Time out: Italeri M4A1 Sherman 'Calliope' 1:72 kit - part 2

Top hull assembly...

With the tough parts on the M4A1's lower hull and undercarriage nicely settled, I began work on the top hull. 
The M4A1 is a refined tank compared to the early production models. It has curvier lines compared to the crude M4 that was produced in 1942 by five different contractors and about 6,784 of these tanks had rolled out from the assembly line to serve in North Africa during World War II.
The Italeri kit, I must say, is made of quality plastic. It's solid and not as flimsy as I had expected.
I began with the turret assembly and worked on the 75mm gun. 
These came in two parts and the tip of the gun was a real tough piece to work with.
It didn't fit well and to set it correctly, I rolled the gun barrel on its side to get an even surface.
That was the best  I could do to resolve the issue..

Actual photo of the M4A1's hull

Later M4 Sherman tanks has a gun mount on its forward hull

With the Italeri 1:72 kit, there is an option to assemble the turret with it's commander's hatch opened. The kit is supplied with a miniature figure and I found that a tad too hard to paint, so, it's hatch closed!
After completing the turret, I began the top hull assembly by cementing its tools like the tank's shovel and bars.
The 30-caliber gun turret on the bow of the hull was easy to mount. Since this is a small kit, the details are pretty impressive. 

Fitting the upper hull 

The hull, revealing the tank's engine compartment

Hull and turret assembly before applying weathering 

Applying weathering to the starboard side of the upper hull

Dealing with small parts..

I have to be extremely careful with cutting the small parts, some as little as 3mm in length.
The plastic cutter I used was too big for this small kit, so, I used my cutting blade and sliced off the parts one-by-one.
To make sure that these are not all over the place, I bought some trays from Daiso and called them my Work In Progress (WIP) trays.
It works wonder as I am able to pick up the parts with a pair of modeling tweezers.
The small parts have to be gently lifted from the tray. If you apply too much pressure the parts will slip off and worse case, it will fly off the jaws of the tweezer. You simply launch the little part into oblivion.

Tweezers comes in handy when it comes to fitting extremely small parts

Putting it together and adding the final touches...

I spent the whole day assembling the Italeri 1:72 M4 Sherman kit in my reading room.
With the upper hull completed, the following step, was to glue together the tank.
And finally, when it takes shape, what's left to do, was to apply the decals on the tank.
This is pretty straight forward. There's little details on the tank with the exception of three stars on the forward, starboard and port side of the hull. 

The nearly complete M4A1 Sherman medium tank

A decal on the port side of the tank

The completed tank with weathering on its undercarriage

Perspective in size: 1:72 M4A1 and the 1:48 M4

Final touches includes a 50-calibre M2 Browning (Ma Deuce) machine gun on the commander's hatch. 
This was painted in gun metal finish and weathered with the Tamiya weathering master kit. Even for a small gun measuring no more than 1cm, the details were amazing. There's a magazine box that comes with it, but I felt that it was unnecessary to assemble it.
Rather than painting the exterior tool, I applied weathering on them to give it that worn out look.
As for the "Calliope" rocket launcher, I didn't assemble it because the M4A1 was good enough to display on its own.
After completing this kit, I was rather suprised with the finish and what I have been missing out after all these years.
One thing is for sure: there are more interesting 1:72 Shermans out there and I am pretty excited at the prospect of modeling them!

Time out: Italeri M4A1 Sherman 'Calliope' 1:72 kit - part 1

A different set of challenge..

I was browsing through the aisle in one of the few remaining plastic model kit store in Sungai Besi and found an Italeri 1:72 M4A1 Sherman 'Calliope' tank.
This is a special kit that comes with a rocket launcher. Probably during the later stages of World War II.
There was an opened box, so, I inspected the contents and decided to buy it.
At RM49.90, this kit is pretty expensive. But, later, I found out that the kit retails at US$17.55 (RM61.31 excluding freight and tax) via an on-line store. 
So, that said, the 1:72 kit is cheaper here without any doubt.

A snapshot of the kit's box

The parts in the kit

Way I see it, the Italeri kit has been lying on the shelf for some time. The interior of the box was already moldy.
But the decals and instruction sheet seems to be unaffected by time and humidity.
When I laid out the kit, my challenge was to assemble the tank's hull which came in five separate pieces.
To get a solid undercarriage, the fitting must be precise. Any gaps in the seams has to be filled with putty and sanded smooth.
So, in terms of quality, I'd say that the Italeri kit kinda exceeded my expectations. As a matter of fact, I was really surprised with the engine detail on this little package.

The details.. 

There's a six-piece assembly required to build the tank's engine and it comes with an axle and a transmission box. 
If you prefer to kit-bash, you can do a cut-away to show the tank's interior. Once fitted with the upper hull, the details vanish.

The engine and transmission box

Lower hull assembly

Preparing for weathering

Assembling the hull was a nightmare. 
There's no margin for error as you might end up tearing the kit apart and building it back again.
I started by spraying the kit with a Tamiya spray paint (TS-5 Olive Drab). I don't have an airbrush system, so, aerosol spray would do. The rest of the kit was touched-up by hand with a brush and Tamiya Acrylic paint.
For the engine assembly, I used the Tamiya XF-84 Dark Iron arcylic paint to give it a raw and matt finish.
And with the Tamiya weathering master applied, the engine really stands out with two tones of metallic colour. In short the dark iron base acts as a primer to accentuate the colour of the engine and transmission box. 

Bogey and track assembly

Sherman tanks are built with a Vertical Volute Spring System (VVSS) with a set of three bogeys (similar to what you see on a train coach) and roller wheels.
These small parts comes in halves and has to be glued together. What's interesting is that the wheels are free-rolling in the bogey assembly.

Reference from a real tank's VVSS bogey

Details on the roller wheel

The completed bogey assembly and sprocket wheel

There's really no issue putting together the VVSS suspension. But, painting the roller wheels - is a bitch!
I started by using the Tamiya XF-1 flat black paint on the surface of the wheels (the real wheels have a layer of rubber on it) and found that there were ugly splotches on most of it.
Later, I individually painted the wheels to give it an even coat and touched up the mess with the Tamiya XF-65 olive drab acrylic paint. 

In some cases, modelers skip painting the roller wheels as seen in this reference 1:72 model kit by Dragon models. (reference from http://www.172shermans.com)

With the VVSS bogeys in place on each side of the hull plates, I glued together the lower hull to create the tank's undercarriage assembly.
It takes about 30-minutes for the liquid cement to set and a full day to cure. So, I worked on the weathering on the bogey and roller wheels. 
It turned out pretty good as the flat black paint brings out the highlights from the silver weathering cake from Tamiya's weathering master set C (Orange Rust, Gun Metal and Silver). 
Next, I worked on setting the tracks. It was a near disaster as the heat-bonding nearly melted one of the tracks.
I re-worked it a bit and managed to save the rubber track from completely wasted.
Slowly and gently, I fitted both sides of the tracks and noticed that the matt black paint that was sprayed on it was peeling off. 
If I had applied a primer coat, this won't be the case.
With the lower hull completed, I applied weathering on the tracks and called it a day..