Building and detailing the M4A3 Sherman tank in 1/30th scale (2 Viewers)

[Kenneth Osen]

When I finished adding most of the details to the upper hull and turret I needed to start priming, painting and weathering the upper hull of the M4A3. One of the features I noticed in many of the wartime photographs were the addition of steel rod or flat stock added to the turrets for stowing various packs, blanket rolls and other soft stowage. In addition other items such as helmets or even rubber overshoes are hung up high to be more accessible and to an extant above the mud. I decided that in order to insure that it would be durable during handling that I would hammer out a piece of iron wire to approximate the shape and size I needed. Once the turret is painted I can add the support by gluing the ends into holes drilled into the turret and add stowage. I also decided to replace the headlight, tail light and siren guards with some prints that were a bit more refined and detailed up the tool tie downs. I am sure that before it is all said and done I will add other similar improvements as I add stowage. An easy to add detail at this point was to drill the mounting holes along the lower edge of the hull where the fenders would have been mounted. I also remembered to add the small exit pipe for the auxiliary generator that vented out of the crew compartment at the left rear fender. It was made from small brass tubing that had the walls thinned down from the. Inside and then was crimped to an oval with small pliers to simulate that detail on a real vehicle. I think I will also try to improve the exhaust deflector, but more on that later. The last thing I did before priming the tank was to drill the drain holes through the vertical splash guards that protects the turret and various filler caps, a small but interesting detail.

 

[paxtoysoldier]

Very interesting to see the work that goes into these products and others.
Thanks Ken. We met once but you've met everybody so no foul if you don't remember. We liked your round-based dios at the time.
Paddy for Dad&me

 

[Kenneth Osen]

I started to apply various shades of Olive Drab paint over the black primer with my airbrush on the main hull and turret. The transformation was startling when compared to the flat black primer coat and it is now starting to look the part of a small version of this classic piece of World War Two American armor. I used three different shade variations of OD from a Vallejo US armor paint set that I am pretty happy with and the weathering will shift the color a bit more before it is all said and done. Before I went too much further I decided to use the decal sheet to create painting stencils for the white identification stars. Using masks and spray painting the stars white over the base color really looks good. Looking at vehicles from the late 1944 to 1945 period, the stars often only appear on the front of the transmission housing, the rear deck and on occasion the turret sides. On many of the 76mm armed M4A3s there were small stars on top of the larger turret. The upper surface international recognition markings combined with the brightly colored AL-140 and AL-141 Air Identification panels were important to help the roaming Allied fighter bombers to recognized friendly forces during the fast advances toward Germany. When vehicles had the added turret racks added I suspect that the various musette bags, bedrolls and other items attached minimized the visibility of the stars, but with that said the turret stars are often absent. I think the next vehicle I finish will not have markings on the turret.

I also started to add weathering such as chipping, scratches, oil and gas spills along with the first applications of light mud effects. I used a combination of water based acrylic paint, artist matte medium and modeling paste along with some very fine sifted soil for the mud and I will give a little more detail on additional techniques next.

 

[Desertkiwi]

Embarrassingly enough, a lot of the technical details are lost on me. But my subconscious registers them and they, for me, separate a tank model from a miniaturized real tank. Latter immediately demand attention and respect and in any modeling show stick out. If AFV modeling switched from 1/32 or 1/35 to 1/30, I would be all in.

Great post. Would love to see 1/30 scale kits too. Thanks for sharing all your skills and knowledge Ken, its greatly appreciated. Before this thread, I had never heard of Campaign Miniatures and their wonderful kits. Given AV prices, building your own 1/30 scale vehicles is certainly an attractive option these days.

I have been given a 1/35 'Dragon' Normandy Sherman kit to build, however its just too small to work with the likes of K&C or even FL and Britains figures.

Cheers

 

[Kenneth Osen]

Thanks, I hoped that some of you might enjoy following the build here. There were a couple 1/30th scale kits of German armor released in the 1970s when I was a clerk in a hobby shop and they occasionally show up in E-bay listings and are good starting points if you are willing to do a little work and detailing. The Campaign Miniatures range was something I started while working at W. Britain to allow folks to consider adding to their collections with the ability to detail and mark them for different units at a reasonable cost. I noticed that the prices have been reduced making them even more attractive to use as a basis for conversions. The M-18 and M3A1 Halftrack build into a really nice vehicles with lots of detail too, but they are in limited supply and I would recommend getting these while they are still availible.

 

[Kenneth Osen]

One of the kit parts I was not really very happy with was the exhaust deflector at the lower rear end of the tank. This style deflector first showed up on the Ford built tanks powered by the GAA V8 engine and continued to be used thru the production of the M4A3. An armored version was fitted to vehicles by 1945 and most of the post war rebuilds included this armored deflector too. The simulation of the light steel deflector in the kit was a bit too robust and shallow, but honestly I was intimidated by the amount of work it would take to scratch build one out of styrene plastic. The advantage of with working on a small model for so long is that you have plenty of time to consider how you might approach each part of the project. Early on I decided that it was in an area of the model that few people really study, so I just used the part as it came out of the box. As I approached the end of the build it bothered me so much that I thought I might try to improve the exposed cross section that represented the deflector by simply scraping down the exposed edge the way I did with the front fenders. I took a copy of the part from one of the other vehicles I was working on and after a little over an hour I had a part that looked better. But the real proof would be in how it looked on the model after painting. I quickly airbrushed the modified piece and was pleased enough that I immediately modified a second one that turned out even better. I removed the old one from the finished tank and replaced it so I could weather it in place.

Now with that nagging detail improved it was time to wrap up the final details I had been thinking about and I will cover that in my next post.