Vietnam GB US M551 Sheridan

[Gb64c]

Hey All,

This will be my entry, or one of them into the Vietnam Group Build.

It is a Tamiya 1:35 US M 551 Sheridan, this is a motorized version, which I will not be including.

The Sheridan has been one of my favorite tanks since I was a little child. My brother and I had several 1:72 scale +|- metal tanks, from matchbox, corgi or ertal, not sure. We had a Tiger, S Tank, Chieftain, Leopard, Patton and a Sheridan.

I thought it was a funny looking tank with the short barrel, fortunately my brother, even at a young age knew history and military items very well.

This all took place at the height of the Vietnam War. It was on the news every night, and our neighbors sons were there fighting and my student teacher was a veteran, dog handler who would tell us interesting stories.

So I thought this was a strange tank, but my brother explained how they worked in the jungle, being light and using their gun to load and fire, basically huge shot gun blasts that would rip through the jungle and meant to kill and maim the enemy.

So learning this and just liking the turret design, has made it one of my favorite AFV.

Once I was an adult, I joined the US Army, and during my early training, we were allowed to attend an air show at McGuire AFB, where I was so pleasantly surprised when a huge aircraft flew just a hundred feet over the air field, and wam! parachutes poped out the rear, and bam, a freakin tank gets yanked out and comes flying down right in front of us with chutes slowing it down some, but this thing was flying.

When it hit the ground, it churned up sod and soil, chunks of dirt the size of cinder blocks were flying 20-30 feet in the air.

The tank was on skid plates and was spinning around tossing dirt and sod, and the damned thing came to a stop right in front of me and guess what kind of tank?

A Sheridan!

It was so cool to see this and I have always wanted to build one.

If you want to read more about this tank, Google it, no need for me to copy and paste wiki stuff.

So here goes.

[chief5437]

Great intro! Good luck buddy

[LordFarnswaller]

I've just built the academy version and its a nifty looking tank

[Gb64c]

Sorry no action in this thread, however I am having troubles uploading photos.

Can't get the old eMac OS right and the version of Safari I am using does not work in photo bucket or with my photo website, Blue Melon.

So all the high res pics are on the Mac but not on the thread.

Next step will be to email them to myself and upload via the iPad.

The kit is coming along, no hurry. Just trying to get the huge back load of kits off the weathering table and into the display cabinet. Two kits have made it to the cabinet, the Strum Panzer IV and the Italian SP. Both look nice and one day will shoot some pics.

The Sheridan kit is old and has a motor, which leads to lots of holes and slots to fill. It is a real simple Tamiya kit, fun and easy, but old and some flash and seams.

Will post pics soon I hope.

[Gb64c]

OK gang, after a freakin month of computer problems, incompatible fire wire, usb, thunderbolt, iPad vs Lap top then I had some wrong setting in my Blue Melon Photo account, I am now able to upload and file my progress report. sorry but it will mostly be in a big lump here from conception to paint.

This is my first GB ever and I have been very excited to build this kit or I should say a Sheridan.

If you read my introduction, I have loved this tank since i was adjust a little pip squeak and the Vietnam War was ragging and our neighbors and family friends or older brothers were coming home Freaked up from it, or not coming home

As a boy we would have tree planting ceremonies for Boys that did not make it home but had attended my Elementary school, I recently visited that tree.

We would also have aluminum wrist bands with MIAs listed, mine was Spec. 5 Craig Dix, and when I checked the VN Wall in DC, he was still listed as MIA.

So the VN war is an emotional thing for me and this tank represents it to me more then anything.

So thanks for the patience and I hope you enjoy my build.

Greg

Image from my "In Action" book, as I explained in my intro, this is an airborne tank and I was fortunate enough to see one pop out the ass of an aircraft like this when I was in boot camp in NJ, Ft Dix.



Kit Box, old kit included a little moter, so could be thirty years old, Got it off Ebay



Directions, which were clear



Motor



Decals and they are looking rough, hope better then the Italeri, that always jizz white crap all over



Box content



Squadron In Action Book, I love these things and have a stash of these too, I say they are reference, but I just like looking at the pictures...



Tub and turret



Sprues, pretty clean, some light flash and seams, but nothing compared to the crap when I was a kid, so it is all gravy.



Just a shot of all the other stuff that was waiting in line, it reminds me of Henry Fords Rouge River Assembly Plant



I always write a note on the back, unless it is written for me, of what kit the decals belong too, I also mark sets of tracks too after trying to get the 38t tracks onto a Pz4. Just a hint from lessons learned.



Great chunks of sprue for glueing my Russian Assault troops to.



I label the spruse so I can easily locate them in a pile of sprues, this is for demo purposes only, it only had two sprues and one was the tub.



These kits are so old, that the tracks are folded and when you solder them together the form stays like that, I do not want the seam to be in the front or back, but on the top or bottom depending on the kit, so fold them how i want them and reform their shape to what I want, it works pretty well if you leave them for a week or two.



Road wheels



If you have built older Tamiya kits, you know they always have some crap like a motor, or at least the are molded to hold a motor, so there are always holes and things to fill. For the most part I don't care what the bottom looks like, but the sides are a different story, so to fit the axle in, they have big gaps that need to be filled.

I use styrene and Tamiya putty.





I do not see this often, even on the old kits, but this one must have been real old, like the EZ 8 I am building has molded on tools. I am too lazy to cut them off, and think I will be able to paint them well enough to fool me.



This was about it for real flash



Push pin marks fortunately easy to remove, no filler required.



Barrel construction was a little odd, direction not great and it did not want to fit in, had to shave it, then over shaved it, but it all worked in the end.



Turret seam, very slight, used water based putty. The turret is cool as heck, like a crab.



The cupola very cool.



Drive train lol



sanded off the little marks for a jerry can, it was silly looking toy like



Completed kit, pretty quick build like two or three evenings.











Ready to prime. This was the first AFV I primed with Mr. Surfacer, it was great and lasted for three tanks and 20 figures, for about $13.



Nice coat, no more Vallejo crud for me, I will try some AK or Mig primer, but need to get it from eBay, Scalehobyist does not sell it.







Messed up and had the cupola turret on during priming, but it was fine in the end.





Base coat of Tamiya XF Black





Painted the road wheels with rubber black, NATO black could substitute if you can't get this locally.





Ready to paint, chose Olive Green and I use toilet paper rolls to hold up the tub and turret





Road wheel masking, painted rubber black first, now green



Nice example of the panel line shading.









Doing some color modulation by adding some yellow to the green to lighten it up









This took a while so it is beer time

[wappynutter]

Excellent build Greg...
The panel shading and modulation is spot on too!
Well done my friend, Continued success...

[trekfanj]

That's superb work so far!

[Dunhill2005]

Your kit looks great. Keep going that way.

[schweinhund227]

the M-551 is a cool little tank....

Thank you for sharing your work!!!

[HamilkarBarkas]

Well done, you make this old basic kit look superb

[Gb64c]

Thanks fellows, next I will try making some miliputty tarps and such, never tried it before

Typically I don't put much on my tanks but think some extras are in store.

[peppie]

I love it, taking an old kit and make it looking as good as one off those expensive new ones
And up to now, it looks like it's going to be a nice one.

[Deacon]

Looking good mate.

[UKguyInUSA]

That's looking the mutts nuts so far mate!

[Gb64c]

Placed the decals today, chipping away at my backlog. Hope to have my bench pretty much cleared by the end of the veterans day weekend.

As you can see in some of my first pictures, the decals were stained brown, almost like the had been damp at on time, maybe a little mold, don't know but looked bad.

I decided to go with them anyways, I am not much of a after market guy and build whats in the box, with a little modification here or there, but don't want to spend buckets of Dinars on after market items. Maybe one day.

The decals had a lot of extra film or transfer material which I should have trimmed off, but with the stain on the paper could not tell it was so extensive, hopefully it will blend in.

This picture is of the ammo boxes painted, not sure what color they are supposed to be, so I went with a Russian armor green from Italeri, thought it came out looking fine.



Maybe there is a name of what my decals fought, but I would call it a case of the olds.



They took a little longer then normal to come loose, but once wet, they looked ok.



The decal instructions were very nice, this kit was a USA export, so everything in English. Most of my Tamiya were punched in Japan and have little or no English, or that is how it used to be.

I did the 1St Armored Divison, the direction tell about it as being the only active unit and is fighting in Vietnam, so the directions were printed as the war was raging.





Used both Micro Set and Sol for the decals and finished with my old Solv as Set





All decals set.





I mentioned in a post about painting the MGs or other weapons, and always have a hard time finding a color that is not too metallic, silvery, or shiny. I used to use Model Master Enamal gun metal and had to toss it out due to its age and degradation. So I recently replaced a lot of my odd ball wierdo colors with MM acrylics and have been extremely happy. The airbrush well and brush well.

So this is the .50 cal MG. I had to drill out and cut the handles to shape, it was just a block of cheese, had to do it on the old EZ 8 Sherman I am building too.

[Russ72]

Looking Good . Nice paintwork.

[Deacon]

That is wonderful mate.

[JayCub]

Very enjoyable build log and interesting commentary
Tom

[Gb64c]

Update!

Putting black wash on the kit as I begin the weathering process, had several others in the que, so I did a production. Here are the ones I did a wash on, while I was washing.



The paint job looks a lot brighter green under the the lights and think it will tone down as I wash the kit and dry brush it. Typically I don't need a matte finish, the oil paints seem to dull the kits. With that said if it needs a flat coat I will apply it at the end.

So this is pre wash photo and a look at how the decals sit, I am pleased with the decals after seeing them out of the box all browned.







A little shine on the decals, but should dull with oils.



Some wash on the ammo box, letting it puddle up, the wash is black oil paint and mineral spirits or turpentine. Just a half a pea sized blob and about 2 cm in a little bottle, until it is not too dark, not to light. Start with light and add more oil, toothpick at a time.



I started off with just the panel lines and highlights like the ammo boxes then decided to wash the entire kit, it needed toning down.



Applying wash to Pioneer tools, note the little bottle, about 1 oz or so.



Before wash



After



Just sloping it on



After the entire tank was washed, will check it today and see if it needs another entire was or just highlights. The next phase will be a dry brush, then a pin wash of nuts and bolts, another dry brush and some pigments and another final dry brush to pop the rivets

[Gb64c]

OK, just about done with this one, actually done but need to file one more update prior to the final reveal.

Preparing for the dot wash or what ever it is called. When I first read about this technique I was skeptical about the blue paint, but I finally tried it after having the oil paint for more then a year.

Well I don't think I would build a kit again and not use this technique



So you just put little dots of the oil on the surface and use a thinner (oil based) and a wide brush and stroke downwards over the surface until you have the desired effect of streaking and grim. Some say to pre moisten the are a with thinner, I tried both but did not seem to see any difference, but will try again. The white and grey go a long long way so don't use much, the blue and other colors blend nice, play around and see what looks good.

But be careful on the surface, I use at least two built up thick coats of Future, I tried Liqetex varnish and it is not good for this, it melted away quick under the solvent based thinner and ate into the paint and all the way to the plastic on a different kit.

I suggest if you don't like the effect you get, finish wiping it down with the brush, but don't do it again that day, try the next. Even Future will relent to Turpentine and Mineral spirits at some point









On this photo I am trying to replicate the prism glass, which from what I have seen is a very dark green. I painted it gloss black and then clear green, Tamiya acrylics.



I slopped the clear green around but covered it up later with green oil paint



I was recently in Japan and picked up two paint markers, both silver. I used this Gundam one on the track guides and it worked well, easy to control. I will purchase more at some point. Have not tried the Tamiya one yet and have no idea if they will last very long or what but it was less then $2 USD.

I like to always try a new product or technique on each kit.









Went on to use a few pigments, another new great product, I used to use pastel chalks.



So this is the Final product.

It was a fun kit, too simple and very old would love to see Tamiya come out with a new one and I will look around for a different brand and see what is out there. Would love to build another one.

I think I am supposed to post the final photos in the final revel section, so I will edit this later and insert a link to the final.

Thanks and I hope you enjoyed my build.




Final

http://intscalemodeller.com/viewtopic.php?f=308&t=10188

[Russ72]

Nice stuff Greg. I've heard of using the silver pens and pencils, but haven't gone down that route. Look forward to seeing the reveal photos.