Hi,
Thank you everyone for your encouragements !
Currently building the turret.
The mantlet canvas cover.'
Korean war Shermans all seem to have a mantlet canvas cover. No choice but to have one on this build, not just for historical accuracy, but mostly for the challenge and also because i think the Sherman looks better with one.
- 1/16 RC M4A3E8 Korean war - Restoring Tamiya M4 with Takom kit - build
- 1.png (337.79 KiB) Viewed 4507 times
The Takom/AHHQ comes with a superb but static canvas cover in plastic.
- 1/16 RC M4A3E8 Korean war - Restoring Tamiya M4 with Takom kit - build
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When put on to dry fit it, it almost makes you want to forget about RC gun elevation and just go with it. After some thinking, i determined that it can be reused for RC with some modifications.
- 1/16 RC M4A3E8 Korean war - Restoring Tamiya M4 with Takom kit - build
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After some analysis of the elevation pattern of the mantlet, i determined that it is not moving that much with the elevation. I therefore decided to cut the cover in half and remove the recessed area in the top middle and then all around, and replace these by real flexible canvas, then re-integrate the whole thing the best i can. There is a risk of ruining the plastic cover completely but the alternative of building a cover completely from scratch is not ideal and it's worth the risk.
- 1/16 RC M4A3E8 Korean war - Restoring Tamiya M4 with Takom kit - build
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As used in other of my builds, the rubber canvas material is coming from Javex latex gloves, cheap and readily available. The trick to ensure that the paint will stick on it is to avoid any stretching of the latex material while operating the gun, free mouvement on its own is ok. If there is any stretching, the material will eventually create cracks on the paint job.
- 1/16 RC M4A3E8 Korean war - Restoring Tamiya M4 with Takom kit - build
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The latex bridge is placed with the rubber on the outside so that it can better integrate with the structure of the surrounding plastic, 11mm wide at the top, 8mm wide at the bottom and later reduced to 6mm, with 1 to 2mm overlay with the plastic, not much. If i was to redo it, i would probably cut the latex section one or two mm smaller on the top. It's ok to be careful but too much material also cause other issues. There are operations results that can only be seen once fielded, and then it's too late... Got to live with it.
- 1/16 RC M4A3E8 Korean war - Restoring Tamiya M4 with Takom kit - build
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After a first phase of finetuning of the joints, the mantlet in painted in acrylics in order to check the integration, do some putty/sanding and perform corrections, when still possible. At this point, there is danger of damaging the latex if not careful, with risks of ruining everything.
- 1/16 RC M4A3E8 Korean war - Restoring Tamiya M4 with Takom kit - build
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After much finetuning and it is still not totally finished, the working mantlet canvas cover is installed.
- 1/16 RC M4A3E8 Korean war - Restoring Tamiya M4 with Takom kit - build
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- 1/16 RC M4A3E8 Korean war - Restoring Tamiya M4 with Takom kit - build
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I am risking some close ups. Every little impecfection is crying out on such scratch building. Some issues can only be seen in pictures as things looked better to the naked eye... That's the best i could do in about 4 hours of work.
- 1/16 RC M4A3E8 Korean war - Restoring Tamiya M4 with Takom kit - build
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continuing on following post.
