Another one? Yep. There's a story though: I bought a bunch of stuff at the AMPS gathering on the 18th, and while putting stuff either in the parts kit area or to-build place, kept looking at an ESCI hull and turret from a partially started kit I bought a couple of years ago. I thought I'd just part it out, but kind of as a "calming exercise" I cleaned up the existing assembly work, scratched up the IDF mantler cover and assembled the turret basket, adding Eduard mesh, then pushed it up onto the shelf of shame. Every now and then I'd see a part that would work with it and just toss it inside the hull, moving on. Well, I bought some stuff on the 18th that got me thinking about actually building this thing as what it's labeled as on the box, not what's actually in the box, easily done in truth. I did just that a few years ago but really botched the paint, plus I used a lot of "inaccurate" kit parts on it. So this time I'm revisiting, with the goal of incorporating corrections I didn't on the last one. I can't really "fix" a lot of the kit's details, but I can certainly make things look more convincing, and I have to admit, I like doing this kind of stuff. I could pull my Takom M60A1 out of the stash and use it, but where's the fun in that?
So beginning with the hull halves joined and final drives on, turret bare except for the mantlet and basket, here I am so far:
IMG_2027 by Russel Baer, on Flickr
IMG_2026 by Russel Baer, on Flickr
IMG_2025 by Russel Baer, on Flickr
There's a few Tamiya and Dragon bits used, but I think I'm going to try and use as much of the original ESCI kit as possible, that is until I open up the Academy Magach with the mine roller I scored, and dig into the various Legends and DEF stuff floating around. And just to punish myself, while I'm pausing on this for whatever reason, I'm also doing basic hull work to build an M60 "slick", using Tamiya and Academy parts. Talk about chasing windmills. So far I've got the leading return roller stations re-positioned while I ponder the total lack of detail under the hull.