Lancfan's Sherman Crab ***FINISHED***

Honoring the 70th Anniversary of D-Day, 6 June 1944, this GB is dedicated to units and equipment of both sides who participated on that day.
The GB runs 6 June to 20 July; your GBL is Lancfan.
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lancfan
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Lancfan's Sherman Crab ***FINISHED***

Post by lancfan »

Here is the obligatory box/sprue shot for my first model, a 1/76 scale Sherman Crab of the Westminster Dragoons which operated on Gold Beach.
Image

David.
David.

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Dirkpitt289
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Re: Lancfan's Sherman Crab.

Post by Dirkpitt289 »

I like this. I might have to look for one of these.
.... Dirk

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lancfan
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Re: Lancfan's Sherman Crab.

Post by lancfan »

Dirk, the kit itself does have problems in that although the hull is basically accurate it is over simplified and needs extra details adding, the turret is of too small diameter and the track return springs are missing from the top of the bogies. The Crab parts are a later addition and are slightly over simplified but the missing bits can be scratched from plastic card, finally the flail chains have been moulded very poorly-I will replace these with lengths of real chain to more accurately portray them. I will use the F.W. Futter drawings from 'The Funnies' to base my model on, if you want the plans pm your email to me and I will send a scan of them to you.


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lancfan
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Re: Lancfan's Sherman Crab.

Post by lancfan »

Work has delayed my start but here are the sprues along with the chain which will replace the crude moulded flail chains supplied with the kit.
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David.
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lancfan
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Re: Lancfan's Sherman Crab.

Post by lancfan »

Finding bench time has been difficult recently as I have been working seven days per week but this is the Crab build so far, on Tuesday the lower hull was assembled and the underside details removed, later the upper hull part number 43 was fitted and left to dry.
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David.
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Re: Lancfan's Sherman Crab.

Post by TobyC »

I've got this kit as well so will be following this thread closely.
Enjoyment over accuracy. That's my motto
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lancfan
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Re: Lancfan's Sherman Crab.

Post by lancfan »

The next job was to glue strips of 1mm X 2mm Evergreen strip to the turret (left) as a guide for the filler I used to enlarge the turret as shown on the right, the filler has buried most of the turret bustle so a piece of 1mm plastic card has been glued in place and blended in with filler to restore this.
Image

The turret shield has been cut away from the hull and a new one of Evergreen strip has been fitted to match the enlarged turret.
Image

Work has killed most of my bench time so far in this GB but I do get my life back next week and will be able to pick up the pace then. Some of the hull details are fairly poor so these will next be removed.


David.
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Re: Lancfan's Sherman Crab.

Post by giulio_gobbi »

Your way to modified and enhance a kit it's interesting!
Thanks for sharing.
Sometimes the talent consists exactly in that: try five dozen times when others stop at three dozen...! (F.Labelle)
I think that modeling is a subtle mix of zen philosophy and absolute crazyness - but in my case I would not dare to specify the respective percentage of each......
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lancfan
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Re: Lancfan's Sherman Crab.

Post by lancfan »

The rear panel has been modified and the poorest detail has been removed.
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David.
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TobyC
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Re: Lancfan's Sherman Crab.

Post by TobyC »

lancfan wrote: I will use the F.W. Futter drawings from 'The Funnies' to base my model on, if you want the plans pm your email to me and I will send a scan of them to you.


David.
I've been looking for this book for a while and on Amazon they are going for some daft prices.
However this morning I found a copy on eBay for under £20.
Chuffed? You bet I am.
I do like the work you're doing on the crab.
Enjoyment over accuracy. That's my motto
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lancfan
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Re: Lancfan's Sherman Crab.

Post by lancfan »

Cheers Toby, picking up the threads of modelling life again here is the current state of play, the lifting points and lights/guards have been made from copper wire and the mounting frame for the flail has been made up using photographs and the Futter plans. The kit parts for this are a bit of a disaster, the side frames (56,57) are wrong and need modification, the bracing bars (61, 62) are too long and the mounting beam for the shield (63) is too short. This picture shows the assembly dry fitted to the hull, some local painting will be next prior to gluing this in place.
Image

David.
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lancfan
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Re: Lancfan's Sherman Crab.

Post by lancfan »

Before painting the areas that cannot be reached after assembly I fitted the blast shield, this needed modification to fit the corrected mounting frame.
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David.
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Re: Lancfan's Sherman Crab.

Post by Mikeew »

Woah, very impressive scratch building work.
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lancfan
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Re: Lancfan's Sherman Crab.

Post by lancfan »

Thanks Mike, shown slightly out of sequence, prior to building up the flail support frame I used this jig (built some time ago for a previous build) to scribe the correct underside details.
Image
Image

David.
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lancfan
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Re: Lancfan's Sherman Crab.

Post by lancfan »

The ram anchorages have been glued to the side rails to complete the mounting frame, I'm now making up the suspension units.
Image

David.
David.

If you forget the past, you may lose the future.
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