The start of my IDF Sherman project. Feel free guys to give tips, etc along the way. This is only my second armor attempt. I know this kit is not accurate for a IDF Sherman, but it is close enough for me. I don’t need 100% accuracy. Do you guys glue all the little fiddly bits on, hand grabs, etc before painting? If so, why?
Nice start. I do attach anything that’s the hull colour before painting simply for ease, unless it something I think might get knocked off during the build. I do leave things like tools off until the final weathering steps though.
Interested to follow. Which kit, and what Sherman are you modeling?
It is the Testors/Italeri kit, no one tank in particular, just representative of them in general.
If it’s hull colored I put it on first. Like the real thing. Except road wheels.
I attach almost everything, tools, stowage, tarps. Unless they’ll be very difficult to reach and paint. With tools, all you do is slip a piece of printer paper beneath them while you brush paint them. One thing you should do is putty that seam that’s between the bolt strip and the curved nose housing. The bolt strip was part of that housing and allowed it to attach to the hull. I don’t recall if Italeri’s painting instructions are correct or not but the idler wheels and return rollers were all metal – I’d color them with a pencil where they meet the tracks.
Built OOB with detail mods it would be an IDF M1 I think.
Great tank selection.
As for the tools, there are kits I put everything on and then hand paint tools, in others I put tools at the last after hand paint. It depends on how easy it will be to paint them afterwards or if you are planning on doing some special weathering, etc.
In my Jagd, I put the tools and everything on and will paint them at the end, since, I will add a lot of stowage that will go on the end of the built. So, it depends what you want, what the kit offers and final setting,
Lee-
From what I can see, it looks like you’ve got an M4A3/76, which as stated already, the IDF would have called an “M1 Sherman” or just “M1”. One thing about the IDF and Shermans, it’s hard to say “never”, since they scrounged scrapped tanks from all over the place and did lots of mixing and matching to keep units in operation. Admittedly you have something that would have been a rarity, but not impossible.
In regards to your question about detail parts and painting, I’m more of a paint it after assembly guy. Like Roy said, I find it easy to use a piece of paper to mask under tools and such, and I paint my road wheel tires by hand after doing the base coat and washes, before weathering.
I leave road wheels and tracks off to paint.
Here are the tracks I was telling you about sir.
Bottom set are kit tracks, next 2 someone sent me, look like tracks from another kit? Top ones are the tracks I mentioned.
Lee great start on the Sherman!! Looking forward to more pics.
Hull and turret in basic paint.
