It is January 20, 2021; hopefully a day of calm reflection and celebration of what is still the greatest Democracy the world has ever known. Now back to a most difficult time in World History - WAR; WW2, the Big One (it was in all the papers). My third build for Bolt Action. My brother and I have so much German armor, we need more Allied. This beauty was a Christmas present (to myself) from my brother, just as his Tiger II was a Christmas present (to himself) from me - get it? It arrived on Dec. 23rd, but I had already planned on building my Monogram TBF first, so this little gem languished until Jan. 17.
Once the three trees in the box were disgorged I went right to work on assembly of the drive wheels/tread and chassis. A single track assembly - much easier than the four part tread concept of the Warlord models I previously built.
After reviewing the instructions I selected the M36 option which was developed with the 90mm gun and started to see action in Sept. 1944. I have painted the interior of the turret and added the ammo rack and sighting scope. I also drilled out the 90mm breach and painted it as well. There are several options included as will be seen as I also did chose an alternate M10 turret configuration.
One of the first self inflicted challenges was to make the 50cal Browning able to rotate. I pinned drilled the pintle mount and inserted a bent over gauge 22 wire secured with cyano.
I chose this photo to follow for detailing the Browning. Note the color difference in the weathered ammo can bracket and the ammo can itself. Below is how it turned out. Green for the ammo can. silver and olive for the weathering and a mix of silver and black to get a gun metal color.
These pics showed that I closed up the turret quickly but I had to do the same thing with the muzzle break that I did with the Warlord kits - drill out the gun bore???? Oh well.
I took the above two photos simply to show the rotation of the 50 Cal.
The next job was painting and weathering the rear engine panel. First a black fill in of the panel lines and engine "grill", followed by the Olive coat - carefully dry brushing over the engine grill - then application of some of my Tamiya "makeup" (Weathering Master) for grime and oxidation.
After masking off the front end that I had hand weathered I put the body and chassis into the spray both , after which I started applying various colors to the tracks and wheels to simulate road grime, oil, rust etc. The Tamiya kit came in handy again here along with using silver and black where it made sense after researching various photos of the real thing. I didn't want it too dirty looking as these had just arrived in Sept '44.
Next came the decals. Again looking at photos for commonality I chose what seemed like a standard identification. Rubicon decals come off the paper backing fast and easy. Next came finishing details on the rear end with silver and brown and Tamiya.
More views follow.....
Now recall I mentioned an M10 turret? I followed the same procedure as putting together and painting the M36 turret. Some obvious differences besides the angular turret plates is the 3 inch gun with no muzzle break (yep, had to drill out the bore on this one too!) and the ammo storage racks.
Here is what it looks like on the chassis. In my opinion the kit should have been designed for the chassis to accept either turret, but the flanges on the bottom are different diameter forcing one to chose one turret or the other. Again, I chose "door number three" and simply snipped the flange from the M10 turret. Okay, it does not lock in as the M36 turret does, but because the M10 is the larger diameter it does sit nicely on the chassis and so can still be displayed or used in gaming😄
The M10/36 comes without crew, but of course Rubicon sells crew separate! I bit since it was not overly expensive and I am glad I did, although I did not know they were Pewter! I have never worked with pewter, so I consulted with LittleBro and got some Rust-oleum primer. The crew came with a driver but I had already buttoned up the hull hatches so I only had the three turret men to deal with.
Here is what I was going for. Two with tanker helmets and the leader with the pot over the top. The colors I had to mix to get close to this picture. Here is a progress photo...
.....and here is the result. I glued the torsos down to the seat ring then added added the heads in the direction I wanted. First a top view.
Now here they come at you!
The one in the middle with the pot is a "Top kick" and the other two are privates.
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