Building the Santa Tank

Blimey, this Meng kit goes together well!

Designed to be pushed together without glue, I can't resist using both cement and solvent to make sure everything stays where it should. Something about building a plastic kit without glue seems fundamentally wrong to me.

Despite the designed ease of construction, it still takes around three reasonably leisurely hours to put everything together. This isn't a simple kit, all the bits you'd find on a real Sherman are present, just a bit cartoony. Then means each handrail and light protector needs to have the connection to the sprue cleaned up, and some of them are very small.

Only the hatch covers proved tricky. I need them to hinge properly so Santa can be lifted in and out, and one of the hinge pins broke. It doesn't seem to make a huge difference, and the big fella is probably going to spend most of his life enjoying the ride anyway.

In theory, the wheels and tracks rotate. Most of mine do except for the outer ones on one side, because I got glue in the wrong place. Never mind, I don't plan on pushing the model around anyway.

One appealing aspect of this model is the colour. For no reason I can understand we have several cans of Humbrol red spray paint, so the choice of colour is simple, red arrows red.

The two halves were propped up on sticks and Blu Tack and sprayed in the garden. I love this paint, it goes on in nice thin coats perfectly. I had thought about some weathering, but the finish is so good I'm going to leave well alone. I'm sure a military modelling expert will go to town on this model and it will look amazing. I'm just having fun.