Dragon Models

1/35 Albin F. Irzyk M4A3E8 Sherman

Kit Number: 6283

Reviewed by  Kip Rudge, IPMS# 40597

This kit was originally released at the IPMS Nats in Atlanta last year as part of Dragon Expo. Dragon had their marketing machine in high gear that weekend and also sold a G.I.-style figure of Irzyk in addition to having the real Irzyk on hand to relate his experiences in World War II, Berlin and Vietnam. I was not fortunate enough to attend the talk, so I don't know a great deal about Irzyk's mount - this M4A3E8 Sherman. Which is fine because after eyeballing this kit for a couple of hours I decided to forego Albin's vehicle (there were a ton of reviews done at the time of issue) and blaze a new path of glory for myself. Paths of glory are often fraught with peril and this POG (Path of Glory) was no exception. Some of the peril was self inflicted and other came as a result of kit peccadilloes. Needless to say it was an interesting journey, but I'm not anxious to tread the path again. This kit is a mixture of old and new, with the new being very cool and the old being….well… old. New stuff includes the upper hull, turret, metal barrel, turned brass shells and some handy photo etch. One of the old aspects of the M4A3E8 kit is the HVSS suspension. One of the holy grails for Shermaholics over the decades has been a well-detailed, easily assembled HVSS. This ain't it. In fact, the suspension is an old DML mold from their first Easy 8 back in the early '90s. While it isn't necessarily awful detail-wise, it suffers from a real lack of buildability. Positive joints? Fergit 'em. Easy to align? Think agin, pardner. I built each assembly individually with the idea of making sure each was plumb, perpendicular and straight. Well the road wheels do not have a positive joint in any of the 24 spots the road wheels are attached to the suspension bogeys. Work slowly and be prepared to question the entire rationale you hold dear concerning modeling… When the assemblies are dried, and you have tired of pleading with them, it's time to mount then on the hull. Ummm no, wait a minute, it's now time to alter the hull to accept the bogeys of the damned. That involves cutting the bolt plates off the bottom hull plate and sanding them flush. Then the new mounting plates are attached to the hull sides…. Ummm… wait a minute… then you have to shim the bogey mounts…. Awwww *#$&&7$%$$… well you get the idea here. Instead of just designing a compatible lower hull, DML added lots of stopgap alterations that just don't work all that well. And on top of that you've got to measure and locate the return rollers, because DML didn't add locating marks or holes on the hull. Now, for all the work that is the lower hull, the upper hull and turret was quite a bit of fun to construct. And here is where I deviated from Albin's vehicle. I have always been fascinated by the sandbag armor used on U.S. vehicles in WW2. So I decided to push the envelope and add it to my M4A3E8 and blaze my POG (Path of Glory). On an excursion to my local craft store I purchased several packages of a clay-type substance called FIMO. FIMO is modeling clay that hardens when it is baked. Since I was pretty certain even DML's styrene wouldn't embrace a 350 degree oven, I cooked up (pun intended) another plan. After adding the lower fenders, I covered the sides of the hull with aluminum foil and embossed it to the surface with my finger. I then sat back and constructed the framework that held the sandbags on the hull. I cut a template of the hull sides and drew the basket grid I wanted. I taped the template to a piece of marble door jam and proceeded to solder brass strips in the basket pattern. The soldering went in fits and starts due to my incredible lack of dexterity. Finally I had the two hull sides and turret baskets ready to go. I kneaded the FIMO until it was soft and cut it into what I imagined were sandbag sized chunks. I worked the chunks onto the foil-covered hull until I got them stacked the way I wanted. I then pressed the soldered brass strip baskets into the soft FIMO to simulate the weight of the bags. Once I was happy, I pulled the foil off the hulls along with the FIMO and brass sandbags and popped them in the oven. My biggest concern was shrinkage of the FIMO. But after about 20 minutes baking I pulled them out and let them cool - no shrink! They were hard as rocks and were a very nice drop fit back on the hull. I bent the brass strip into position and was ready to rock and roll. After doing the hull sides, I applied the same principles to the hull front. However, when pulling the malleable sandbags off the front glacis I bent them ever so slightly. This became an issue after baking and required some clamping to snuggle them back down. After super gluing all the sandbags to the hull and turret, I finished adding the details. The kit tools were disowned and I used a mix of Formations and Chesapeake Model Designs tools. I took one look at the kit-supplied tracks, ran to my computer and ordered a set of T-66 rubber band tracks from AFV Club. A couple of hints here. The first is to use a regular liquid glue (Testors..etc.) to join the tracks. DO NOT use a hot glue such as Tamiya Super Thin or Tenax as my tracks began disintegrating upon the first touch of the Tamiya Super Thin. Also the AFV Club tracks appear to be about two track links too long for the track run around the DML suspension. I have no idea who to blame on that. Upshot is to find away to adjust the suspension to take up the slack. As is my habit, a base coat of black was put on everything. The sand bags were painted brown, but I've seen plenty of pics where the sand bag armor was sprayed OD along with the tank. I then loaded in my OD areas. Several washes, some dry brushing and some pigments later, I finished the Easy-8 off with a heavy coat of acrylic flat. This was a pretty time consuming project that took far longer than I had imagined when I began. The lower hull alone required a great deal of time just achieving some palatable form of alignment. The upper hull sandbag armor also grabbed a hefty time expenditure. The worst, or maybe best, part of all this is that DML has already released a state-of-the-art M4A3E8 that supercedes this kit by leaps and bounds. But this kit has some nice positives such as details, and a ton of spare parts. And besides it is a Sherman, and any Sherman is better than no Sherman at all. Our thanks to Dragon/USA for providing the sample kit!

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