Hasegawa easy Eight (Part 2).

So, I finally got round to painting and putting the parts onto the Easy Eight. i would've opened the turret but I actually forgot you could do it. I'll have to save that for the crusader I've got here too.

So, got to try out my new airbrush from Christmas (it works great!). I did have to remove the road wheel and suspension piece, after I'd glued it on. Annoyingly I broke the pieces that locate it into the chassis, so I had to level them by eye. They still look good though so I can't complain.
I painted the road wheels with a fine brush around the edges that needed painting. I've yet to put any stowage onto the tank, there's a tarp rolled up that came with the kit but I'm also contemplating getting something off ebay or amazon to add more stowage, since they often had stuff on top of the tank. I also need to weather it, and the tracks need to go on. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to "heat weld" them together. But I suspect spoon handle on the hob will be a good plan.

Hasegawa M4A3E8 Sherman (Easy Eight)

I've finally gotten round to making a model here at uni, work's had me a bit snowed under til recently, but now I'm on top of things a little better I found time to put something together.

So over Christmas I got a few new models from my parents, a Churchill bridge laying tank, a DUKW and a Sherman "Easy Eight". I brought the DUKW, Sherman and a Crusader I bought on holiday in Wales a few months ago to uni, so i might get round to those at some point too.

Anyhow, on to the model.

The Tank
The kit is a Hasegawa M4(A3E8) Sherman, which was known as the "Easy Eight" (due to the e8 at the end of it's designation). The Easy Eight boasted a higher caliber gun than the regular M4A1 Sherman,  a different hull shape, engine and suspension as well.

The Kit
the kit is moulded in grey plastic and the tracks are vinyl (I think). Even though they're vinyl, the tracks seem to be higher quality than Airfix and Revell vinyl tracks.

I've had no major problems with assembly so far, everything has wanted to fit together with the slight exception of the turret halves, the two didn't quite fit together so I glued them in place then filled the gap with some plastic melted in liquid poly. Then once it had hardened, sanded the raised edges flat.

I took some pictures of my progress so far. I airbrused the olive drab onto the parts separately then glued them together to get a better finish on those nooks and crannies which can be difficult to reach with the airbrush once the whole thing is glued together.

Pictures of the current stages, sorry about the low quality I don't have access to my sister's SLR which I normally use to photograph. Instead I'm using the webcam attached to my netbook, which is much lower quality.