Sherman Firefly help and suggestions please

[percy1510]

Good Morning
My current tank project is a Heng Long Sherman which I am converting to a Firefly with I.R, recoil etc. I can see that there seems to be an massive amount of Sherman variants and I realise that I wont be able to make my tank 100% accurate without spending a lot of money on a conversion kit. With this in mind I have decided to do some modifications and hopefully end up with a tank "similar" to a Firefly. So far I have added the longer barrel and the radio box. I have added the extra armour plating to the sides of the hull

1. I see that on the Firefly the hull machine gun has an armour plating over it. Does any body know if this part is available from any vendors or am I going to have to scratch build it myself? it looks like quite an awkward shape to make so would prefer to buy a part if possible.

2. I have unplugged everything while I have been working on the tank but now I put things back together I cant see where the back light plug in?? they have a wire with a small 2 pin connector and I assumed that they would plug in on the part where the 8 pin connector joins the upper hull but the wire in the back lights is not long enough to reach?? am I missing something obvious??

3. Any suggestions as to not too difficult mods I can make to the model to make it more like a Firefly?

Thanks in advance
Glyn

[Aussie]

Go into Heng Long Builds and have a gander at Niells brilliant build.

[percy1510]

yes it's a great build. I see that he has ordered parts from shape ways. I hadn't heard of them before but Thier site looks very interesting
wonder if any one does a printed part for the machine gun armour on the sherman hull

[Niall]

My build is for a mate and is a bit compromised as he wanted an M4A4(Sherman mkVC) based version which has a longer hull than the M4A3 from Hen Long. Making an M4(Sherman 1C) version would be easier as it has a hull closer to the M4A3 in length and has a cover over the engine grill, in addition it does not need the 3 piece gearbox cover.

The Shapeways parts I used are my own designs. I need to make a couple of minor tweaks to the design and then I will put them up on my Shapeways shop(www.shapeways.com/shops/nmp) after I here back from Shapeways abut 1 issue.

[percy1510]

Hi Niall
I only discovered shapeways after reading your Build thread but I will definitely keep a look out for you parts once they are on the site
Thanks
Glyn