Building the Tasca Sherman Firefly Ic 1/35 scale English

Armor

Building the Tasca Sherman Firefly Ic 1/35 scale

by Federico Collada © Modeler Site

Legal Notice

No material from Modeler Site any Web site owned, operated, licensed, or controlled by Damian Covalski may be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, or distributed in any way, except that you may download one copy of the materials on any single computer for your personal, non-commercial home use only, provided you keep intact all copyright and other proprietary notices. Modification of the materials or use of the materials for any other purpose is a violation of Damian Covalski's copyright and other proprietary rights.

Read More here > Legal notice

When Tasca started to produce military models everybody was nicely surprised of the high quality of their first Sherman, it was in fact a Firefly. Since then Tasca and Sherman are synonymous. Some year later they still produce the best Shermans models in 1/35 scale, when modellers plan to make one they just think in Tasca.

So what can I say about this new model? It is another superb model, plenty of delicate details and perfectly finished pieces. If there is something that I would change in the box it would be including a separate links tracks and a metal turned barrel as an option to the plastic two-pieces one. The box includes a little decals sheet with options for two British vehicles and one Canadian but I used a Bison Decals option for a Canadian vehicle that I already had just to alter a little.

The last one was the first one, or was it the third…

I remember very well, when I was a kid the first models I made were those multicoloured plastic Matchbox tanks 1/76 scale. That was around 30 years ago but I had a very sweet memory about it, my parents left me with my grandma to go to the cinema and I had a T34/76 to entertain myself for some hours. The thing is that I built that easy model in just a few minutes but I was impressed that I could finish that task with success……In that moment I didn’t realize but I had “the fever”

I think that the Sherman Firefly was the third model I made, I don’t know if you remember it, with that piece of a bridge as a base, it was impressive for it’s little size and it sure caused me a strong impression. Since then I have a certain predilection for Fireflies.

In these nearly 30 years of modelling I have built several Fireflies and I still have some particular ones left to build, but this is the first time that I make the composite one, now I know that it was because in some part of my intricate mind I was waiting for Tasca to produce the model.

Starting from the beginning

I did not wait a single day to start with the kit, as soon as I received the box I opened all the packages and glued the first pieces, even before deciding what I wanted to do with it, that is what I call yearning! When I already had most of the chassis and hull parts assembled I stopped to seek for some pictures to make myself an idea of the painting I would look for it. Browsing through the net I found some photographs of Canadian Fireflies with lots of tracks welded to the hull as improvised extra armour, I liked it a lot and I never had done anything similar so there was my inspiration.

I checked the emblems and details like if I could use the vinyl tracks with “duck bills” extensions provided in the kit or if I should look for another. After some time I decided to make a vehicle from the British Columbia regiment, 4th armoured brigade, 4th Canadian armoured division. The fact of having the Bison decals set #35050 for Sherman Fireflies helped a lot.

Easy modelling

Although this model is not suitable for beginners due to the many delicate parts, it’s an amused task for any experimented military modeller, the fit of parts is very nice and the instructions are easy to follow so you can build it in no more than 10 hours, of course if you decide to paint it while you build it ( as I do ) it will take a little longer.
I painted many parts before gluing them, as the boogies components, air cleaners, exhaust deflector, and any part I would not reach correctly with the airbrush once fixed. In a second phase I built the boogies but had to sand part of them so a second hand of paint was needed.

With most of the tank built I fixed the Resicast rear box of the hull but left the one of the turret aside and started the base painting.