Probably not the safest thing but I wipe the dust off on an old pair of jeans and then hose them down washing the dust down the drain or off in the yard when I'm done.

Yeah I'll probably die of black lung in a decade or so...

Except for the massive amounts of resin dust.......

Ah, ok! Makes sense!

Sanding is something to do while watching TV or YouTube videos...

Thanks y'all.

G, exactly right. The backing is about 1mm thick and has to be removed by sanding, a slow and dirty process. All those Chinese covid masks my company still sends me are finally useful. Here's a pic of what it looks like, on the left a section of a larger sheet that I've taken a few pieces from, and on the right one piecem sanded down and two plastic "standoffs" cryo-glued to, to be cemented the the plastic of the turret. I do this around 40 times.

IMG_2278 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

Mike, I wondered what happened to that build. Go for it!

You got me drooling again, Russ. 

I started assembling my Panda M-1 IP last week. Finished the suspension, assembled the track runs for both sides, and put it back in the box for now. I felt the itch for some 80's armor lol.

But now I'm feeling the need to revisit my M-60 with the mine plow. I've got all of those spare IDF goodies still waiting to get stuffed on it. ;)

As per the norm with you, this is all beautiful work and inspiring.

Puddle-cast means the resin parts with the kinda liquid looking backs (I don't know how to describe it)?

I like where you're going there, nice!

Over the last few days I finished the hull ERA, going to the old Verlinden "Blazer" kit since it's actaully more accurate then either the Italeri or Academy parts, but it's puddle cast so it's very slow getting each piece ready to use. Then I started the turret, scratching the mortar mount while I was there.

IMG_2276 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

Thanks G. Just plugging along.....  and I started another hull, since I had all my spares out. Gotta use up those old parts!

Cool, like what you've done with the ERA bricks and the smoke grenades.

Thanks. I'll snag either the ESCI/Italeri kit or the Academy kit if the price is at or under $20, just for the parts. More than that is not worth it. And I'm surprised Takom hasn't done some IDF version yet, they're more than halfway there now. I just can't make myself pay $90 and up for the AFV Club 6B Gal kit. That takes too much fun out of it for me.

Anyhootch, I started the hull ERA, this time separating the row along the lower glacis and doing standoffs for all of it, using Academy parts here for the better detail on the bolts and tabs.

IMG_2131 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

Thanks all. I guess I'm still building these things 'cause I bought up a few when the AFV Club kits hit and they got cheap. I'm pretty sure this is my last one....

And I do like the Takom kits, for sure. 

And re that comment I made abouit the mine roller being a later addition to the Magach 6B: wrong. I found a pic of one in Lebanon, 1982, with a roller. Hmmm.....

Oh wow, nice work there! Love the ERA brackets and the bustle rack. 

I was very happy with the Takom CM-11/M48H (M60 hull) I built. 

Amazing progress so far!  Not sure if anyone has ever put that much work into an ESCI kit before.  Looking forward to your next posting.  I have an old AFV Club M-48 with Chinese Nationalist markings and I've always toyed with the idea of converting it to an early M-48 that IDF used in the late 1960s.

TJS

I like that, neat idea. I've seen pics of that myself. 

So I've been adding more stuff here and redoing a few other things too, finding better parts as I dig through my spares boxes. I also decided to show the mantlet without the ERA blocks, just the mount, so I scratched that up, not too difficult, just slow. 

IMG_2028 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

I added some detail the the Academy smoke launcher boxes and mounted them, then redid a few things on the back, added an AFV Club infantry phone and made up the air filter housings from Tamiya and Takom parts.

IMG_2029 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

Rob, if you ever get the chance, the Takom M60 kits are very good, with detail very close the the AFV Club kits but more like Tamiya ease of assembly. It took me a few weeks to build the one AFV Club kit I've done so far, but I can have a Takom hull together in a couple of afternoons if I'm building it OOB. Once painted, it's difficult to tell the difference, and I don't have to "fix" the overly done texturing of the AFV Club hull and turret.

RBaer

I still grab any I find, they've got good bits for other projects. Now that the Takom kits are out and reasonably priced, I'm just using select pieces on other projects. I think I just had a wild hair on this one. I need to get a new pic up too, some new work and some stuff already done is "re done". I'm also digging into the spares boxes more than I'd initailly intended.

The detail is not as refined as the newish AFV Club kits (I haven't seen Takom in the flesh), but many areas are superior to the Tamiya M60A3/M60A1 RISE/Passive.

I've decided to use the lower hull of one kit to bash with the MBT70 turret to make a what if MBT60. The idea for this kit came from the old MBT70 that used to be near the entrance to Disney Barracks at Fort Knox. It had M60 lower hull suspension to replace the original MBT70 suspension that was one of the problems of the original tank.

I still grab any I find, they've got good bits for other projects. Now that the Takom kits are out and reasonably priced, I'm just using select pieces on other projects. I think I just had a wild hair on this one. I need to get a new pic up too, some new work and some stuff already done is "re done". I'm also digging into the spares boxes more than I'd initailly intended.

After doing my due diligence, I affirmed that the mine roller was a later addition to the Magach. Since I'm doing a 1980 or so tank, I'll wait for the next one, maybe using a Takom base like I keep threatening to do. In the meantime, I'll plug along with this and the slick hull. I have picked my next actual "build", one from my most recent acquisitions and completely out of my norm, and it does NOT have wings.

Ohhhhhhhhhhh, that's cool!!! Hope you go with a mine roller. Love the look of them!