1:35 M4 SHERMAN

The first production form of the Sherman

The M4 version stands at the beginning of the whole family. It has a welded hull, a Continental engine with a radial arrangement of cylinders and the older suspension with vertical springs, where a pair of smaller wheels sits on each unit. This very form reached British units in North Africa and Soviet crews under the deliveries, so on one chassis you will find three different schools of painting. The wheels stay the same on all of them and equally laborious. Before you set about painting, check from photographs whether your subject ran on smooth or ribbed tires.

The moment when the set enters the build

First the suspension bogies are assembled and the wheels stuck onto them, then come filler and sanding of the joints, then the primer and the base shade. Only onto a dried surface do the cut-outs belong. Anyone who sticks them on earlier masks places that still need sandpaper, and the boundary will shift. After the rubber is sprayed the film is peeled off with tweezers and the wheel is done. It usually leaves no adhesive residue behind.

The relation to decals and to repairs later

Registration numbers and stars lie on the hull and on the turret and do not touch the running gear, so varnishing in the decal phase gets in the way of nothing. Only after it come washes, filters and dry pigment, which softens the transition on the tire. If part of a tire is scuffed against a track link during the build, the damaged place can be covered again and sprayed locally without the wheel having to be unstuck.

Contents of the delivery

A sheet with pre-cut discs for the tires. The plastic and paint materials the builder obtains himself and the shapes are aimed at the parts of a particular maker.