Model Military International – September 2019

September 2019 - Model Military International 25

The flat-pack lower hull parts –

no Allen key required fortunately.

The lower hull parts fit perfectly,

but you do need to take some care

with alignment.

The raised panel for the exhaust on the

rear hull must be removed to allow the

rear wading trunk mount to fit.

This area was simply carved away with

a sharp hobby knife. Marks are not

awarded for neatness – the scarring will

be completely covered by the resin part.

All that nice radiator detail is

destined to be hidden forever too.

At least we can appreciate it here.

Extra casting texture was added using Mr Surfacer 500 and

an old stiff brush. The putty was stippled on the surface while

it was still wet.

Casting strips did not prove to be much of an obstacle. This one was sliced

off with my favourite Olfa hobby knife.

firewall (Part E5). Each of the two sidewalls was
now attached to the edges of the lower hull and
the firewall. The rear hull almost clips into place
with impressive precision. Finally, the sponson
covers (Parts E9 and E10) are glued to the top
of the hull sides and to the overhang of the
firewall and the rear hull. This entire step took
less than a half an hour, and the fit was perfect.
The one-piece nose has cast texture moulded
in place but I thought it looked a bit underdone
so I added more texture with Mr Surfacer 500

stippled onto the plastic.

I really like Tasca’s flexible track lengths.

Detail is surprisingly crisp for this medium,

and there is no need for the tracks to droop as

they are “live”. Tasca’s tracks are also fast to

assemble using standard plastic model glue.

When I was building the model I planned to

build a specific subject that was fitted with T49

three bar cleat tracks, but Al Bowie pointed out

to me that my chosen vehicle had Direct Vision

ports, while my model had the cast driver’s

hood. I briefly considered the options – ignore

the inaccuracy or convert the hoods to DV – but

ultimately decided to change the vehicle I was

depicting. Now I would build “Balaclava” Red 10,

a well photographed wading Sherman Mk.III with

the cast driver’s hood. The only problem was that

the tracks were different – the US –style T54E1

steel chevron. Al came to the rescue here as

well, as he had a set of cyber-hobby.com T54E1

DS full-length flexible tracks in his collection. He

very kindly donated them for this project.

Tasca supplies flexible vinyl

T49 three bar cleated steel

tracks in four separate lengths.

Detail is excellent. It

turned out that I did

not use these on the

completed model, but

more on that next time.

The flexible material may be glued together using standard plastic cement.

Clamps were used to hold the halves together until the glue had set.

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