The SAAF Forum

I finally started on my project of 6th South African Armoured Division in Italy.



As a first of many other ahead, I decided on Sherman Ib called "WALRUS" of D Squadron, Pretoria Regiment photographed somewhere in Italy. I mannaged to get this Dragon 1:35 scale M4 (105) second hand with few parts missing, which will be replaced with plastic card and 3D printing. Some details will be replaced with further 3D printed parts. Decals designed by me based on real photo and brilliant book-publication by Willam Marshall.



Boxart



Some 3D printed parts and decals designed by me (except MG mount and light covers)


Started with wheels and boggies assambly. This time, arms and pins for road wheels were warped so it required a good alligment.


3D printed track skids are compared to plastic OOB solution.


And first evening ends with boggies assambled. Note that the top right one has arms from older M4A4 because one set was missing in my second hand kit. Connection of boggies parts wasn't great as always on Dragon Sherman kits so applied putty and left it to cure till tommorow. EDIT: thanks to the photos, I realised that on the mid boggie in right collumn, I glued spaced return roller arm front part to upturn roller back part so I butchered them apart quickly and glued correct part to its place.

Folowing with interest.

3D printing really helps with missing parts.

_________________
How come every time my ship comes in, I'm at the airport?

More progress made during morning.

Worked on boggies assambly so I drilled out 4x holes in front piece, filled in recesses in top of upturn arms meant for track skids and attached thin plastic cards at top of each boggies.

Also worked on hull, it wasn't 100% square at the back so I had to use tape to get propper alligment. FDA cover was easy to put together. Dry fitting of top and bottom hull with FDA showed some missalligments around FDA which was adressed by two plastic spacers.



Boggies with drilled out holes and bit of plastic card details.


3D printed track skid dry fitted.


Missalligment of top and bottom of hull together with FDA was sorted out by two thin pieces of plastic card.


Dry fitted, FDA sits perfectly in its place now.

More progress throughout this week.

I finished detailing up boggies. I also applied texture to casted top parts of hull and also to hull side plates (note that it looks smoother in real). Worked further on hull parts, both lower and upper hull attaching various details including few PE parts. Just to be sure, I used Surfacer 500 in some places that is yet to be cleaned with levelling thinner.
Dragon being Dragon, there's some missmatch in some part numbers so you have to double check. I'm leaving of rest of the toggle assambly at rear so I don't demage it.

I smoothed turret texture a bit with Surfacer 500 brushed over and than stippled with tamiya extra thin to get more like subtle pebbled texture than what Dragon provided. Texture on rolled plates was smoothed further so there's only some intended imperfections here and there. Air filters were fitted correctly.
Some small items have been attached throughout last days. I used metal straps on some pioneer tools leaving rest with plastic molded ones, because I plan to add stowage with tarp over most of the engine deck. Turret hatches are going to be left open with two figures inside. Driver/radio operator hull hatches are going to be closed. Sherman itself is going to be in situated in indirect fire position with some empty paper containers around.
This build is getting slower, because each part in this kit has a little flesh, not just mould seems and especially on small parts, it's taking time to smooth them out. So far this kit is far worser than Dragon's Fisher M4A2/Sherman III I build previously. Worst thing so far is that Sprue A is either different one provided by Dragon, or swapped by previous owner. I figured out today, that both variants of hull hatches differs from ones depicted in manual and hinges doesn't fit into it's place on hull. That would require careful surgery removing hindges from hatches, smoothing them out and regluing hinges into correct possition.

Both sharp edge and rounded edge hatches as provided in my box. None of them fitting correctly.

It´s not Chrysler track assembly plant but my workspace. Last week I worked mostly on tracks and one run was assembled.
Being designed by me and printed by my brother, these required a little clean up and than just snapping them together without any glue. There was some satisfaction hearing them click together.

Last week I also worked on gun mount dust cover. It's my first try with Tamiya epoxy putty. If it looks okey, I will proceed with adding more details.

Progress is a bit slower with all those small pieces I’m adding to this build. I sprayed insides and also lower hull parts black and glued both lower and upper hull together.
I also took M2HB out of RFM Firefly Vc kit and used it on Sherman Ib. It’s nicely molded with separate barrel and receiver like on real thing. I assembled receiver with its mount and attached it to rear turret bracket. Spare barrel was made out of injection needles of various diameters and wrapped in Tamiya putty to mimic its transport cover.
I also tried to cover MG with piece of tarp but I’ll probably keep it without tarp so it’s more interesting.
M2HB is only dryfitted to the turret and it still needs some cleaning.

New 3D printed spare tracks holders and armored engine cover fitted. Bullet splashes on front armor plate made for early glacis pattern. Bullet splash of filling caps and turret ring connected by welds as on early pattern hulls.




With all the small pieces attached, I proceeded with AK Real colors OD and later with detail painting and chipping. Once it was done, I sealed everything with AK RC satin varnish.

Decals applied and I am so satisfied with how it looks. All went smoothly and custom made decals adhered perfectly. I was able to determine position of AOS and Div emblem, yet censored, from original photo. There’s no photo of SA Sherman Ib from the rear but since there’s no space, I guess that rear of the tank was kept without AOS and Divisional emblem. What’s your thoughts guys?

I hope I’ll give it another layer of satin varnish tommorow. Than I’ll have to wait with further weathering till next weekend when 3D printed stowage pieces will be finished. But at least varnish will be cured properly to protect everything from enamels.

So figures will be my next move and since I’m not good with them, I hope these will end up okey.

Looking fantastic.

_________________
How come every time my ship comes in, I'm at the airport?

Awesome build!

3D printing is indeed a great help to manufacture the needed spares/ parts.

It indeed is. I am not a good scratchbuilder but as I graduated in civil engineering I worked with 3D designs a lot.
These arrived some time ago


105mm containers were cleaned and base coated with dark brown. Wooden ammo box for 105mm ammo base coated with buff.
C323 17pdr ammo box, often used as personal/on board items box was attached to rear stowage rack together with some rolled blanket from spare box.
Two balsaks (kit bags) were made out of Tamiya Epoxy putty and put to each side of the rear engine deck. One wooden ammo box and containers were then stacked between those.
Once that was done, I rolled Tamiya Epoxy putty as thin as possible into the large tarp thrown over these.
Remnants of the baby powder were later washed away once everything was set.




With stowage painted, kit received enemal wash. Basic pre dusting using enemal products like NATO rainmarks and dust&dirt deposits. Also shown is a base that will be further worked on.

As I was still testing position of tank on its base, I haven’t applied much more pigments. Only some were applied with wet technique and fixed with pigment fixer. Dry pigments, wet effects, oil stains and speckles to be added later. There’s also some small bits of stowage to be added later on.
I am glad It’s slowly getting to finish. Some touch ups were made on the base securing almost perfect transition of tracks to ground. As it’s situated in spring, ground is Dey, but soft so tank should be a bit pressed introverte ground, especially after few rounds shot. Small gap between tracks and ground is going to be filled in with terrain paste as one of those finishing touch ups.
I also attached ammunition pile to the base (to be painted later on) and base itself was sprayed with dirt tones with some highlights. Various items like rocks, old wood pieces and so on were picked up with acrylic colors. I applied dark brown wash here and there hopefully making it more interesting. I already like the contrast of lighter base with darker OD color. Spring vibrant static grass together with few flowers and other bits here and there should make it even more interesting.
I’m still not sure if I should put some bushes to the rear area of the base or not.

Slowly started with the greenery yesterday. I decided to add at least small bushes in the rear are and also glued those small little shrubs here and there. Next move is to add static grass.

I couldn’t resist and placed some empty shell casings and paper ammunition containers to get and idea how it’s gonna looks like. Figures are also only dry fitted to get an idea.