IDF Group Build Mk. II 2010-2011

Anything is progress, right? No way I'm going to finish by the end of the year, but I'm still moving along.......

As of a couple of days ago:

I've added the latches and such inside the hatches, the Israeli boot over the US mantlet bellows, mounts for the Blazer amor, and headlights and guards. Still to do on the turret is finish the outside of the commander's cupola, antenna mount, MGs, ammo box racks on the turret top, and whatever else I can come up with to slow me down. The hull needs tow cables, return rollers, driver's hatch, tool box latche handles, etc. I plan to fill the bustle rack with stowage and cover it with an air ID panel.

Rbaer - Niiiiice! I love the reactive armour on that thing. I made a valiant effort to push my project out before Christmas, but I'm still finishing up. This weekend should do it though. I present my first-ever chopper! A $5 purchase that was made mostly to use the rocket pods on something else, but it had an Israeli marking option that could be used for this GB.

The main body halves sitting next to a tin of Humbrol enamel...

Avoiding the airbrush I knew I'd need multiple layers of brush-coated. Didn't use any primer either in an effort to save all that detail.

All kinds of glass up front...

The cockpit before final touchups & some weathering...

Note the broken-off landing skid...

All better now with a reinforcing strip disguised as a boarding step. That's my story anyway! My assistant is downright peeved though, I think the comment was "No wings at all? I'm calling Mannstein..."

Five-bladed rotor. Assemby required math. Head hurt all day....

Mannstein sent Agent 003 to find out why I'm building a chopper. She's much more interested than the others, and likes biting things, as my P38 found out. (Now has some battle-damage to a propelor blade)

Rotor assembled & dry-fitted, cockpit glass attached. I'm wishing I'd paid a little more attention to the fit of the glass, it's a little wide & left a gap I'll have to hit with some CA. Almost there though.

Nice looking builds in this G.B. guys !

Nice helo........boy is it small!

My assistant got a little close the other day as well, wanted to see why I was using etch when he knows I hate it. Pics to come soon. No way I'll finish even by the end of this month, but I'm still moving along.

Small? If I didn't need glasses before, I would after this one!

Yep, this is officially the smallest kit I have ever built. Very impressed with the kit detail though, very fine & accurate from what photos I've seen. The Israelis added more little bits & pieces to theirs than were standard though, so I've been adding as much as I can to it. Should be done in the next few days.

Hi all,

What's the official end of this GB? I'm about to the point where I can turn to finishing tht Merk II, and the M51 is in advanced subassembly stage -- it's a monocolour scheme, so not too hard a paintjob...

Cheers, M/TB379

Thunderbolt379

Hi all,

What's the official end of this GB? I'm about to the point where I can turn to finishing tht Merk II, and the M51 is in advanced subassembly stage -- it's a monocolour scheme, so not too hard a paintjob...

Cheers, M/TB379

Wellllll I think the official end date was Dec. 31, RBaer and myself are pretending we don't know any better!  I started mine just before Christmas and am about to wrap up; sounds like his armour will be going for awhile yet.  I don't think anyone would be insulted if you continued your project inside this thread though.

Absolutely! This GB has been loose from the git-go, why not keep it going?

My bench is a perpetual IDF GB all by my lonesome anyway. Speaking of which, I've got some more progress on the Magach, should get pics up soon.

Well, if you're all cool with that...? I'd love to! It feels like I've been on painting and finishing techniques for the last month or more straight and I'm aching to do some building instead. Here's the kit:

Dragon produced a competitor, then upgraded it, and Tamiya has just released a new-tool M51 which looks very nice and probably builds easiest of them all, but in terms of the look of the finished product I reckon this one is still very competitive. The box photos sure look good and whatever discrepencies there are don't seem to be screaming against research pics, so I'm happy and positive about it.

Here's where I'm at right now:

I built up these 31 subassemblies ages ago but never committed to the full build because 2011 was a crazy year for being busy. Last night I added six parts to the lower hull, and four of these assemblies will be added to it today. Hopefully, proceeding from this basis, the beast will fall together in a pretty starightforward manner.

I have the MM Acryl Israeli Sand, and while there will always be doubt over "Sinai Grey" there seems to be no doubt that the paints used on the Isherman were a buff/desert sand shade, certainly the one in the museum (Latrun?) is very sandy and not at all grey. These tanks served late enough for there to be plenty of high quality colour photographs from their service days too, so I'm happy to go with the sand as there seems no green or grey component to the shade in the photos I have.

Looking forward to bringing this one together,

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Update on the M51 -- I enjoyed some building today and have worked with 40 new parts. I need to pick up some CA glue tomorrow for a number of assemblies, from joining the hull to attaching tiny, delicate parts, so I think I've gone as far as I can tonight. At this pace construction will be finished tomorrow and I'll be masking. I think I'll paint the HVSS units before attachment, and use the template method for the wheels.

Academy seem to have done quite a good job on this one, I'm certainly having a great time putting it together!

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Mike, sneaking in with the Super Sherman! Good looking piece of machinery, can't wait to see it come together.

A couple more steps toward the finish line for me over the past few days. Decals are on - all 6 of them!   and the TOW pods ans attachment arms are now on. Gaps around the windscreen have been filled with white glue. I was kind of disappointed with this solution, but then I saw some close-up pics of the real thing - my solution looked cleaner than some of theirs!

Apparently 12 Canadian pennies are good for something after all...

And from the front, with some extra work done to the sensor "eye" on the nose. That silver spot is a piece of reflective metallic confetti from a gift bag or something - attached it to the pack of a piece of clear plastic sheet, backed that little sandwich with flat black paint, then superglued it in place with the black towards the back. The photo doesn't show it all that well, but you can actually tell that there is some depth there (it is tiny after all!). I liked the effect but I wish I'd found a smaller sparkle, or had a tiny hole punch to work with.

The spotlight on the lower nose - painted the inside of the clear windscreen bright chrome where the light lined up, then painted the interior colour to hide the chrome. Added a drop of microscale masking liquid to the outside before painting the tan, now it looks like I have a proper light in there.

And an overhead view - I added some plastic bits and wire from a twist-tie to the topside of the tail boom to replicate some of the goodies that the Israelis added.

Up next, some touchups around the glass, the tail rotor & weathering!

Good start, Mike. Moving fast, too....

VC, looks great! Still amazed at the teenienessof that thing. Makes me want to tackle Dragon's 1/35 kit, almost.

OK. as threatened, pics:

Hatches, mortar mount. I won't be mounting the commander's 60mm mortar, wanted to show this thing "clean", like in the pic I'm working from.

Rear deck additions, just need the gun travel lock here.

Turret top, showing external hatch detail. I tried to show the detail present on the commander's hatch lid a little better than the kit parts. No one makes the effort to represent the pivoting feature of the lid.

Mantlet, start of loader's MG mount.

Not a lot left before primer, time is my only hitch now.

RBaer

Good start, Mike. Moving fast, too....

VC, looks great! Still amazed at the teenienessof that thing. Makes me want to tackle Dragon's 1/35 kit, almost.

OK. as threatened, pics:

Oh I know, officially the teeniest entire kit I've ever built. Just for contrast's sake, one of my next projects is a 1/72 He-177 "Greif"!

Great detail work on this, a lot that I didn't notice until I zoomed in on the full-size pics. All of that reactive armour is offset from the hull?!? And lots of putty too, I assume that's more for texture than anything else? I suspect you have a few hours invested in this one. Very nice work!

Amazing work RBaer -- I must use these images as references when I tackle this subject. I have Academy's kit as a starting point, and can see me adding on some AMs and scratched materials.

CA glue at the shops today, then on with the Isherman, I might even be ready for masking tonight!

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Thanks guys. VC, a 177 is kind of big, right?

Lots of scratching. Both the Esci and Acad kits are pretty basic. Lots of Mr Surfacer for texture, and yeah, all the Blazer armor is spaced off the turret sides a few inches, not much and probably less than what I have depicted, but I wanted the "look".

Mike, I'm putting Tamiya's M51 on my short list, and then I can "re-cycle" the Acad model I did a number of years ago. Watching yours with interest.....

RBaer

Thanks guys. VC, a 177 is kind of big, right?

Lots of scratching. Both the Esci and Acad kits are pretty basic. Lots of Mr Surfacer for texture, and yeah, all the Blazer armor is spaced off the turret sides a few inches, not much and probably less than what I have depicted, but I wanted the "look".

Mike, I'm putting Tamiya's M51 on my short list, and then I can "re-cycle" the Acad model I did a number of years ago. Watching yours with interest.....

Yep, even in 1/72 the He-177 measures roughly 17" wingspan, 12" length.

It's good to see the IDF builds still rolling along .

My 1/72 M51 is stalled at the boggie assembly stage but the build is still on the bench .

I saw over at Tracks n Troops they had some 1/72 IDF equipment sets as well as a M113 Fitter and Command vehicle in resin . I placed an order and wanted to use paypal as my payment option but I'm yet to recieve a invoice to send the payment through . I don't want to make a nuisance and bug the guy about my order , especially if he's really busy doing ton's of orders  for other modellers . It's been about a week since I placed mine , so I'm not sure when it would be appropriate to contact Tracks n Troops about my order , perhaps I'll wait another week ?

Anyway , I'll try and make some progress on my M51 over the next couple of days .

John .

Progress on the Academy Isherman -- not bad for about three days, most of the work was done in two:

Now, 46 localities to be masked...

I didn't get the mesh into the two small intakes. I blanked them with styrene and not even superglue would make the supplied mesh stick. Nobody sells an M51 grills-only PE set (at least not that I could find in the time I spent looking...) so mehhh.

I might possibly get to the tire black today...

M/TB379

Thunder , thats a good looking isherman kit .

Thanks, Shellback! I got the tires blacked up today, and masking is well underway. I hope to be putting the desert scheme on tomorrow.

M/TB379

I should be putting  the finishing touches on my "Defender" tonight. Just need to seal in the weathering, a quick touchup on the tail rotor (now that it's in one piece again ) and add the doors.

Hi guys,

Progress, I started painting the main scheme today, using MM Acryl Israeli Sand. Hmmmmmmm, I dunno... It looks great on Vance's chopper but a satin-finish mustard yellow on a tank just looks wrong. Here, what do you think?

It doesn't look much like the shades in research photos, is definitely not the shade the Shermans are sprayed at Latrun today, and I've never heard of shiny tanks. I'm sorely tempted to mix something, starting with Tamiya Buff, adding a touch of grey and seeing what I get. I was intending to use a black oil filtre overall but even that won't tone this down...

Hoping for wisdom from the more experienced IDF builders!

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Well as far as the "shine" you could spray a dull coat over it after you do the decals . I dont know about the color for sure but it looks close to some pics i've seen .

You may already know about this site ;

http:/idfmodelling.free.fr/article01.html

There's two options for Israeli Sand Grey

HTH.

H-34 -- thanks for that link, I didn't know about this page! That looks just the ticket, now I just need to determine exactly which era this tank was serving in. It's a "late" example, with details like the rear stowage bin and track plates on the turret sides, so I'm guessing 1973; the Shermans were withdrawn in '84, I believe, and would have been probably in a training role at the time of the invasion of Lebanon...?

Okay, let's tie down that date!

Cheers, and thanks, Mike/TB379

1973 is looking like a good bet... Will need to pick up two of those XFs to mix the shade. M/TB379

As a bit of an experiment I airbrushed the parts of a Revell M48 A2 in the Six Days War (Israeli Sand Grey) of 50%/50% Tamiya XF-60 and XF-57 . Then compared it to a M19 Tank Transporter with the 1973 Yom Kippur (Israeli Sand Grey) of 33% XF-57 , 33% XF-59 and 33% XF-20 ;

Unfortunatly the camera flash is a bit of a nuisance and doesn't help showing the slight difference between the two ;

The M48 hull top on the left with 1967 paint mix has a very slight yellow appearance as compared to the M19 cab chassie on the right , which appears to have a greyish appearance .

I doesn't show all that well in the pic's but by eye there is a difference .

John .

H-34 -- great experiment! It looks like Israeli sand grey has been getting greyer over time, from 1967 to 1982 each formulation was trending greyer. I'll pick up the 59 and 20, possibly tomorrow, and see what I can do. The more I look at the Acryl the more I'm sure it's either the wrong era or the wrong application, or something... Too yellow and too bright.

Many thanks for putting me on the right track with this!

Mike/TB379

Thunderbolt379

Hi guys,

Progress, I started painting the main scheme today, using MM Acryl Israeli Sand. Hmmmmmmm, I dunno... It looks great on Vance's chopper but a satin-finish mustard yellow on a tank just looks wrong. Here, what do you think?

...

Looks like you've already got the feedback you need - just call this a base-coat & add another layer! I actually used a Humbrol enamel on the chopper (pics to follow tomorrow).