Has anybody checked the bandai kits out to see if they were more dimensionaly better than the hobbyboss dogs.AND what is the detail like on them as i have not seen any in the flesh but am curious to see how they stack up because there are some version s they did ie m4a3 105 that i would love to see and it would be a damsite easier than haveing to crosskit the hobby boss m4a3e8 with the tamiya m4 plus doing all those turret changes just to get to a nice 105 sherman thanks wayne

stack up pretty well in terms of basic shapes and dimensions. They do fall down in the finer details, but much of that can be corrected or simulated. The M4A1 and M4A3 large hatch hulls from Bandai are far better than the misshapen ones from Hobby Boss, but the details on the HB parts is better in many cases. The Hobby Boss M4A1 hull has the correct angles for the tailplate and the straight bottom edge across the back; the Bandai hull has the recess and is not angled back at the correct angle. The Bandai M4A3 hull is the correct basic shape and the engine deck detail is decent if not as sharp as the HB detail. Where the Bandai hull falls down is the detail for the cast portion of the front hull roof. The Hobby Boss hull is not great here, but it is better. I may use some Bandai hulls with a cast resin "carapace" to build up the roof.

There is no doubt the Bandai Shermans will take more work to update, but the HB hulls are so bad that replacement is the only really efficient answer. We worked out here on Track48 how to correct the HB M4A1 76mm hull, and it isn't that hard, but when you can buy a resin hull for a few bucks, with extra details, the correction is optional. A few folks here also corrected the M4A1 by cutting off the front of the HB M4A1 hull and grafting it to the rear of the Tamiya M4A1 kit. You'd also have to graft on the rear of the hull to get the later rear, but that is easy to do.

The HB M4A3 hulls are ALL (yes, even the M4A3E8 hull) so badly pooched the only rational thing to do is forget the error, build them and enjoy them, or replace the hull. Most of us have chosen the latter, but I have seen OOB builds that don't look bad. You realize something isn't quite right, but from some angles, they do not look that bad. From other views, it's WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? That has to be your call. I'd be glad to run you through it if you like. Email me.

hi bruce i was under the impression from the reveveiw section on the perth website that the hobbyboss m4a3e8 hull wise was the best of the bunch with only the one flaw left and that was only a 2 minute fix .That was the way i went when i made my m4 105 i cut the front end from the hb kit just aft of ththe hatch area and mated it to the rear of the tamiya m4 Idid the 105 turret from the tamiya kit suitably modified .I had iron bobs 105 but icould tell that he had just tarted up the hb kit one and added a mantel ,steve zaloga pointed out the dramas with hb s 75 turret so i was able to figure out how bob did it.WHAT are the turrets like on the bandai kits particulary the 105? and is the bandai m12 ok? thanks bruce

Yes, Hobby Boss did get the engine deck on the M4A3E8 down to the correct width. However, since they did not correct the misplaced hull side angles, the only way they could fix the engine deck was to reduce the angles of the upper rear side armor plates further, and they were far too shallow to begin with. As I said, the majority of people build these kits OOB and are perfectly happy. Obviously, if you build an Easy Eight with the sandbags on the hull, you'll never see most of the hull errors. Stowage is your friend. If only Hobby Boss had gotten the Sherman hulls correct, all the other smaller errors would have been acceptable.

For folks like me, with AMS, we just can't leave the things alone, so resin is our friend. I supplied Bob with the data on the Hobby Boss hull problems, and he cut up the HB hull and rebuilt it, a VERY tough thing to do. I have the masters and they are excellent. When you start chopping or adding to hulls and turrets to correct them, it can be a lot of work. That's why many people buy the resin correction parts, especially if you are going to be using several of a particular piece.

The Bandai small turrets (75mm and 105mm) have good basic shapes, but they are not well detailed compared to the HB turrets, and they have an inaccurate front end that must be fixed, as it is quite visible. The HB turrets have their issues too, but at least the turret front and mantlet mount are OK. The Hobby Boss stuff is maddening: they got so many fine details right, but got the basic shapes wrong. On the other hand, the Bandai 105mm turret is excellent except for the misshapen front, and that can be fixed. But, the ID and Faxon 105 turrets are even better, so that's a choice too.

I am beginning to think a new article on the Tamiya, Bandai, and Hobby Boss Sherman kits may be the only way to show folks what's wrong and how to fix it IF you want to. Frankly, since the ID and Faxon resin hulls are so cheap, the easy thing is simply to replace the hulls. The M4A1 hull can be corrected pretty easily if you do not mind some filling and putty work. It has many good features, including a correct rear end. We'll see what the demand is; it wil be a bit of work, and the Bandai kits are getting rarer.....

that the majority of resin correction parts are "tarted up" kit parts, for two very good reasons: first, the kit part may be almost right, or have the right shape and size, so there is no point in reinventing that wheel, and second, using the kit part as a basis means the resin correction or conversion is much more likely to fit the kit properly during assembly. It can still be a lot of work to modify a kit part to make it correct, or add details the kit doesn't have.

Hello,

Interestingly I feel that Hobby Master got their version of the M4A3 upper hull right. Did you ever check them out Bruce?

JohnO

If you have not seen it, there is an article on the Hobby Master M4A3 105mm gun tank in the Reviews section of this site that I tarted up and I think the upper hull is one of the best parts. If you were really nuts you would buy one just for that part and stick it on a Hobby Boss base, although I found that the Hobby Master 105 came out pretty good using the rest of the Hobby Master Parts with some parts scrounged from other kits and a bit of scratching. Dimensionally the hull seems pretty much right on and the turret also looks pretty good for the later model it represents when compared to the plans and pix in Hunnicutt.

The suspension and tracks are the weakest parts - if I was to do another I would scrounge Tamiya sprockets and idlers, spare Hobby Boss suspension towers, Tamiya or Hobby Boss road wheels. You could also use AM resin wheels, and of course Tim Perry's fantastic Fighting 48th Track. I still may go back and add Fighting 48th track to mine, but since the Hobby Boss track I used on it looks pretty good on the display shelf that is a project for some later date. With all the Sherman kits we have been fortunate enough to get not to mention the AM resin, the parts-is-parts school of assembly can get you almost anything you want.

If you want to correct the HB M4A1 hull there is a thread on that some time back, and Bruce is right, I really should make an article out of that. Have not corrected an M4A3 but it would require taking the top out of the hull from about half the way back on the turret ring, restoring the proper decking there and then cutting it up the removed parts into correctly sized pieces and reinstalling them, restoring any lost detail as you go. It would probably he easier to make the two angled plates on either side of the engine deck from styrene sheet. An ambitious project, but doable. I actually have accumulated a small pile of these HB kits and the Fighting 48th track to shoe them. AM resin hulls in quantity would be even more expensive, so I am thinking about working out a process and correcting them all in an assembly line like batch.

Konrad

thanks bruce, it seems that your most likey right.i for one wodnt mind an artilce on how to fix them.Are there any faults with the hobbyboss m4a3e8 forward of the weld line just before the angle on the hull.if you check out my last posting under bride of frankensherman iwas doing an early m4a3 with the drivers hoods but icould add the front end from the e8 kit and ishould have a accurate m4a3? sound ok or am i pushing something up hill with a drinking straw? iawait your learned response wayne

If you were going to build just a couple of the HB or Bandai Shermans, reworking the parts would not be a chore. But, I'm looking at probably two dozen kit corrections. The HB M4A1 takes about 1-2 hours to do, especially if you use epoxy putty, which sets up fairly fast. The problam with the HB M4A1 is the upper edge of the hull is too narrow, so the sides taper in toward the top too much - it gives the tank a turtle shell appearance. BUT, HB got the rear correct: angled rear plate and no cutout, a straight tailplate. It's maddening..... The whole Sherman series is like that, basic shape errors in EVERY Sherman kit, and then small esoteric details that are correct, even stuff that Dragon hasn't gotten right yet.

To publish an article here, I have to avoid using copyrighted material. Now, US Army photos cannot be copyrighted since they are in the public domain. Bu7t, Im have also photographed a lot of display Shermans, so if I can find my own photos, we're in. Let me check on this.

thanks bruce that would be fantastic ,Icant figure how come there is enough info for kit makers to get stuff right ,hopefully the wizard will extract his digit and do some late shermans ,god it would be good if dragon would scale down thier shermans we wouuld laughing ,i look forward to you responce wayne

had a whole bunch of close-up photos showing all the little nit-picking details, but no measurements or overall pix to show basic shapes. Otherwise, there is no rational way to explain how they could have gotten the details right and the basic shapes wrong. That just does not compute....."Open the pod bay doors, HAL."

...that the the M4A3E8 is among HB's worst... I was under the false impression it was a slightly more "respectable" HB Sherman...

Can you tell me what is the HB Sherman that requires the smallest NUMBER of corrections, regardless of how heavy those few corrections are? (Correcting small rear plates angles/dimensions is too difficult for me to consider)

From what I understand of what you just said, the large hull hatches M4A1 76mm is the answer, having a correct rear, but needs the upper rounded corners of the hull "splayed" wider to have the straighter sides. Didn't that result in an upper hull that was too wide dimensionally?

If correcting the HB M4A1 76mm is little more than squaring the upper side corners of the upper hull, that would be great news to me! I actually think the much taller one-piece HB transmission cover captures the tall Sherman look far better than Tamiya's. You may recall the Tamiya transmission cover was measured at 16.2 mm vertically, while the actual Sherman is 17.6 mm, a full vertical 3 inches taller on an obvious front item. Bandai's transmission was also too shallow, but significantly better at about 17 mm...

The Hobby Boss transmission cover was the closest of all at 18 mm, so for such a large frontal feature, it captures the tall "belt line" look much better in my opinion.

Unfortunately for Tamiya, even covering the whole front hull with stowage does NOT correct the far too low position of the hull mg; the entire upper hull front face, light guards etc, would have to be crushed upward, sort of like a man pulling hard up on his pants... This is why the Tamiya M-10/Sherman series, though otherwise good, have never figured on my "to do" list, this even with a resin after market upper hull...

So if squaring the upper corners of the HB M4A1 76 mm is all that is needed, would that be my best starting point for a Sherman? (I'm realizing, as I type this, that no Tamiya turret is compatible with a big hatch A1 hull, so gun tube/turret problems are probably why I never pursued this path further; maybe a quick pointer to the best compatible turret?)

Gaston

P.S. For "pulling up the pants", I have found a probably unintentional "solution"; it is a resin "composite" upper hull conversion (17.2mm tall transmission cover, despite the Tamiya base) by a company called "Azimuth" which is OOP (intended for a Firefly, but the offered 17 pdr is very poor). Unfortunately, the hull mg position is high enough, but far too narrow, and requires a correction. Even worse is that the transmission cover's rivet line looks strange, though I could live with it...

G.

Gaston, just scratchbuild it!!! Forgoodnesssakes, a Sherman Hull is all flat plates!!!! If it was a RAM, or a Sentinel, or a cast M3, I'd understand some trepidation, but flat plates just glued together; how difficult can it be? OK a bit difficult, as HobbyBoss and Tamiya have clearly showed us, but if you know what you want, just get on and make it!!!

Tim

www.fighting48th.com

just that the hull was messed with even more than before to make the engine deck the correct width. The critical error HB made was mis-locating the break in the hull roof and the angle in the upper edge of the hull sides. It should be 4 feet (1 inch on the 1/48 model) from the front edge of the hull roof, and it is just about 5 feet (1.25 inch on the HB hull). This mislocation then forced them to muck up all the aft hull armor angles to make everything else fit. Yes, there are a lot of more minor errors and glitches, but if the hulls and turrets had been bang-on, the small stuff would have been bearable. After all, we have to add sponson floors to all the Tamiya kits.....

As I mentioned, I have a bad case of AMS, so I just can't leave the problems alone. Unless you have modeling conversion experience, I think the best bet is to build the kit as is, or buy a resin hull if you can't abide the shape that is in the kit. Please bear in mind that many people have built these kits OOB and have been satisfied. Each modeler must choose what personal standard he wants to achieve. The tragedy is that ALL of Hobby Boss's other tank kits are beautiful, among the best released in ANY scale. Rat pookies, is what I say.

By the way, if you are modeling a WW2 E8 Sherman, the HB turret has only one option: Korea, 1950 - they added the canvas mantlet cover adopted after the war was over. And, there is no front on the turret - you MUST use the mantlet with the canvas cover, as that is what attaches to the turret shell. To solve that problem, you'll have to buy the M4A3 76mm kit with VVSS. It comes with two turrets: one with the loader's gun ring hatch and the other with the later oval loader's hatch. They both have regular mantlets, and you can use your choice of turret for the E8. Some early E8s did have the turret with the gun ring hatch, and some late VVSS M4A3s had the late turret with the oval loader's hatch - the wonderful world of mix 'n match Shermans.....

Hobbymaster M4A3 Sherman. My only hesitation is that some of the detail is a bit heavy because the HM tanks are die-casts. The hull and turret shapes are quite good. If you are willing to do some finishing and fine detailing work, a lot of the 1/48 die-cast models are perfectly acceptable candidates to be brought over as true scale models. Several of the Classic Armor tanks are in this class, BUT they do need some work here and there, and unfortunately the tracks will need to be replaced on most of them, being rather poorly detailed cheap vinyl. I am going to do some of these for a Track48 article later this year. I have a couple of tricks to get the die-casts up to speed with minimal work.....

Hello,

What's really funny is that our basic bread and butter Tamiya M4, isn't an M4! (Apart from the points that Gaston is going on about!) The Tamiya hoods are closer to M4A3/M4A4 in shape. Tamiya did the same I beleive with the 1/35th scale job. So every time I see a Tamiya M4 made up,with out corrections done to the hoods. I have a good laugh! Because it isn't an M4, but some kind fantasty Sherman! LOL!!!!

JohnO

Well, guess it's nice we can give you something to laugh about.

Ouch! I didn't realize how badly off the HB E8 was...

Nor did I know about Tamiya's A3/A4-style hull hatches; yikes! Thanks for that one John!

I did know about the Tamiya M4A1's Grizzly rear deck, if not exactly what it is actually...

The question still unclear to me; how good is the Hobby Boss M4A1 76mm, if you correct the "shoulders" squarer as detailed here with two different methods two years ago? Are the only remaining problems in the turret? If so, how bad are they?

Gaston.

turret are the mantlet shape and width and the too-big hatch opening in the cupola. Also, the gun ring hatch used on the T23 turret was a low-profile type to allow the TC to see OVER the gun ring hatch to the left of the cupola. It was a very low ring, and the closest HB came was in the M4A3 75mm kit. THe low-profile hatch can be identified by the taller apearing pintle for the .50 BMG. The pintle actually was the same height; the lower gun ring made it look taller.

Gaston, building up the hull with a strip of .060" plastioc to set the width, as Konrad did, and then filling in with an epoxy paste or putty like Miliput and blending the contours might be an alternate to cutting the hull and spreading it. Either will work - it depends on whether you are more confortable as a carpenter or a sculptor.....

Tamiya Driver's hoods to correct them?

Thanks,

Art

Hello Art,

If you can get hold of the Osprey Modelling book.
Modelling the US Army M4 (75mm) Sherman Tank
By Steven J Zaloga

It has details on how to correct the hoods. Konrad was also working on corrections awhile back. I think Konrads method was alot simpler.
So maybe Konrad will repost a photo of what he was up too!

Other than that, study the photos...you can't study Sherman photos enough!
Because the Sherman seems to be a never ending story of surprises.

JohnO

for the M4A3 and some M4A2 models, as they taper in plan form. The M4 hoods had parallel sides and rounded front corners. Here is a front shot from Lone Sentry:http://www.lonesentry.com/features/f35_image1-10th-armored.html This will indicate how the sides were parallel.

Hello Bruce,

That's interesting to know that the Tamiya hoods are good for some M4A2's
You don't happen to have a photo or a link to a photo on the net?

JohnO

Here is the photo that John was asking about. I used Tamiya two-part epoxy putty to fill the spurious weld 'trenches' and to square off the hoods on this Tamiya M4 to their correct profile, as well as filling the headlight guard locating slots for later replacement with PE - the MUST use of PE on this kit. The episcope openings are squared off on the M4 hoods as well, and that was done with tiny slivers of styrene. I think the work makes the kit look far more correct, but for some still not perfect (I did nothing about the transmission height). This correction is based on Steve Zaloga's comments in his Osprey Sherman detail up book. Steve cut in plastic, but I found you could just form the epoxy putty with sculpting tools to do the same thing.



The Tamiya putty is great because it has a long working time, sticks like glue, sands to a feather edge microns thin and is stiff enough to hold its shape as you sculpt it. Yes, that is a recommendation. You will need a couple small sculpting tools to shape it - I used a Tamiya stainless steel paint stirrer and a small dentist's spatula. The work is actually goes pretty fast because there is no cutting. Wet the tools with water to keep the putty from sticking to them if this becomes an issue.

With careful sculpting and a little sanding these corrections blend seamlessly into the plastic part. I had to make a tiny sanding block to flatten the glacis without spoiling the machine gun cover strip detail, but in retrospect I should have sanded it off and replaced it with stretched sprue that would have looked far better. That will be for the next one.

Here is a close up of the finished work:



For those interested, in the other details, the weld beads are stretched sprue - much faster than using the two-part Tamiya putty as I have done in the past. The tracks are Track48 regular Tim Perrys fantastic Fighing48th extended end connector set - highly recommended. The PE is the basic Hauler set with a few scratched bits thrown in and the Crocodile conversion is from Hauler as well. Oh and I made the mandatory sponson filler for the kit using the templates posted here on Track48 - take a look at the index if you need them, contact me if you can't find them.

Hope this helps,

Konrad

PS

If you want to see the whole model in paint, it is over in the Assembly Like under Something A Touch Wicked - take a look if you like and let me know what you think it is up for constructive comments. Please note that the upper hull is still not finally attached, and that gap at the transmission cover should close when I do that. I have also painted the MG jackets since then.

Hello Konrad,

Thank you very much for posting the photos of your hood correction technique! It's good to see WIP photos, always gives one food for thought as to how to go about doing it oneself!

Thanks

JohnO

so if i get a tamiya rear hull and a hobbyboss m4a3e8 front hull and mate them together i should be able to come up with a decent m4a3 hull id also cut out the m4 engine deck and replace it w
ih the hobby boss part and modifie the rear ive done the rear half already
so if i add the front like the next photo
the hull in the photo is m4 105 this was done by joing the front of the hb m4a3e8 to a tamiya m4 so if i follow the same method will i end up with the right out come

Nice kitbashing Wayne!

I can't see what kind of transmission cover you are using on that 105mm Sherman; is it the more accurate HB?

I assume the Tamiya lower hull is less of a running gear headache than the HB hull, or is the reason for this choice the better sit of the Tamiya upper rear hull on top a Tamiya hull?

If I were to use the HB T23 turret on such a kitbashed M4A3 hull, does anyone make a replacement 76 mm gun AND mantlet?

In the Track 48 store I found a 75 mm but no 76 mm metal after-market barrel, much less an after market mantlet... I suppose the defunct Iron Division did offer T23 turret/mantlets, but I wasn't savy enough on Shermans to pick them up at the time...

Any solutions out there?

Gaston

It is in the T48 shop (just checked). Olivier at the Quarter Kit shop has one in his Gasoline line as well. You have to correct the HB mantlet by adding some styrene sheet to the sides and some more styrene and some putty to the bottom to reduce the undershot look. Here is a corrected example with the Gasoline 76mm barrel.



The rest of the HB turret is OK, but the commanders hatch opening is too large add a ring of styrene to reduce its diameter. The hatch is too big too, but you are on you own trying to fix that. One possibility would be contact Steve Faxon for a Sherman all-round vision cupola it is the right size, but will take some fitting.

As long as we are talking hull corrections, here are a couple of shots of the correction to the HB M4A1 hull. Again HB got the angled plates on either side of the engine deck wrong. The width of the engine hatch is acceptable, but the rear decking on either side has to he separated and lifted with styrene wedges to correct the excessive downward slope at the rear plate. Once this is done some 1mm thick profile strips and a lot of two-part epoxy putty must be added to restore the nearly vertical angle of the side plates this is the most glaring error on the HB M4A1 hull and is well worth the effort.

First the cutting angle and wedging:



Here is the corrected hull with the putty in place the profile strips are peaking out from under the putty where it has been sanded down.



Hope all find this helpful.

Konrad

Those are nice kit-bashes you have done Wayne. With your skills you could just cut out the two angled upper-rear deck plates on either side of the engine hatch opening in the Hobby Boss kit hull and use the Tamiya kit hull as a pattern to work out the dimension of replacements with 'kinks' in the right place and the right width. Of course, you will have to narrow the HB engine deck as you propose above.

I have both a Tamiya and a Hobby Boss upper hull casting in front of me as I write this and in a side-to-side comparison the height of the rear plate on the HB kit matches the height of the Tamiya part, but the 'kink' in the upper plate on the HB upper hull is too far back on the turret ring and the angled portion of the rear decking is too narrow to accommodate the excessive width of the engine hatch parts on the HB kit. That causes the slope of the angled portion of the rear decking to be a bit too steep, and the fueling guards and hatches to be a bit too far outboard.

Removing the rear angled deck plates from the HB hull and replacing them with styrene sheet will not only allow you to correct their shape and angle, but to relocate the fueling hatches to the right place. With the decking off the kit you can easily cut the HB fueling hatches and guard rings parts away from the severed upper deck parts and trim and wet-sand the remaining 'decking' off their backs so they can be re-attached in the correct location (sand them like vac-u-form kit parts - you should even be able to keep the weld detail on the guard rings if you are careful). In fact some clever work with an X-Acto chisel blade will get most of the cast on detail off intact for re-attachment.

The side plates and rear plates will require a little sanding to true up the edges to match the replacement decking, but that is not too hard. The location of the kink on the side plate is within a couple millimeters on the two hulls and the bend in the side plate on the HB kit is a little soft, so with some careful cutting you may well be able to preserve the nicely done weld detail on the HB hull.

Once you correct the angled plates the engine hatch opening will be the correct width and the engine hatch parts will need to be narrowed as you note, which is probably easiest to do if you separate them into the four actual parts they represent and re-work each one to the correct side-to-side width (using a single edged razor blade will let you deeply score-and-snap to separate the parts so their for-and-aft width does not change). Although the dimensions can be taken off plans, because of the vagaries of scratch building I would suggest the cut-and-try method to refine the fit of these parts). You will loose some detail but nothing that can't easily be replaced. Slivers of stretched sprue work well to represent bolts. The trick to making them look good is to lightly sand them flat on top after the glue dries, as you can never cut them perfectly straight.

I would do a demo, but I have promised to finish some other things elsewhere

Konrad

PS - using extra Tamiya M4A1 mantlet parts and so me two part epoxy putty will let you correct these problems with HB turret easily, but you will have to correct the loader's hatch the hard way.

It is much appreciated, as I remembered the cut and pull "Garfield" method, but not the details of your "lift and build-up" alternative.

My Jagdtiger experience makes me find modifying flat plates much more difficult and unforgiving than puttying rounded shapes. This is compounded by any putty join filling of the plate edges which generally makes it difficult to judge the symmetry and angles of the plates... In order to not soften adjacent kit details, I cannot prime the whole thing very often to get a better "vision", so to me flat plates are a very difficult and unforgiving contruction to duplicate, especially when combined with normal kit parts, where care must be taken to not soften or fill the included detail with repeated priming...

With the above in mind, it seems to me that the accurate rear deck of the Hobby Boss M4A1 76mm, and the rounded nature of the shapes to correct, make it by far the easiest of the Hobby Boss Shermans to build to a high standard of accuracy.

On the other hand, the combining of a Hobby boss A3 front end with a Tamiya M4 rear seems like a novel and effective way of getting an accurate Sherman, especially if the taller HB transmission cover is used... On the Tamiya rear hull, the diagonal lateral upper side join does not reach far forward enough (as we established with Tim), but falls short by only about 2mm, so it can be discreetly scraped and sanded to reach a bit further forward without a major rebuilding of the whole surface (I did do this successfully on the Azimuth composite hull).

The HB mantlet I find doable but pretty bad as, in addition to its frontal appearance, its thickness cross-section is badly off, as seen in this PMMS review photo;



Thanks by the way for pointing out the available 76 mm AM barrels!

Overall I think the HB M4A1 76 mm is far from being in the same hard-to-fix category as the other HB Shermans, and the M4A3 offers apparently an easy kitbash. This is, it seems to me, already much more accuracy potential than can be wrung out of a Tamiya Jagpanther, Hetzer or King Tiger...

Gaston

P.S. Konrad, There is only one lonely photo of your very nice HB M4A1 76mm "early" in the Track 48 gallery, which is too bad as it is one of the few HB Shermans there. It would be nice to see some square angle photos of it to see how good this kit can be...

Can't wait to see those kitbashed Shermans finished Wayne!

G.

Gaston.

Hello Wayne and Konrad,

Thanks for more WIP's. As they say one photo is worth a thousand words.
I will be pulling my HB M4A3E8 upper hulls out of the scrap box, as I had decided to run with the Hobby Master upper hull for all the masters that I am planning on doing. I have come up with a list of 20 basic upper hulls that need to be done.

JohnO

to build Frankenshermans. A mean man with a razor saw.....

this was the hobbyboss m4a1 front grafted to a tamiya m4a1 rearer ,ithought i had it right but in the course of this tread bruce pointed out the rear hull plate angle ,i missed that one {bugger{ that being said under acoat of paint to late now still i have aplan now for the next one now thanks konrad any comments let me have em wayne .
ps you should be able to see the join between the two hulls and the yellow tamiya light curing putty which is brilliant for this sort of work as it drys quick and very hard the grey is tamiya putty and glue to give it abit of texture

Hey Wayne!

Some very nice work going on there. You are right, abit of a bummer missing the rear end angle, but as you say you will get it right on the next one.

JohnO

Hello again Wayne.

Just noticed the hatches. Where did the resin TC cupola come from. Also the loaders hatch was a different type from the basic Tamiya one. I think it was a bit lower and the hinges had a protective wall around them. Bruce will have the serial number I expect! Yeah Sherman details can be the devil sometimes!

JohnO

Hi again.

Here is a scan that will I hope explain what I was on about before.

JohnO

Your observation is right JohnO - the later loaders hatch was different (but IIRC both early and late parts would fit the hole in the T23 turret) Terry Ashley pointed out that HB got the height and hinge detail of the later model loader's hatch right, albeit that the part is a bit square in profile around the edge, in his original review of this kit on the Perth Military Modeling Site (thanks Terry). A bit of sanding to round it off and it's pretty good though. Another example of the good fine detail on the HB kits being in stark opposition to some of the shape errors.

I still think the HB late Sherman kits are all 'buildable' with a set of Tim Perry's Fighting 48th Track, an AM barrel and a bit of creative reconstruction. Correcting that early model HB M4 hull is probably beyond the pale, but even that kit can be used as a conversion base with the increasing number of AM upper hulls, turrets and other parts out there if you find it for a good price. I have picked up the HB Sherman kits for $10 on sale from time to time. I must be a glutton for punishment.

Konrad

adopted so the TC could see across it from the cupola episcopes. I don't have the part number off hand, but that's what it looks like. Konrad, I do agree the HB Shermans are buildable, and for those who do not feel brave enough or skilled enough to do the butchery needed, then enjoy a good OOB build and love them that way. In spite of my kvetching, I have seen a number of OOB Hobby Boss Sherman builds on the web, and most of them have looked pretty good. Replacing the "sewer pipe" 76mm guns will make them look a lot better too.

I'll admit I prefer the resin aftermarket for the hulls because I have so many to do. But, the M4A1 is pretty easy to do, and if I didn't have a couple of early ID samples from Bob, I'd mess with those in a heartbeat. The M4 Mid Production kit is a goner, for the hull only. The turret is a duplicate of the Tamiya M4/M4A1 turret, and looks fine. The hull, while well detailed, is so completely off it doesn't make sense to waste time saving it, since the Tamiya M4 is vastly better, and the HB details (and sponson floors) can be used to detail the Tamiya kit. Kitbashing with HB/Tamiya hulls works very well. And, with some detail work, even the old Bandai hulls and turrets are quite useful.

Needless to say, when Lucky Models was remaindering the HB Shermans for $6 apiece, I bought a pile of them for parts; the HB Shermans - all of them - are GREAT for 1/48 Sherman parts. I'm also taking the spare E8 engine decks, shaving off the torsion bars, and using them to upgrade Bandai M43 hulls, or convert Tamiya M10 hulls for M36s. There is so much you can do with these HB kits, and Lucky has them pretty cheap all the time.

Late M4A1s had another filler cap back on the engine deck, as the HB M4A1 had it. You could probably add it by cutting it off the HB deck and putting it in place. Also, the inner filler caps next to the air intake behind the turret were removed on these late hulls. And the angled rear casting could be done by cutting just ahead of the corner, pushing the rear plate back 15 degrees, and filling with putty. Piece of cookie...

Your Franken-Sherman approach gets the back end in shape niceley, with Bruces's caveat about difference in the tailplate. Good way to go esp. if you have a left over upper hull. You have me thinking about doing an early small-hatch composite M4 with this technique as I am building up some extra Tamiya upper hull inventory with all the conversions I have been doing. Humm.

Konrad

Ive done the early m4 small hatch composite from the left over front hull from the previously posted m4a1 chop job with atamiya m4


Hope that ispires you konrad it was one of those use up left over bits type deal.Is there abook that will help me with all the details ive got the turret drawings that andrew was talking about and dragos sent me some stuff which has been helpful but icould really do wiyh some good scale plans thanks wayne

That's precisely what I was thinking about. The best book on the Sherman is still Hunnicutt, which has recently been reprinted. It covers all the major variants in detail and has lots of photos. Specifically to the small hatch composite I have not seen plans but would welcome any others comment on that. I would expect that the break point would have been in the same place as on the later variant (Hunnicutt has a plan of the later variant in it), and the overall length of the vehicle pretty much determines the rest - looks to me that you got it spot on.

Speaking of Sherman parts, there were so many variations in the hull components that (absent a definitive photograph or production document which establishes the specifics of a given tank) if the part was made at the time and it was in the supply chain that it is also possible that it was installed on any tank it would fit (engine deck parts being variant specific, but that's about it). Remember that at the Depot or (particularly) in the field, parts is parts. There is a book by Belton T. Cooper that discusses maintaining the Sherman in the field (Belton was not a fan of the armor protection of the Sherman, what a surprise) that points out how any tank that was recovered and not repairable was cannibalized.

This book may be of interest to modelers as it suggests ways to build rebuilds depicting recovered and reconditioned tanks with a mix of parts. A grim detail noted in the book was the use of the spent projectile to make the plug that was welded into the shot-hole. There is a brutal detail. According to Beltons book the welders would try to grind off the weld to make it hard to see, but I am sure the evidence of the prior penetration was unmistakable.

Konrad

cutting up the hoods and rebuilding them in plastic. The incorrect taper is easily widened with the putty. Konrad, I just bought some Plastruct styrene .010" (.25mm) rod stock, and it is perfect for weld seams. It may have the advantage of consistency, being exactly the same diameter all the length of the rods. The Evergreen rods go down only to .020" (.5mm), but Plastruct makes the .010" and .015" smaller sizes.

sfrom reading some of your posts you guys have been picking up your kits cheap they cost me 34.95 nz per kit and 39.95 for the tamiya offerings so i have to make sure that iuse all the left over bits i wish i could pick them up for 6.00 that would be sweet.Bruce it might be time for you to right anew book on shermans ive got most of your ones on german amrmor.finding plans that are modeler freindly are not easy to find .Konrads methods for ffixing the hb m4a1 were very informative and interesting and i have really enjoyed evryones in put to the discussion thanks wayne

ALL their Hobby Boss tank kits are now $13.69 USD ($21.82 NZD). Those are not sale prices. Not quite as good as $6.00 USD, but better than what you're paying in NZ. Postage to the US is $5.62 USD, but I'd guess it would be less to New Zealand.