Easy 8 - BobM

[Robert E Morey]

Got my E8 kit from UPS on my birthday. That's about the best present ever! Made a few tweaks so far. Looks like a really nice kit!
Massive casting!


My first mod, remove the eyebrow with angle grinder!


Few tweaks to the muzzle break.

[John Clarke]

Straight in with the grinder, like it.
No Fear!

[Robert E Morey]

Few more updates.

Working on assembling and painting track. Really nice castings. Love those 3mm grub screws!


Some prototypes to make the stock exhaust work? Hard to get correct shape with pipe elbow. May just print a scale part?





Different pipe version




Some tow hooks are definitely needed:




Recessed the hull Mg position into glassis plate:


Thinking of more scale looking lift hooks?


All for now...
B

[Robert E Morey]

Cleaning, painting, assembling tracks...





Some casting texture added on Mantlet. Used up a bunch of "old" epoxy!





Tweaked the model for the tow hooks. Getting closer to real part now. Eventually will 3D print these in stainless steel.





The real hooks:





a little OD paint added to MB:


All for now....
B

[GlenStenhouse]

Hi Bob. I assembled my drive gear that way. Looked right. Then on one of the better pictures the nuts are on the outside on the outer face. They're on the inner side on the inner face.

[Robert E Morey]

hi Glenn,
I see what you mean - the manual cross section view (Section 07, 08) - shows the nuts on outside of sprocket. However from the actual tank it looks like the bolt head are showing on outside. The hex size of M2.5 in kit is a bit big for scale. A couple ref pix below. One is the E8 of late Jacques Littlefield. The other "Son of Sherman" book. I see on AT prototype they put the nuts on outside of Sprocket - "assembled correctly per the manual". Functionally it wont make any difference either way. The bolts on the inner hub cap part do appear to be "nuts facing outside". These will be the faux bolts in the kit and should appear correct. Hope that helps.
B
Son of Sherm book:


Littlefield E8:

[GlenStenhouse]

I much prefer the nuts on the inside so I'm super happy this way around is the right way. It makes more sense with all the road wheels being this way also.

[GlenStenhouse]

This build made me panic and double check the drawings.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=8797

[Robert E Morey]

Maybe these will help. All images of Littlefield E8 taken by Chris "Toadman" Hughes.

Idler:


Inner support roller:


Bogey road wheel:


last one from WOT:

[GlenStenhouse]

Inner support roller photo is a good one to show a wear part. Thanks.

[Robert E Morey]

Recent build pix.
Printed exhaust tips, epoxy texture:

shock damper with light spring inside:

Printed shackle prototypes:

Casting numbers:

Bogey assembled:

Exhaust pipe installed:

Front shackle installed:

Rear idler:

Leaking oil from volute spring!

Printed rear lift hook prototype:

Roller:

Weathered tracks - 1st pass:

One side track installed:

One side track installed:


Very cool to see tracks on one side! Till next time,
Bob

[Phil Woollard]

Lovely work Bob! Keep it coming.

[simon_manning]

coming on nicely Bob, nice to see a Sherman build, regards simon.

[Robert E Morey]

Thanks Phil, Simon. Little more progress. Fitting the hull plates. Some small bits arrive from printer!

hull views:






hull MG and lamps. Both kit parts, both clean up pretty nice with some modifications.



Steel printed lift hooks and tow hook:








till next time...
Bob

[Vince Cutajar]

Those metal printed parts look really good.

Vince