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AFV Club
U.S. M3A3 Light Tank Stuart (Stuart V)
AFV Club 1:35 Kit No. AF 35053

Kit Construction by Terry Ashley

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Introduction:

This is the first segment detailing the construction of the kit; other segments will be updated as construction continues.
The kit is being built straight form the box with only the usual clean up of parts and drilling out of gun barrels etc.

Part 1 Suspension: (Instruction Steps 1 to 4)

The construction starts with the suspension bogies and these were assembled as per instructions without any problems. One thing to watch is the direction of the track guides (parts C18, C19) on top of the bogie units as these point in different direction on the front and rear bogie units, they are also very fine and will require care when removing from the sprues. The top of the bogie units also have bolt head and other details which are missing from the bogies in the Tamiya and Academy M3/M5 kits. The finished bogie units fit snugly into their locating holes on the hull sides, if fact the fit was so good here they stayed in place without glue but of course you would use glue.

Completed Bogie Unit
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The idler units are multi-part with the separate trailing arms with the recoil springs also as separate parts which have an optional ‘washer’ (part B21) which is not used if you choose to replace the kit track with the AFV Club individual link T-16 tracks. The instructions say this is part B13 but is actually B21 so watch this, I am assuming this washer is to allow for the extra thickness of the individual links compared to the kit vinyl track.

Idler Unit
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The idler units have the correct details on the front face with about the only thing missing being the small casting numbers seen on some units in different places, (check references for this) and one join seam on the lower front section requiring elimination, this was easily removed by shaving with a #11 X-Acto blade.

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These suspension and idler units are easily the best of any M3/M5 kit with many details not found on the Tamiya or Academy kit parts.

The return rollers are attached to the support arms on the hull which feature the correct cut-outs for the track clearance, something else the other kits missed. A couple of the return rollers had the centre detail marred by tragic sink marks and I replaced these with rollers from the additional suspension set but it wouldn’t be hard to resin cast replacement rollers.

The drive sprockets assembled without problems with a poly cap trapped between the twp halves to attach to the axle. Unfortunately this didn’t give a tight fit and the sprockets flopped about a bit when attached, this is easily remedied by gluing the sprockets in pace on the final drives.

Completed suspension attached to hull
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To be continued.......

Also see the separate M3/M5/M8 Stuart Vertical Volute Suspension Kit No. AF 35056 set.
Return to the review of the M3A3 kit




Page Created 22 March 2003