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1/35 SHERMAN M4A1 DV by Dragon


Proud Kraut
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A new addition to the Sherman family: M4A1 DV. It's a very detailed and easy to build kit. Many clear and photo etched parts.

Points of criticism: Poorly detailed rubber tracks and a missing cal .50 machine gun which is not part of the kit. And - as usual with Dragon kits - a bad illustrated construction manual. Nevertheless well worth the money. Now it's waiting for some paint...

 

M4a1a.jpg

 

m4b.jpg

 

m4c.jpg

 

 

 

 

m4e.jpg

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For all the faults you listed, Lars, you still turned out a good looking build. Any plans to add that missing .50 mg? Is this part of a new diorama?

Terry

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Thanks to everybody for the kind remarks!!!

 

@Terry: No dio planned yet but I'll for sure add a .50 MG

 

@Garandomatic: Go! We are looking forward to see the first steps this weekend. ;-)

 

Meanwhile the M4 has received multiple layers of surface primer and Tamiya XF-62 olive drab color.

 

od.jpg

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Looking good! I am curious. Why do you use multiple layers of the primer?

 

...Kat

 

Kat, good question! The answer is: ....my bad English. In fact I used one layer of primer and several layers of OD color.

 

Lars

 

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I'll see what I can do! One question... How do you ensure coverage with the tracks and road wheels assembled? Does your airbrush allow you to get in all the nooks and crannies? That might save some serious time for me.

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Kat, good question! The answer is: ....my bad English. In fact I used one layer of primer and several layers of OD color.

 

Lars

 

 

 

No problem! I thought maybe you had a special trick to making it look so good! :)

 

...Kat

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Ain't much... The start of Howard Myer's 12th Armored M4A3 is on the left, and The M7 accompanying Lewis McEndree's halftrack is on the right. Going to try to knock these fellows out in tandem since they'll use the same weathering techniques.

 

 

post-9670-0-85866700-1486314981_thumb.jpg

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Proud Kraut, if you would, please go into detail with how you treat the suspension, wheels, and tracks on this Sherman... My thinking and building has always directed me to paint the tracks to realistic colors as if they were clean, then add mud and weathering to them. This naturally covers up almost all of the initial work, but I still have some reservations about trying to make tan tracks look like steel and rubber even when coated in mud.

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Thanks very much, guys!

G., sorry for not answering your last two questions. I was away from my PC this weekend.

Usually I paint the chassis with the wheels and the tracks separately. In this case the rubber tracks were too large, so I had to glue them to the upper small wheels to avoid "hovering tracks". The wheels were airbrushed with OD like the rest of the tank. The tracks and the rubber parts of the wheels were hand painted flat black. The whole chassis receives a washing with fluid burnt umber/black color. Metal parts of the tracks were hand painted with burt umber and receive a silver color drybrush finally. When everything has dryed I "paint" pigments onto the complete chassis including the tracks.I posted pictures of this procedure in this forgotten thread (scroll down to post # 45...):

 

http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/156333-135-super-heavy-tank-t-28/page-2

 

In addition I can only recommend to check Wayne's (mpguy 80/08) Sherman thread that I have pinned for further reference. I'll add pictures of my Sherman as soon as possible as well.

 

Regards

 

Lars

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Hard to see on the pictures. Chassis with wheels and tracks are already black painted. After I have applied the markings the whole tank got a washing with very fluid black and burnt umber color.

 

s1.jpg

 

s2.jpg

 

 

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After I had brushed the Sherman with multiple layers of Vallejo matt acrylic varnish and let everything dry completely I applied some oil color fading.

 

fad1.jpg

 

fad2.jpg

 

fad3.jpg

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Thank you very much Kat!

 

I think the last steps are nearly impossible to see on the pictures:

 

- airbrushing matt varnish one more time

- detail painting

- silver brushing of metal parts

 

Now everything has to dry completely before I'll start with the most difficult step tomorrow: DUST

 

Sh0.jpg

 

Sh1.jpg

 

Sh2.jpg

 

 

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