IDF Group Build Mk. II 2010-2011

Thanks "Thunder" for the info man. Here's a small update on my project. I added a bit more small detail.

Fantastic work, White! You know, there's a subject which is begging to be scratched for IDF III... The L-33 SP Gun, an HVSS Sherman lower hull with an all-new superstructure mounting the M-68 Soltam gun... I was researching the M51 earlier and came across a marvelous pic of the L-33 and it set me thinking. Use an M51 as the donor kit for the chassis and drivetrain, them scratch everything from the mudguards up... I thought that the first time I ever saw a pic of that thing and I reckon I have the skills now.

I weakened last night, pulled out the Isherman and started on it, I began making up the multiple small subassemblies. Today I mailordered the MM Acryl Israeli Sinai Sand/Grey, I figured I might as well look it over, especially if I'll be building a few more IDF armour pieces in future.

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Thanks thunder Hay guys I just got a new and cool HP PC with windows 7 and I'm still learning how to us this new system, so I'll be back posting photos soon.

Hi all,

After much, much too long, I've finally got back to the Merk II from IDF I. When I left that one she was painted and awaiting running gear, turret upper weapons and detail painting. The prospect of those vinyl tires was daunting, especially as I've read that there's just about nothing you can do with them. I posted on the armour forum, it was suggested that to rough them up with sandpaper may encourage paint to stick.

After a lot of hemming and hawing, I loaded up Tamiya XF-69 NATO Black and simply sprayed them. Wonder of wonders, the paint stuck without trouble... I could have done this a year ago! The hardest thing was making sure all surfaces were covered, I had to load up three or four times to eliminate shiny spots that would show up persistently after I thought the job was done.

The wheels were wash weathered long ago, so i slipped the tires into place:

Here's an orientation shot of the main parts, more or less as they were last seen:

Then I mounted the wheels and attached the tracks, which were also painted long ago. They were a bit stiff and quite tight, but superglue seemed to join them well enough:

I'll let the tracks dry overnight, roll them so the joins are on the upper run, then mount the skirts. With that lot done, it'll be time for touch-up painting and small details. At this rate I'll be applying decals and dust, and making the radio masts, this weekend.

The plans indicate that the fabric sealing shrouds of the main gun and morter mount should be painted "green," but no hint as to what shade. Does anyone have a favourite for this application?

Cheers, MIke/TB379

Today's update: she's looking a bit more finished. The tracks had a bit oif an attitude and did not want to be rolled to set the join up behind the skirts. One parted company and had to be reglued, in the course of which I figured out the easiest way to do it. The other came off the drive sprockets and both nearly pulled the drives and idlers off, but I eventually got them snugged into place and stable. The skirts were not  a terribly good fit and the small forward mudflaps needed gluing more than once each, but at this point she's together and standing.

More touchup painting tomorrow, paint the lights, and start bringing the MGs and other fittings together. I should have painted the muzzle break before the main camo, of course... Decals in the near future, we'll see how good or bad Academy stickers are... If necessary I can use Verlinden rubdown decals instead.

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Nice weathering there man!

Thanks, White! I've made some more progress, muzzle break, canvas shrouds, deepend the contrast with some black wash, washed the engine grills and have the topside MGs underway. I'm waiting on the Verlinden decals which are hopefully on their way right now.

Cheers, M/TB379

I hope you don't have to wate to long of your stuff. Here's some work on my Ambulance.

Here's a bit more, Masking and painted with decals. Now I'm not done with it yet.

White -- she really looks the part! Spectacular is the world!

My Verlinden rubdown decals arrived, they look very good:

They'll be far better than the kit waterslides, so if I can match some of the items reasonably closely, I'll be okay. With these guys, all I need is a clear shot at the topside MGs and this beast can be done before long.

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Hay thanks for the comment, an please tell witch or were on or off line., shop did your armor marking sheet comes from?

White -- I got them from "3DVerlinden," which is VLS's online store at eBay. They have most of the range and there are rolling discounts so if you keep watch you can pick up items at great savings as time goes by. For instance, I've bought two of their ceramic diorama ruins lately at 30% off, and am watching others.

Swing by eBay, search on Verlinden and you'll find the seller -- I've bought more Verlinden items this way than ever before.

Cheers, Mike/TB379

White, Mike, looking good!

I'm still collecting parts for my early Magach, need the old Esci/Italeri Blazer kit for the wheels and Blazer packs, and a set of AFV Club tracks, but admittedly not looking real hard right now.....

Scored the old ESCI kit at Supercon, and a Legends Merk III turret for the Acad kit of the same in the stash. Good weekend. I also picked up the really old Verlinden Blazer set in Boston last month. Anyway, the Magach is on the bench, basic running gear well along, turret started. I'll probably just order the tracks from Squadron. No pics until yet, soon I hope. I got fired up again due to my Magach 6 Gal pulling a second in the comp. Funny what it takes sometimes......

Hi RBaer , nice score on all the Magach goodies and I'm looking forward to seeing your build come together .

I finished the Revell 1/76 M19 Transporter...

I'm still working on the 1/72 Italeri M113 (Early) and should have her finished by the weekend .

I recently tracked down some of those 1/72 scale Cpl. Overby , Israeli Sherman resin conversion sets ;

M50 IDF Sherman , M51 HSVV Sherman and another M50 (late) Sherman .

So I'm looking forward to those arriving at the front door shortly .

                   John .

Sweet transporter. Looking forward to seeing some Sherman stuff, too.

The Cpl Overby 1/72 scale Israeli Sherman resin conversion sets just arrived at the front door ;

I'm going to start with the M51 build first using Dragons M4A3 HVSS kit for the boggies and tracks .

Included are some nice resin jerry cans and stowage gear ;

I also have the 1/72 scale Retro Tracks resin conversion Ambutank VVSS along with Calibre 72 resin Dozer blade which I'll use two Italeri M4A1 kits ;

Just like Cpl Overby's resin Israeli Shermans the detail of the Retokit resin Ambutank is also extremely good ;

So I'll start with the M51 and the Ambutank first and hopfully some WIP pic's to follow shortly .

                          John .

Started trimming all the bogie pieces off the sprue from Dragons M4A3 HSVV kit for the M51 Sherman ;

There's eight parts to each bogie unit ;

It will probably take most of this evening to get all six bogie units glued together ......"lot's of fun"

                                   John .

Man, that's a lot of itty-bitty pieces. I'm interested to see the M51, one of my favorite Shermie variants.

I got some pics of my M60 loaded, basic hull and running gear, basic turret structure. The hull is Academy, only because I had an extra and had it started. I would have used the better ESCI parts, but such is kit-bashing. I am using the ESCI turret, and probably the Blazer packs, since I want to save the Verlinden parts for an M60 slick that'll be next. I spent Saturday morning adding the shocks, moving the idlers down and forward, and building the turret basket. The turret is textured with Mr.Surfacer 500, and I will clean up the basket pieces later. I like to do this after the basket is built, otherwise I break too many of the delicate parts. Still to do on  the running gear is make the mud-relief holes in the drive sprockets, then I'll start the hull details. Road wheels are ESCI outers, Academy inners. This seemed easy at the time, in retrospect I would have used the entire ESCI part, but once again, it's what I had around at the time, left over from another kit that I used the inners to make spares from. Tracks fitted now are Tamiya, but will probably get exchanged for AFV Club workable later on. ESCI barrel is in primer to check for seam traces.  Enough words, here's the pics:

RBaer -- dang, that's one good looking tank! Can't wait to try my hand at an M60!

I'm still hoping to get back to my M51, it's complete to subassembly stage but there's been no time, with study, work and crises. I'm on a plane to the other side of the world next weekend, I get back Nov 20th, so hopefully I'll get some bench time from that point on.

Cheers, M/TB379

"Other side of the world"? Sounds interesting........

M60 variants are probably my favorite build these days, next to Shermans. Seems like there are enough different variations on the theme to keep my occupied for a while, and of course I'm always trying to do a better one than the last......    The IDF variants alone are great fun, and I have the pieces together for a couple more in the stash. Another plus for me is the the kits themselves are plentiful, and very reasonably priced. Aftermarket parts are out there, but it would sure be nice if someone (Mr Tamiya, are you listening?) would do an up-to-date M60 A0.

As far as IDF Shermans go, I'm hanging tight, hoping the sprue shots of a Tamiya M51 shown on Tamiya's website were in 1/35, but thinking they were 1/16, since TMMI has a build article of "Tamiya's 1/16 M51" in the current(?) issue. I'll have to pick up a copy, satisfy my curiosity. I do plan on doing their M1 IDF kit soon, even though I bashed one up last year from the Italeri kit. I did the Academy M51 back when it first came out, not really happy with it. Which one are you working on?

I did pick up the MP Models M50 a while ago, may do something with that this winter, just have to see how my time works out.

In the meantime, this M60 will be relatively "clean" compared to the other two I've done recently, working from a pic in the Concord "Mideast Wars" book, from the early stages of Operation Peace for Galilee. I want to depict some missing Blazer panels, .30 cals instead of the FNs, no commander's mortar, no smoke discharger boxes, etc.

It's the Academy -- it may not be super accurate but I've been very happy so far with the amount of detail and the ease of assembly. I've compared it as closely as I can to web photos and have no particular grumbles, but I'm no rivet counter. I have their M60 Blazer and look forward to doing it as well.

"M1 IDF" -- has Israel bought Abrams???

Cheers, M/TB379

Thunderbolt379

 

"M1 IDF" -- has Israel bought Abrams???

Cheers, M/TB379

Israel referred to their early Shermans by the gun's designation, so the M4A1/76 with the M1 main gun was referred to as the M1. Although I have thought about an Israeli M1 Abrams as a "what if" before.....

Re. the Academy M51: The only fit problem I had was the mantlet/dust boot area, which I seem to remember being horrible. I was impressed with the rest of the kit.

Well, I do make myself wonder sometimes. I was well into making a tank from a particular pic, and started doing the mounts for the mantlet Blazer pacs, which are not present on this tank. A searchlight was mounted instead, in the place of the mantlet-mounted HMG. Apparently, the searchlight mount and Blazer packs interfere with each other, as I can't find any pics of the two together. Seems plausable, since that's the case with the kits parts for sure. Anyway, I had all the mounts on the mantlet, and got to thinking (big mistake) about how the mounting studs were installed through the mantlet cover, so I got to looking at some pics again, and realized the part of the Blazer kit is a new mantlet "cover", more like the dust cover on the very late Shermans, that does not cover the whole mantlet. Rats. This made me realize that both plastic kits of the Magach Blazer are wrong, as are all the models I've done as well. The Blazer packs hide this fault when used, but I'm dong somnething different here......

So, out came the M60 spares boxes, and an OLD Tamiya M60A1 mantlet, NO cover (but also no detail) and a resin M60A1 turret from a forgotten source. Slight delay, but that's AMS for you....

Pics to follow.

Here's where I am now: A pic of the turret as I had originally started, with the search light mounted, no mantlet Blazer pacs and the Blazer mounts:

I had begun texturing, the basket is on, as are some details. It is ready to start the installation of the Blazer packs. I then took a closer look at the pics in Michael Mass' Magach book (notably the cover pic...) and realized the Blazer conversion included a new mantlet dust cover, leaving the front of the mantlet bare. Well OK then. So I dug through my spares box, found an old Tamiya M60 mantlet from the original 70's release and an AEF M60A1 resin turret. The mantlet was heated in boiling water, flattened a bit to get the correct profile, then attached using styrene stock and the cover formed from Aves 2-part putty. Still to do on the cover is the attachment rail and fasteners, but here is is so far. The barrel is an Ital -A3 part, used for alignment puoposes only. I'll have to dog up an un-covered gun tube.

Pics are poor, still using a lousy camera, sorry.

I know now why that turret shell was in the spares box, it's pretty basic, halves didn't fit well, no texture or surface detail at all. Also, the hole for the commander's cupola is HUGE, will need an adapter or something. But I can fix that......

Also, shot my hobby budget for a while, looks like I'll be using kit tracks. Some detail added on the basic hull, trying to decide how much I want to use from the kit(s) and how much to enhance or re-do. Trying to avoid AMS here.

Lots of progress this past weekend, pics as soon as I can go to the store and get a "rountooit", but not totally happy here. I decided to use some generic Airwaves mesh in the turret basket, hated that, tried to use the kit nylon mesh, hated that even more, so made up a basket cover out of paper. The cover came out nice, but is probably not factually correct, so I may start over with another basket (again? Yes Mildred, AMS strikes again.) Another issue, the AEF turret I'm using is almost "square" at the back, and all the kit turrets are rounded, making the kit baskets fit poorly. If I stay with this turret, I will probably cover the basket with an air ID tarp anyway, so that may not be the big issue it appears to be now. I like the mantlet cover, and have the barrel and dust boot on, so it's decision time.

In the meantime, I've begun adding the Blazer packs to the hull front, done the infantry phone on the rear, and a couple of other details. Gotta come up with a camera capable of taking detail shots......

Between the camera, computer and photobucket, I can't pick which is the most jacked-up.  Anyway, pics of a sort. Still can't decide which turret, and I may have another parts kits so I may even try again. Seroius AMS. Rather than hurt myself I started the Blazer armor on the hull front. Lots of sanding since it's puddle-cast, just what I needed.

I like the mantlet, not the bustle rack, since I don't have a pic of a rack cover in use during the time period I'm modeling. Geez, I'm making myself crazy.

I decided to stay with the Acad turret, based on the pic I'm working from of an early Magach. Pics of where I'm at as of today.

The searchlight will probably come off, not in the pic I'm working from. The only light I've seen on an early Magach appears to be of Israeli origin. I have the LoModel urdan cupola installed, detailing begun, and the Blazer armor installed on the hull and turret, bracket detailing begun. I may just leave the mesh out of the bustle rack, since it's the source of all my woes.

WOW! Nearly the end of the year - how'd that happen?!?! I've been lurking here but trying to wrap up some other GB items as well. I have officially broken open the box on my contribution for this GB though - my first-ever helo! I'll be building Italeri's 1/72 Hughes MD500 in Israeli markings. It's a small 2-seater with a pair of anti-tank rocket pods. Hoping I can find enough time to sneek this in before the end of the year!

Enf of the year -- argh! I'm aiming to complete an Abrams today, then I have a Phantom to do before the 31st 9it's at the painting stage so I'm confident, and my merk II from IDF 1 needs only some small stuff, the MGs, decals and dust, so I'm going to try to add it to my completion list for the year. I resprayed the jerrycan and ammo cans a day or two back, so that counts as progress I guess!

M/TB379