Rob Gronovius

Interestingly to note, while AMT/Ertl gives instructions to make a US tank and provides the camouflage scheme for a 7th Army MASSTER tank, they do not give US decals. Only the IDF markings are provided and you are instructed to put those on the 7th Army camouflage tank. 

That is feasibly possible. The IDF received replacement M60 tanks from US war reserves during the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Some very well could have been delivered in that scheme to Israel and pressed immediately into service due to their high battle losses. The same was true for F-4E Phantoms taken from USAF stocks in SEA camo instead of the the usual IDF camo.  After that war ended and time permitted, IDF paint schemes were applied.

Russ, I plan on reinforcing the fender brackets, but theortically there will be some supports underneath as well. I don't think I'm going to build them though because they won't be seen.

Hinges, welds, and bolt heads.

Took a lot of measuring and time just to puzzle out how these skirts would actually function in the real world.

Your are one heck of a scratch builder my friend. Wowzers!!

BK

Thank you very much, Brandon! I can be when I want to. And for this vision I needed skirts. I have some in resin from a conversion kit (which I copied the shape of these skirts for) but the are from a Joffy kit and have a lot of excess resin that has to be sanded off. 

Russ's builds have inspired me to build my own tank and I have an idea of what I'm looking for. Thus, the need to scratch build my own details. I've even begun to sculpt simple items and that's enjoyable as well.

Thanks for the compliment!

Those skirts look beautiful- she's coming along great!

Thank you, Gamera! I think they're shaping up well, also.

Looks good! I like the hinges, nice and busy.

Looks like to me, your building a theoretcial M60A4. Should match up with my M60A2E2 if I could stop breaking off pieces everytime I pick it up.

I imagine an M-60A4 might look a lot like a Magach 6 or 7. 

I'm also thinking about scratch building a dozer blade of some sort. I know that would take a lot effort, but I'm seeing it in my mind's eye and it would look good on this build.

Opinions?

RBaer

Looks good! I like the hinges, nice and busy.

 

Yeah! I'm going with the idea that you can't see all of the hardware that makes these skirts possible, but I had to show something to make it look plausible lol.

That'll work.

I just remembered I have a spare mine plow from a Dragon M-1.

I think I know what I wanna do with it. ;)

M. Brindos

I just remembered I have a spare mine plow from a Dragon M-1.

I think I know what I wanna do with it. ;)

 

Ya know, I've got one too, and I have to say the idea occurred to me as well. I think you should do it.

Lol, a giant mine plow or dozer blade would look awesome! 

Alrighty. Mine plow. WWZ modified. I'm going to enjoy this.

The Abrams mine plow is designed to be mounted to the M60 series tank as well.

Hey Mike, this is becoming a very fine build. You did a great job on the side skirt hinges and other parts. Question: Is that the original kit main gun or was it an aftermarket? Looking forward to the finished model.

Thanks for the votes lol. I'm adding the mine plow! Hope to find some time this weekend.

TigerII

Hey Mike, this is becoming a very fine build. You did a great job on the side skirt hinges and other parts. Question: Is that the original kit main gun or was it an aftermarket? Looking forward to the finished model.

 

Thanks, Tiger! I don't know where that gun tube came from. It was in the Joffy resin upgrade kit box, but I know that's not where it originated.

I know it's longer and has crisper details than the stock gun tube. No idea where it's from.

Update!

I dug into an old Dragon kit I've been using for spare parts for years now and picked out the mine plough for this project.

Dragon kit #3516 M1A1 w/ mine plough "Desert Storm"

Being a used kit when I got it the plough had been assembled with CA and not aligned very well. So I had to start with some disassembly before I could clean up the parts and start making sense of it all.

First task, once the frame was cleaned up, was to figure out how to attach it to the hull.

Next I cleaned up the winch drives and attached them to the frame.

After that I had to drill out new holes in the swing arms so they can swing freely. I'll have to make new pins, as my drill bit is holding them on for now. I put the plough blades on and I think I'm at a good place to stop for now.

So all of that is being held together with tooth picks and a drill bit lol.

I'm pretty happy about this decision and I think it looks rather cool already. I'm going to modify this setup, probably with some sort of scratch build dozer blade for the middle section between the plough blades. 

Hehehe- I LIKE it!!! 

I'm liking it too. I think I'll just keep it as a mine plough. Looking at the framework and how it's put together, it wouldn't hold a dozer blade anyways. And then there's the idea of how will the driver see?

I think I'll keep it as a plough lol.

Hey Mike, great work on that mine plough. I like it.

Well thank you, sir! There are still a couple of parts that need to go on there and then I'll start adding welds and details to make it come to life.

The mine rake/plow/plough works, good idea, good fit as well.

That's a very cool idea. It adds a another level of nastiness to it. 

BK

Rob Gronovius

The Esci M60A1/M60A3/Blazer represents the high water mark for their 1/35 scale armor kits. Unfortunately for them, Tamiya released a 3 in 1 M60A3/M60A1/M60A1 RISE/passive kit at the same time. Tamiya's armor was top notch in the 1980s and Esci didn't have the same reputation, even though their M60A1/A3 series was better.

Italeri and then Dragon basically put Esci out of business in the late 1980s. Esci did a series of HMMWVs that were not as good as Italeri's. They did a series of LAVs that weren't as good as Italeri's. They did a Leo 2 that wasn't as good as Italeri's.

They did a series of BMPs that were better than Dragon's, but Dragon's T-72 series was better than Esci's T-72/74 and Dragon did a more complete line of modern Soviet armor. The Esci T-55 series remained well regarded for nearly twenty years though.

By the mid 90s rolled around, Esci was all but done in 1/35 scale armor. Italeri got their molds of the kits they didn't have in their line. Their LAVs, HMMWVs, T-72s, Leo 2, BMPs vanished.

Good info there!

I did adjust the suspension height and dipped the nose to show the weight of the plough as well.

After my research on the Tamiya M-48A3 I knew this would be necessary.