Sherman rear storage rack

[greengiant]

One thing everyone seems to ignore on their Shermans is that the folding rear hull racks had tie down loops welded to them. 4 on the bottom and 4 on the top. Will give you someplace for all those ropes and straps to go to when your rack is full.

[EddyK]

There's the racks made by me

[greengiant]

Very impressive work you have done to make working racks.
I was just frustrated with all the Shermans being built that have ropes running all over the place to hold stowage on the racks when in real life there were tie down points on the rack itself. The Tamiya rack is the most accurate but has no tie downs loops on it but are easily added.
The HL rack is thick and doesn't have the lip on the bottom section. The lip can be added to it and then the tie down loops.
I like to make my tie downs as straps rather then rope for items on the racks as pics of real ones show the use of straps that go through the loops.
I make my straps out of thin aluminum strips cut from disposable pie tin bottoms, pre paint them and then thread them thru the loops to hold items on the rack without gluing the items down. Since they flexible but hold a crease they can be bent back on themselves and then glued at points to represent where strap sliding locks would be with excess length left hanging down like the real thing. The locks and strap ends themselves can just be painted black on the straps Think it gives a more realistic look to the rack and the amount of things that can held by the rack.