double-baffle muzzle brake) barrel, or post-war M46/M47 barrel. Which barrel you choose will be determined by your particular subject...and I haven't quite decided.
The second is that the bustle is about .080" too short. Unfortunately this can't be solved by adding a slab on the back and shaping it, because the error is at the front where the bustle meets the turret and the little stub roof goes over the extreme rear of the turret compartment. What this means is surgery:
You must use a fine saw to cut aft along the top of the turret to separate the roof from the sides, and then cut the lower part of the bustle from the turret shell. As you see it in the photo above, this has been done and a jury-rigged frame glued into the turret opening. This does two things: The rear face of the bar across the top is located as a bump stop for re-attaching the bustle. The rest of the structure reinforces that and the whole shell so it doesn't go wobbly during filing and sanding...and there will be a fair amount of that to blend new material in and even up the opening. Visible to the right is the assembled bustle, with material added to shift the bustle aft like it should.
This image shows the modified turret back together on the left, with the unmodified one on the right. The difference is noticeable, but subtle.
And from the front, looking inside the bustle:
There is much more work to do; the joint on the inside must be cleaned up and the seams need more material added to fill the gaps. Then all of the weld seam detail has to be restored and more added that AFV Club missed. And eventually all the footman's loops, and lift rings, and grab bars, and so on...to say nothing of work to detail the interior and the gun breech. But the most ticklish part is complete on the first turret, and it took many tries to get the additional material solidly attached and then shaped to more or less match the contours of the back of the turret. One more turret to go, but having done it once I'm more prepared for the pitfalls. I even managed to get that whole brace unit out in one piece, so it can be used again.
