Junk Tanks and Fixing the Roco Sherman

This photo shows the key to fixing the Roco Sherman tank.  The Heiser M4A3 on the left, has a different rear end from the Heiser M4 and Roco tanks in the center and on the right.  The M4 has a notch cut out of the back hull panel.  So this is the key to what Sherman the Roco Sherman should become.  The notch is consistent with the M4 tank with the gasoline Continental R975 radial engine.  So convert your Roco Sherman rear hulls so they appear to be an M4.

I have been working on my Sherman tank collection for the past year and I set aside all my Roco Sherman tanks for inspection.  Many of them have had their upper hulls completely replaced.  Decades ago Paul Heiser made a resin Sherman tank upper hull, before he made his plastic Sherman tanks.  He used them to show his mold makers to get the mold correct.  He cast a bunch of them as extras and I purchased them from him.  I used them to make M4A1 cast hull Sherman tanks.  Over the years I purchased many Heiser Shermans but now and again I would have a used Roco Sherman fall into my hands.  So I gathered up all my Sherman tank bits and found I had Roco Sherman tank upper hulls for seven tanks.  Some were missing the lower hull, or the turret, or the tracks.  So I started looking for bits and pieces to start replacing the parts.  I was still short two lower hulls so I cast them out of resin and solved that problem.  Then I found a couple sets of Sherman tracks in the spares box and a set of M10/M36 tracks and managed to fit all of them onto the Shermans that were missing a lower hull and or tracks.  I cast a turret front also.  The tank above has a resin cast lower hull, Roco upper hull, Roco tracks from an M10 (primer white paint on them), a Paul Heiser Models turret and gun, and a resin cast turret front.  But to fix the M4A3 rear hull engine grill problem I covered the grills with supplies and gear.

This view shows the sanded down the grill hinges and I glued a super thin piece of sheet styrene over the grills and then glued on the gear.

The front shows the resin front turret.

The other side of the Sherman.

A closer view of the gear and the rear hull.

 

The tracks had to be glued on with super glue to glue resin to plastic, with additional 5 minute epoxy glue for resin to plastic, and Testors Liquid Cement to glue to plastic tracks to the plastic upper hull.

 

Here you can see the tank looks more like a gasoline Continental R975 radial engine version now that the rear grills are covered up.  I think once painted it will look pretty convincing.  The Heiser turret also distracts from the Roco hull.  Over all it makes a convincing fix to the Roco engine problem and it was nice to bring a dead tank back to life.