I started adding the dirt, dust and grime.

I sprayed a very light coat of Tamiya Deck Tan on the areas around the suspension and sprockets.

Here you can see the difference between a wheel that has been lightly coated and one that has not. The fresh ODG is much darker.

The rest of the road wheels and sprockets have been installed. I have also been experimenting with a new thing for me. I have some Vallejo mud effects. These are various colors and consistency.

I’m using some industrial mud color, light mud, and some splash effect light mud colors for these. The city streets of Cologne were covered in a mixture of concrete rubble and I think these colors will portray the looks the best.

It’s track time !

This Dragon DML kit has the correct WW2 early style track included in the box. They’re individually molded track blocks. Unfortunately they have a few ejection pin marks that need to be taken care of. Careful sanding is as far as I’m taking it.

The track has been assembled on this side.

One down and one left to go.

As always comments are always welcomed.

Thanks for stopping by.

You have really made progress on this very ambitious project, @lgardner. The models look excellent. I am definitely watching for your end result.

Absolutely superb progress, my friend @lgardner!

Paul Barber (@yellow10)
Thank you for your kind comments. I am very pleased with how the tracks are working out so far. My fingers are still sore from the sanding so I’m going to wait a day or so before I start working on the other side. I couldn’t be more pleased with how the painting is coming together as well. Thank you again.

Hello Tom.
Tom Cleaver (@tcinla)
It’s good to hear from you and I’m happy to hear that you are doing OK with everything that is happening currently in your neighborhood.

I have been plugging away at this project a little each night. Eventually it comes together and will be a part of the big picture. I couldn’t be more excited and happy with how this project is coming along.

Thanks for stopping by and please stay tuned. I have some more updates coming up next.

George R Blair Jr (@gblair)
Thank you so much for your kind words and support. It is sincerely appreciated.

Spiros Pendedekas (@fiveten)
Thank you my friend. Please let QC1 and QC2 know that we were asking about them. Take care and stay safe.

John vd Biggelaar (@johnb)
It’s always nice to hear from you and your comments are very welcome. Thank you so much my friend.

Please stay tuned everyone. I have another update coming right now.

This is the Tamiya kit I will be using for the disabled Sherman tank in the left side of the photo. I have two of these models in my stash.

I have a leftover set of open road wheels from a previous Tamiya Sherman build. This style of open road wheel appears to have been used on this particular tank. Here the rubber portion of the wheels were painted in a dark gray color, in preparation for the upcoming OD Green. Here again the new circle cutter is proving to be a valuable tool to have.

I collected a Jordi Rubio metal barrel for this one too. I assumed that since this combat occurred during the last few months of the war I would be safe to build the turret with a newer style commander cupola.

Only after I painted the turret would I realize how horribly mistaken I was ….. If we take a good close look at the commander hatches on the Sherman in the left side of the photo, it's definitely a two piece hatch in use on this one ! I should have caught this. Oops.

Thankfully I had another kit to replace my mistake.

I have as of today built a replacement turret that has the older style cupola that has a two piece hatch. I only realized this afterwards.

I’m going to use the first turret later on when I eventually build the second kit. It will be ready to install when the time comes.

As always, comments are encouraged. Thank you for stopping by.

Louis (@Igardner),
Great to get another helping of Lou. I've watched that duel between the Panther and the Pershing several times. The commander of the Panther also lost a leg and crawled out and didn't make it. Some good research and modeling going on here. Glade to see you back in the saddle.

Some great progress, Louis @lgardner
Those metal barrels do look way better.

I got a lot of stuff done with the second Sherman tank.

I started out by building the hull.

The front slope and rear hull were assembled and glued into place.

This is an older model so it doesn’t have the side sponsons boxed in.


So I fixed it up with some plastic card stock.


The suspension and road wheels were prepped for painting.

The plastic card was sprayed with OD Green and now it looks much better than original.





This is the original turret that I assembled for the Sherman. It has the newer style commander cupola installed. The newer version has a one piece hatch, and everything has been sprayed with OD Green on the exterior, with a Gloss White on the interior.

You can also see how I had sprayed the metal barrel with some Tamiya white primer from a rattle can, so that the ODG paint would stick on it. Otherwise it would chip away from the metal barrel way too easily.

This one piece style hatch shown here is also not the correct style for the one we can see in the picture of the second knocked out Sherman. No need to worry though, because it has been taken care of.

The upper and lower halves of the hull were glued together. Now it’s starting to look like a real Sherman tank.





These pictures show how the Sherman looks after the entire tank was painted in ODG. It was also shown before I realized that the commander cupola was the wrong one.

So……

I took the parts out of the second Tamiya Sherman and I built a correct turret with the earlier two piece hatch and older style cupola on it. (The actual cupola is different as well as the hatch.)

The cupola can also be rotated on the real thing so this is why I had to slightly modify the opening where it goes. This allowed me to install the turret in the correct orientation and make the opening where hatch look more correct.

This last picture shows how the Sherman as it appears right now. The new turret has been slipped into position and will soon be painted with ODG as well.

The Sherman is coming along nicely and should be ready for the tracks very soon.

As always comments are encouraged. Thanks for stopping by.

2 additional images. Click to enlarge.