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Old 06-17-2017, 10:16 AM
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Amccombs3 Amccombs3 is offline
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Location: Fairfax, VA
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Despite Kevin and Greg's warnings and best efforts to help me out with the bogies, AND a test build on a duplicate from a scan, it's been a tough slog and I managed to botch the first attempt. Kevin had graciously provided me with the key sketch of part 9 that he and Greg worked out, shown in the first photo below. It was accurate, unlike GPM's drawings, which are somewhere between misleading and just plain wrong.

The parts in question are 9 (exterior skin) and 9a (interior skin), reinforced by 9b, c, and d, which are all glued to 1mm cardboard. 9 and 9a are shown in the second photo. In my botched attempt, the result of which is shown in the third photo, I had glued 9 flat to its reinforcement 9c, which is what is shown in GPM's drawing. As may be seen, the outboard section leaned away from the rest of the assembly rather than being at right angles. After MUCH agonizing and study, it became clear to me that there is a joggle on the outboard part of the skin, where the lower ends of the ribs terminate in a taper. I had also attempted to curve the upper end of the outboard skin, again as shown in GPM's drawing, but the correct method is two scored creases. The tight curve caused the paper to delaminate, and my repeated fitting attempts left the paper rather worn. Miraculously, I succeeded in disassembling it with some very careful hobby-knife slicing.

My fourth photo has been liberally decorated with lines to show how part 9 is supposed to be prepared: YELLOW lines are cuts, RED lines are mountain folds (convex when viewed from the printed side), and BLUE lines are valley folds (concave when viewed from the printed side). I cut out a second set of parts so I could try it out on fresh paper, and it worked out much better, as may be seen in the last two photos.

The outboard skin of the bogie has four vertical reinforcing ribs. The two side ribs are part of the structure, and are colored with tiny contoured strips on the unprinted side, as I've attempted to illustrate in the fifth picture at the top. I haven't placed the two inner ribs yet, but they just glue on. GPM's part numbers for the ribs are 9e for the inner ribs, and 9f for the side ribs. They are delicate, difficult parts to handle.

I will also mention that they will look better after edge coloring, but it may be easier to see what I'm discussing here with the edges still in white.

I have 4 more bogies to build, and that's just the basic structure. There are lots of additional wheels, springs, arms, and so on to be added to the core structure that is covered by part number 9 through 9f. But my sense right now is that if I can get through all of the six #9 assemblies, parts 10 through 15 might not be quite as difficult to figure out.
Attached Thumbnails
Anne's M4A3 Sherman GPM-sketch.jpg   Anne's M4A3 Sherman GPM-9-9a.jpg   Anne's M4A3 Sherman GPM-wrong.jpg   Anne's M4A3 Sherman GPM-cuts-scores.jpg   Anne's M4A3 Sherman GPM-exterior.jpg  

Anne's M4A3 Sherman GPM-interior.jpg  
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