Vandra Ram II Canadian Sherman conversion - Build

[PainlessWolf]

Good morning,
Louis, you have almost made Vandra into a swear word around here. I have one more Sherman or Sherman based vehicle build planned after the M10 so as to make a full platoon of five. I was really into their Lee or this Ram but seeing everything that you have brought to light and had to deal with, a Tamiya Easy Eight build might be more fun for my arty-fied knuckles. No saying but that they make see all this and learn from it like we did and do better with their next run at production. Following along,
Regards,
Painless

[Ad Lav]

Nice work, I would have thrown it away by now or sent it back!!

Amazing skills to bring it back from the dead.

[lmcq11]

Hi,

I am actually grateful for Vandra for producing kits. Without them, I would not have an M3, M7, Firefly and soon a Ram. On the positive side, their resin is of very good quality, well crafted, strong and without air bubbles. Parts also have limited carrots to remove. If they could spend more time at measurements, maybe using an accurate 1/35 kit like I do as rreference, and maybe review their prototypes with us first, then things would be really good. They should try to prevent major mistakes that could be easily avoided, and improve them. The last thing I want is to discourage a vendor from producing kits.
Louis

[lmcq11]

Hi,
This is the planning stage for the suspension and electronics.

Mato T74 metals tracks and sprocket will be used. These are of great quality but very heavy compared to the plastic Mato tracks I used on the M7. I started to have concerns for the M3 suspension.

Mato T74 tracks

Shapeways early spoked road wheels will be used. This time, I was careful of selecting the "Green Polished" material, and also to pick the variant with the regular 5 spoke instead of the rarer 6 spoke wheel.

Shapeways Sherman Spoke road wheel

Bizarre, the wheels has small holes on one side that let go white powder for quite a while, something to be careful of. As if I had not enough dust in my work area.

Shapeways Sherman Spoke road wheel

I inspected the Vandra M3 suspension conversion parts a bit closer to see how I would use and modify them for the build. The axel for the roller has a metal center covered with resin. As you can see, the connection between the axel resin and the plastic bogie is quite fragile. I imagine some epoxy would be required to keep them in place. Not sure how they would resist the heavy Mato metal tracks.

Vandra M3 suspension conversion parts

Then disaster happened. As i was holding the first unit to remove the heavy carrot with a saw (me who just previously said Vandra carrots were light...), the whole thing imploded out of my hand in 4 pieces. That's it with these parts... I was not a happy guy. Well, maybe it is a good thing to find that out now.

Vandra M3 suspension conversion parts

I therefore ordered Shapeways M3 suspension conversion kit, the same ones I used on the M7 build. They are as much work to install but at least I know they will not explode while I drive the tank. I selected the Green polished material this time which should help a bit with the sanding required.

Shapeways M3 Bogies

Shapeways M3 bogies.JPG (53.3 KiB) Viewed 2373 times

Testing with the Clark TK-22 (M4) control board. It was not working initially and it took me a while to find out the CH 1 to 4 connector need to be upside down on the receiver compared to servo connectors. Its complex to operate, much practice will be required to handle the tank with it. The machine gun turret will be easily controlled by channel 5 hooked to the VRA rolling button on the remote. A Clark recoil unit was ordered so I will not use the HL pellet gun.

TK-22

First time I notice that I have a HL Sherman 2 way elevation unit. There is a stopper that prevent the wheel from rotation 360. I am used to the 1 way unit. I was happy to see that it works with the Clark Control without doing the wiring modification that is specified in the Clark instructions. At least one good surprise, but it is not installed yet...

HL elevation unit

Also want to announce than my loyal cordless Dremel died while sanding a resin part of the Ram. This build is definitely testing me...RIP

Regards, Louis

[c.rainford73]

Louis you should make a monument to that dremel. It has been very busy I agree although the parts broke, at least it happened before final assembly.

[HERMAN BIX]

I thought I had a hard time with my Jagdtiger build....................Its almost embarrassing to compare my difficulties to yours mate

I sincerely hope those at Vandra are looking on and are smart enough to take it on the chin & get things right.

Brilliant work as usual Sir

[lmcq11]

Hi,

Continuing with the build, no major concerns anymore, just a lot of sanding and adjustments.

These are the front side storage bins. Again, we can see the vendor bad habit of always making things oversized. The shaded areas need to be removed. These are solid resin blocks so it takes times. The main angle also need to be adjusted as well.

Vandra Ram II conversion kit

Bins are installed, a 3 hour job end to end.

Vandra Ram II conversion kit

That metal rod going across the 2 bins and over the transmission cover was seen on all Ram pictures, and replicated here. Not sure what was the use of it, maybe some kind of reinforcement pole, I bit weird but accuracy is important.

Vandra Ram II conversion kit

This view of the lower rear shows the installation of the Mato plastic air filters with armored plates seen on reference. Everything on the rear plate was sanded smooth for the installation of the Vandra engine doors and the Mato track adjusters, a must when using Mato tracks.

Vandra Ram II conversion kit

Rear view of the Ram

Vandra Ram II conversion kit

Checking out the turret by dry fitting some of the major parts. A last, I am happily surprised by the quality of the turret parts. The gun shield shapes and dimensions are good.

Vandra Ram II conversion kit

I previously removed 7mm in height from the bottom of the top part and it seems to have fixed the turret. Now, I need to see if the equipment will fit inside. The Ram turret is smaller and more angular than the Sherman turret, so it will be tight. We shall see later.

Vandra Ram II conversion kit

I can see a couple of things to add to the turret but overall, this area is very good, finally I am getting a break and do not have to cut the turret or gun shield in half...

Vandra Ram II conversion kit

I have no more doubt, this will be a good looking Ram tank.

Vandra Ram II conversion kit

Vandra Ram II conversion kit

Regards, Louis

[Raminator]

I have no more doubt, this will be a good looking Ram tank.

That's for sure! The silhouette looks spot-on when compared with your Verlinden model. Surely the worst is over now, or is that tempting fate?

[lmcq11]

Hi,

I am almost done with the construction of the Vandra kit parts. Now i have to wait to get the Shapeways M3 boogies, .30 Cal machine guns and the Clark recoil that i have ordered. Still have a few things to manage, such as the head lamps, fire extinguishers, and minor details to add.

The exterior of the Ram II turret is finished. The gun is temporarily attached, awaiting recoil and flash units.

Vandra Ram II tank

The kit parts for the turret show good level of details. Its sad that Vandra misinterpreted the height of the hull.

Vandra Ram II tank

Because i removed 7mm in height, I had to redo the turret back plate, now it is rectangular as it should be. However, I am missing the right kind of screw to finish it and they are on order.

Vandra Ram II tank

A new tank model is a treat. Like many modeller on this blog, I know by heart every millimeter of the Tiger, Panther, Sherman... so getting a new tank shape to discover is fun. I added some minor details seen on picture.

Vandra Ram II tank

Vandra Ram II tank

A mini servo assigned to the knob button on channel 5 is installed under the .30 cal machine gun turret for rotation, and it works very well. It's very simple and I saw no point in over engineering this requirement. I will provide a video of it once the machine gun and flasher are installed.

Vandra Ram II tank

A plastic strip going across the small turret slides next to the servo arm when the upper hull is put on the chassis. Just need to manually align the turret with it as it slides down..

Vandra Ram II tank

Overview of the model as it stands today.

Vandra Ram II tank

It will obviously look better with its M3 suspension and T74 tracks.

Vandra Ram II tank

Vandra Ram II tank

Cool tank, I am happy with the results achieved so far. That's the thing about scratch building and converting a conversion kit, there will be no other exactly like it.

Regards, Louis

[c.rainford73]

Louis wonderful skills. It looks nothing like the kit you purchased and presented a while ago.

Are you using servo recoil and flash ? Turret rotation via the Heng Long unit and do you have room for elevation ?

Once you mount those bogies and tracks it will look even better than it does now.