1944 M4A3 105mm

PainlessWolf · Post by **PainlessWolf** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 8:43 am

48th Day: Pretty much finished the Electronics tonight. All that remains is to mount the switches and wire tie the wires back into a semblance of neatness. As Scalawag had warned, space is at a Premium inside a Sherman's hull, at least if you leave the battery box in and plan on using your airgun. I found myself removing a piece of plastistruct I had put on the sidewall the night before to cover an old switch mount and also removing a four inch length of the interior battery box step out where it is molded into the lower hull. Both sections were replaced by thin brass glued into place. This was necessary to allow plenty of room for the new Taigen speaker enclosure to slide all the way to the bottom of the lower hull on the side and clear the turret rotation box mounted under the top of the upper hull. The speaker was mounted with clear, removable double sided tape on the bottom of the enclosure which left a quarter of an inch of clearance. After the speaker placement was figured out, the RX-18 with the fan slid neatly to the rear and was mounted on the top of the battery box beside the smoker with the same type of adhesive tape. It is now well out of the way of the airgun mechanism's rotation and elevation\depression paths. Pictures:

scalawag · Post by **scalawag** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:53 am

A great solution Painless. Very neat.

ALPHA · Post by **ALPHA** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 2:00 pm

So glad you are doing your reorganizing before me

Though I don't think I can follow anything you've done Painless.. at least it gives me an idea of how much work it will take

....yup even though the FoV hull fit like a glove... there are clearance issues... especially with my modified mantlet and rotator plate...making it prototypical set the gun mech back about an eighth of an inch ... still plenty enough room for it to move up and down... but in the up position the butt end of the mech hit's the Rx18...lucky for me ...I'm in that stage of the build...where I sort out the internals before finishing the outer ...but it's the nature of the beast... and I want it to run first before continuing to detail the exterior ...that way I can play with it as it goes along

Have a good Saturday Painless

ALPHA

doc larsson · Post by **doc larsson** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 4:00 pm

nice work scala mate !

PainlessWolf · Post by **PainlessWolf** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 10:57 am

49th Day: Scalawag, thank you again, Sir. Alpha, at first, it seemed difficult to anticipate given the lack of space and having to make sure that everything had clearance but tonight was fun. I got a late start due to an event out. I wanted to install the two switches and the sound pot and get a test done with the battery so I could move onto wiring the turret tomorrow. First, I wanted to mount the turret back to the upper hull so I got out my self adhesive plastic slides and put 8 of them down. The turret now rotates like it is on glass. Moving on to the switches, for the Smoker on\off switch, I found a neat little plastic corner that you would use to put two panels at right angles. It had screw slots already cut into it so all I did was enlarge one of the slots to hold the smoker switch then screwed it into place. I glued it to the interior wall under the engine bay grills. For the sound pot and the Power on\off switch I built switch mounts out of square tube plastistruct. Very neat and easy to glue down to the hull once the switch and pot were screwed into place. Next I found a small wire guide and used some double stick tape to install it and get the Motor and Power wiring out of the way. Both of the switches and the sound pot can now be accessed by opening the engine bay grills. Lastly, I sanded smooth the putty fill on the old hull sidewall switch hole I had covered with the brass sheet the night before. Pictures: