Unspeakable Acts on an unsuspecting Sherman...

[Rob1970]

The Sherman M4A3 105mm Houwitser is done! Spent the last weeks getting her ready, with paint, weathering, a healthy slathering of Magic Grime (Yeah, magic indeed... love it!) and the likes. Quite pleased with the results for my first go at painting and weathering armour, and the Magic Grime works as advertised. Did some chipping with some acrylics, mainly rust colours and some gun metals. Most of the larger markings were masked and painted, altho I did use some of the Heng Long decals and some scraps from my decal leftovers.

I blackened the metal tracks with two rounds of Birchwood Casey Perma Blue paste. Man, that stuff is awesome! First round turned the tracks a dark brown, second round turned them a nice weathered black. A quick tour of the wilderness that is my garden gave the tracks just the right pattern of wear...

Anyway... time for some glamour shots!









Still want to do some stowage, but not sure what. I have plenty of options tho. Also might have a crew, at least a commander and a loader. But that means painting figures...

To Be Continued...

TTFN,
Rob

[PainlessWolf]

Rob,
Shermans are coming out fantastic. Go crazy on your 105 M4A3. They look so great when tricked out with detail and are solid runners.
regards,
Painless

[BarryC]

The (what Heng Long generously calls) welds on the Sherman 105mm still need fixing, so I decided a new experiment with the 3D pen for making weld beads.

I measured the "gutter" that is supposed to be the weld beads on the Sherman, and hot-glued two copper strips to a metal ruler at the same distance. Slipped piece of paper between the copper and the metal to give the filament something to grab on to.

"Jiggling" the tip of the 3D pen between the copper strips and slowly drawing along the channel I created gave me (after some fiddling with the temperature and feeding speed) a pretty consistent weld bead...

Make that "beads". Plural. And this lot took me maybe all of 20 minutes to churn out.

And with them being just the right size to fit snugly into the channels, and made of ABS they just melt in with a touch of MEK.

So yeah, this works...

To Be Continued...

TTFN,
Rob

Great and timely process Rob.

I purchased a 3D Pen a few months back with just this idea in mind. I am pleased to see that it works very well indeed!!

Barry

[Rob1970]

To quote Granny Weatherwax;



Just been having a bit of a building slump, combined with being way too busy with other stuff. And waiting for parts (damn Customs)...

But I'll be back...

[HERMAN BIX]

We’ll be right here, waiting, ya know, for when you stop buying and get back to building !!