Okay, here we are. Ryefield Models’ Sherman Firefly Vc.
Ryefield is a manufacturer whom I really, really want to like a whole lot. My first experience with them was their Panzer III kit, which went together very well for the most part, until I got to the turret and the main gun and found myself mislead by the main gun’s subassembly, which in my opinion was poorly documented and badly over-engineered. But I admit that that could’ve been more of a *me* problem than a kit problem.
Whatever. I’ve been wanting to complete a Firefly build for a few years now, never successfully finished one, yadda yadda yadda, and here we are.
Firstly, the lower hull tub is not molded as a single piece. You have to build it up. That in and of itself seemed a shade daunting to me.
Having said that, recently I tried to give Takom’s Tiger 1 Mid Production, With Zimmerit kit a go and found to my chagrin that the one piece lower hull tub was so badly warped that even after dunking it in near-boiling water, re-setting it, and then dunking it in cool water, couldn’t make it “buildable.” I was maybe able to straighten out all but about 2% of that warp, but those models have such precise tolerances it renders them unforgiving. The hull roof wouldn’t fit no matter what I did. Why did I ever get involved with this ridiculous hobby, anyway haha.
So back to the lower hull tub build-up. I was careful to trim off and plane out all the nubs left behind from removing the parts from the sprue, and it went together real well. I did need a small amount of putty filler on the vertical joins in the back where you affix the rear part, which I applied, carefully, from the inside in order to minimize cleanup from the outside:
I’m willing to bet a better modeler than me could pull that join off without the need of putty afterward.
Now, you have to install two horizontal planes on there which join up with the one-piece hull roof, to close off the space above the track *cough* *cough* Tamiya needs to do this with their Sherman *cough* *cough*. When the time came for that I noticed that toward the middle they were about a half half millimeter from fitting flush. So, I cut three dowels from old sprue, sanded them down, installed them by fusing them with Extra Thin and shoring that join up with sprue goo. That got them fitting flush:
…and when I dry fit the upper hull on there, it snaps in perfectly, like one of them Snap-Tite kits you used to build when you were a little kid:
I was pleased to see that.
On the transmission/diff cover, I don’t think anybody will ever be able to tool-up a Firefly kit with a one-piece transmission/diff cover that doesn’t need fills. But that’s alright. A little diluted putty got the job done:
The photo etch stuff is malleable and easy to work with and it’s nice to have ourselves a grille back here:
I’m also impressed by the level of detail they packed into that.
The upper piece with the exhausts just slots in perfectly:
I’ll be getting on the wheels and bogeys here soon, but in the meantime I wanted to build up the turret a bit. So here’s the Firefly as if this morning:
Thank you as always for looking! I’ll keep y’all updated!
