Eduard's 1/72 M4A3 (76) W Sherman
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History
For a history on M4 Shermans I refer the reader to this web
site. I bought this kit (and the related Sherman kits as well) because
I wanted to have a few targets for all the German armor I have already
built in 1/72. It's not that I think German tanks are cooler (OK, yes
I do) or that they are superior (well, that is mostly true) or quaint
(that's British and Italian armor, OK, French as well but the Japanese
tanks are just plain archaic) but American tanks (of the early WWII period)
are just not up to par with their Teutonic brethren and I wanted to build
something with a different engineering philosophy.
Construction
 I
started this particular kit building the bogie wheel units. The Eduard
Profipack version of this kit (which I am building) replaces the plastic
track skid (?) with a photoetch version. I have a love hate relationship
with photoetch. I love the theory of replacing thick parts with thin metal
ones, it's just that photoetch hates me and makes things difficult by
folding in the wrong direction or not folding at all. The skid is a curved
piece of metal that helps align the track with the return bogie. The Eduard
kit comes with these plastic skids that are molded with a blanking plate
half way through the piece. I guess you're supposed to paint it black
to simulate that it's hollow.
The Profipack actually replaces the incomplete mold with a piece of
photoetch that you are supposed to bend with a graceful curve. I looked
at this and thought, "RIIIIGHT, let's see if it would be easier to
hollow out the piece instead." I tried both, the results are in the
picture. The photoetch skid is produced in such a way that it is easy
to make that graceful curve. It looks a whole lot better than the hollowed
out part. Why Eduard couldn't provide a better mold I don't know, only
later did I buy the Dragon version of the kit and their bogie wheel assembly
is way easier to build (about 3,000,000 times better) but their skid assembly,
of course, is a lot thicker. The wheels in the Eduard kit has no ridge
or demarcation where the rubber ends and the steel rim begins, painting
was tricky and I am not fully satisfied with how it ended up.
Link and length tracks came on next after the rest of the hull was built
up. I like L&L tracks but no matter how you follow the instructions,
they never quite come together correctly. Always leaving that extra space
that can never be filled in with an extra piece or stretched so that the
links don't appear out of line. I think it has to do with the way the
bogie assemblies attach to the hull, there is too much guessing as to
the location and the pitch of the assemblies themselves. I used a lot
of liquid cement to keep the bogies in a state of fluid alignment as I
attempted to get all the wheels to touch the ground at the same time.
I was mostly successful as I was mostly successful in getting the tracks
to fit, mostly, not completely.
I painted the lower hull at this time so as to get good coverage on
the tracks and bogies before messing with all the pieces of the upper
hull. The upper hull connected to the lower hull without problems, then,
everything started to get harder, at least in my mind. First was that
stupid .30 cal machine gun sticking out of the hull. For some reason,
Eduard put his tiny stick of a gun on a half ball mount. It looked terrible!
I tried to replace it with an equal size brass tube only to find it was
too short, just like the original part! One of these days I am going to
replace that funky tube with something that at least resembles a machine
gun barrel.
 All
of the pioneer and track tools are added to the hull with photoetch fasteners.
I thought I would go blind trying to fold all the pieces. The tools are
all mounted and they look fantastic. I tried to put together the rubber
block holders without mishap but the carpet monster gobbled up one of
the pieces. I guess I did not prostrate myself before the carpet monster
long enough to elicit any mercy because I had to build one of the sides
using plastic card. I did not leave the driver and gunner hatches open
since the hull was completely empty and I was not about to add an interior
without any sources. It will just have to wait until someone out there
makes a resin interior for all the new Sherman models coming out now,
anyone? Anyone?
Next came the turret. Nothing special about the construction of the
turret except the turret itself is quite smooth. It has no texture that
would normally seen on a real cast turret of the day. So, I painted the
turret with liquid glue which deformed the smooth plastic to a more aesthetically
pleasing rough texture. I started to build the .50 cal machine gun according
to instructions when I noticed that the barrel was quite deformed. It
looked as if the mold was squished in this area because the barrel had
the cross section of a football. This will not do, so I went back to my
supply of brass tube, found some appropriate sizes and started to put
things together. The .50 cal is a small kit by itself since you have to
pare away the bulky plastic and fold photoetch to replace everything.
With some carpet monster supplication I was able to get that machine gun
to look pretty good. With everything in place I went to paint.
 I
painted everything black. No, I was not in some sort of Rolling Stones
fever (although they were playing on the radio while I was painting).
I had read one of Brett Green's articles on Hyperscale on how he painted
his small scale armor in black for additional depth for the lighter colors
that followed on, so I tried it. I painted the standard olive drab on
top of the black and it didn't look half bad until… I did not know
that the carpet monster had a cousin called the garage floor. I had inadvertently
knocked off the .50 cal storage ring off the back of the turret. I saw
it hang, dangling over the garage floor, and before I could hurriedly
move it to safety… it fell. AAAH AAAAAAAAH (echoes of Sam Kinneson
here). Despondent, I quickly took some more photos before I lost more
of that dreaded photoetch stuff. I did little weathering on my model and
added no extra gear. I will add a few pieces to that neat stowage rack
on the rear.
Conclusion
I really had some fear when I put this together. In fact, if it wasn't
for a dare by a friend at my local model club I may never have finished
it. But with a deadline looming to get it done before the model meeting
I just plugged along with all that photoetch and kept folding and gluing
and searching the floor for lost items that lo and behold I was finished.
In fact, the photoetch is what really sets this apart from my other armor
kits, it looks real good. If you are in a mood to tackle the Eduard Shermans,
don't bother with the standard kit, get the Profipack version, you will
be happier. If you just want to fill out the collection with a few Shermans,
get the Dragon kit, it will build faster, but you will miss out on the
challenge and fun (?) of all that photoetch. I hope you like the results,
I do, and finally I have a Sherman to even out the collection. In fact,
I bought all the other Eduard Shermans and just maybe I will finish them.
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