Sherman V "Cock o'the North", 1 November 1944

Lower hull assembled. This is from flat plates, not a single-piece tub. 

Bow machine gun bulge sawed off to allow canvas-covered gun to be fitted later. 

Sprockets and idler wheels, showing lip around rim of latter (cleanup of seams still needed). 

Bogies, at left with pointless springs as provided in kit, right with replacement plastic bits … 

… that were the excess nodules attached to the return rollers. These fit nicely into the bogies in place of the springs, and the kit has exactly enough of them for all the bogies. 

Front engine deck plate, with the grille replaced by a canvas-covered one cut from a piece from the Resicast deep-wading set. 

Engine deck assembled. 

Assembled suspension bogies, still lacking track skids and holes in front faces. 

Deep-wading air exit chute at hull rear, from Resicast set, with blanking plates made from plastic card instead of the Resicast pieces. 

Appliqué armour plates on hull sides from Asuka kit, since RFM doesn’t include them. (There’s another on opposite side, of course.) 

Turret with loader’s hatch rim removed and hatch and bomb thrower opening filled with plastic card and putty, then filed and sanded flat. 

Opening in rear of turret (for extension box fitted to Sherman VC) was also filled with plastic card and putty. More putty applied around lower edge of turret to eliminate a step that’s moulded in but shouldn’t be there. 

Texture applied over filled-in areas with thinned putty, stippled with stiff brush. 

Details fitted to turret, including Resicast gun mantlet with waterproof cover. 

Left rear of turret, showing Asuka hatch for pistol port — RFM only provides a welded-up example — and wading trunk release gear on back of turret, from Resicast. Strips on rear face are stowage bin mounts, as bin won’t be fitted. 

Wading trunks from Resicast set, soldered together. 

Wading trunks placed on hull, still without glue. 

Some of the details added to the hull front, including a squashed headlight guard. 

Tools on the rear deck added, with straps from paper-thin plastic card. 

And then I dropped the model, breaking the exhaust chute off the hull 🙁 

More spare track links and some other stuff added to glacis plate. 

Bin for the hull rear, that will be carried on the engine deck. Ammo box is from PanzerArt. 

Basic shape for hull-front stowage rack. Top first attempt in brass, bottom second in plastic. Guess which one will go on 🙂 

Plastic rack, now with a plate inside. 

Rack attached to hull front, with two Italeri jerrycans for support. 

Front view of the rack in place. The jerrycans are already glued to the model too, as I don’t trust the rack to stay on otherwise. 

Turret front with section of spare track that appears to have been suspended from the sight vane with a piece of rope on the real tank. 

Turret rear with antenna mounts, right one scratchbuilt because this was a command tank with additional radios. 

Hull front complete with chains on the rack and small boxes on mudguards. 

Hull rear with mudguards and a large tin (from an old Italeri set) on the left side, to replicate an unknown big, square thing that was there on the real tank. 

Wading trunks (primed red with car primer) and their details added, minus the connecting rods for now. 

Reinforcing plates and ribs added to rear duct, as well as eyes (from previous photo) removed and replaced by copper wire hooks. 

Aerial base added to smoke launcher bracket, plus wire to additional aerial base on right turret rear.l 

2-inch bomb thrower added to hatch, with barrel from aluminium tube and improvised mounting. 

Model mostly finished. 

Large bedroll made for left front of turret, not finished yet obviously. 

Finished tarp on the turret, with aluminium foil blanket-thing and lead foil straps. 

Construction is now (hopefully) complete. 

Primed with Vallejo grey (from a rattle can) and then applied MRP SCC 15 to everything except the suspension. 

Sand colour sprayed on lower hull sides and suspension, then more SCC 15 added from below to vertical areas where sand would not accumulate. 

And highlights added to plates with Mig IDF Green. 

Made a start painting details, but not there yet. 

Markings applied from a mixture of Black Lion Decals (a set for this particular tank), Star Decals and from an Asuka Sherman kit. 

Overall wash of Tamiya Flat Earth to represent dirt on the tank. 

The deep-wading gear was kept free of the wash, though, as it would have only been installed recently. 

The suspension and lower hull sides got a wash of Tamiya German Grey to represent the Walcheren clay soil. 

Tools painted by adding metal and wood chipping to the OD base. 

Resicast turnbuckles modified by cutting away the central bit and glueing in a piece of brass tube, 0.5 mm outer diameter. 

Nylon fishing line, 0.2 mm diameter, then forms the line between two turnbuckles and the wading gear release mechanism. It still needs to be trimmed to size on the left. 

And the other two done as well. 

And we’re done!