Unfinished business - 1/76 Airfix Sherman Pt. 1

One of the reasons I restarted modelling again about a year or so ago was because I just happened to have a collection of Airfix kits in my attic (left by one of my daughter's ex-boyfriends). It seemed to be an opportunity to start a new hobby with the minimum of outlay so I cracked open the box - the Airfix D-Day set - and took out the first kits that came to hand.

Well, I soon learned that I didn't know that much about making kits, or painting them, and these early attempts at my new hobby have languished unfinished in a draw while I went back to the beginning again and practised basic model techniques from scratch.

Among these early amateurish attempts was an Sherman tank - the (in)famous Airfix M4 with it's undersized turret and questionable tracks. I came across it again while looking for something else and I realised that it was time I finished this little cutey off...

Now I bit off more that I could chew with this one as I jumped straight in and attempted a bit of a conversion job - I tried to improve the undersized turret and I turned the Airfix M4 version into an M4A2 version by building a whole new engine deck from scratch!

You can catch up with the whole 'story so far' by looking at the Flickr photo diary I did of this hatchet job: Airfix 1/76 scale Sherman M4 Tank gallery (opens in new browser window).

Even though I am still a kit noob I can see a lot of things in this kit that I would do differently now, but I still think there are a few bits of my work that I am proud of, especially as they were such early attempts. For example, I was particularly pleased with how the stowage turned out...

Anyway, I think I've got to the point where I can do the final stages of this build justice (I am more confident about my painting skills now), so this weekend I will get the tracks on and get some other finishing touches on the go.