Looking good Tom.

Thanks a lot, Tom! Some great work there on yours - Can't wait to see the turret bits!

Jerry

Way ahead of you, John! The interior is available here.

Sorry Tom, I knew the drivers compartment details were available. What I meant was, will the TURRET interior details be made available as a set.

Oh - I see. Given the size I was planning on doing them in plastic (3D printing would cost a bomb!), but I might think about a printed set for those with very deep pockets. (It needs a full gun tube/breech in addition to other details...)

I'd be happy to share my construction techniques, measurements etc for you if you plan to scratch-build one! Given how hard it is to see in through the hatches there isn't a need for too much hyper-detail of the bits you can't see.

Guess im done with the tiran 4....





All comments are welcome...

Very nice Imran. I love the final weathered finish. A great addition to your collection.

Thanks for joining in.

Wow, Imran, that looks superb. There's a lot I could praise, but my girlfriend (who's not interested in models or tanks or anything like that) thought that it looked like a photo of a real vehicle photoshopped onto a white background. That says it all.

Jerry

I agree with the others, Imran, great weathering job!!

Thanks peter,jbranca and clayton....

Very nicely done, Imran.

Okay, bit the bullet. The replacement tracks are long overdue. I'm going to do the box art camo and that means some creative track work can happen:



all hidden by the skirts:


So off to paint the primer now.

Great work going on here! Very nice job, Imran! And it's looking good so far, Peter!

I've had some excitement with the Merkava I. I was starting to put the road wheel pairs together for one side when I realized I'd put the outside wheels together backwards. I put part A15 on the outside of part A18, rather than the inside as the instructions fairly clearly show. I've started to pry things aprart and correct them. The wheels on the left show how I did it at first and those on the right show the corrections (not repainted yet):



I expect to lose at least one knife blade in this process, but it's gotta be done. Happily I only had done one side (six wheels). Caught the problem before I built the other side. So, two fixed, four to go!

Michael

What a good solution! Thanks, Peter.

Good catch Michael. You obviously need to build more armour and less bombers

At least your boo boo was recoverable, unlike my accidental bathing the tracks in Tamiya extra thin.

How are you enjoying the kit so far?


Thanks Mr K.

Liking it so far, minus the boo-boo. I've fixed all the bad ones and am now repainting them. They don't look too awful, I suppose. Damn Syrian anti-tank fire!

Michael

Small progress update on the T29E3 - I tackled the turret interior. First I built up the innards of the gun and recoil stuff, based on the few photos I could find. It will hang off the turret front, and since the underside cannot be seen I didn't bother detailing it.



Next came the ammo bins either side of the TC - he musta had tremendous faith in the strength of the turret walls! These are simple boxes from plastic sheet, with shell storage space above and propellant tubes below. Detailing is crude because they are hard enough to see through the hatches. The vent blower is a tube, and the shelves at the back are modelled "empty" - I assume they held MG ammo and other stuff? I need to build a suitable radio for the rear left corner, then paint it all before gluing the turret together.




The walls are a bit bare because I have no info on what should be there. Likewise the gunner just gets a seat - I couldn't find anything about the clutter of controls and instruments that US tanks had here, but you wouldn't really see it from the hatches anyway.




The hull is primed, so hopefully I'll get it all painted and done by the deadline!

Nice Tom. Best part about finding no references for the interior is you can do whatever you want..

Nice work Tom, just enough to look busy.

Nice save, Michael...I suppose the next low-intensity conflict version of the Merkava will have some new kind of spaced armor to defeat those roadside radio-detonated glue bombs.....

And great work on the T29 turret, Tom.

Jerry

Turret complete! After a lick of paint:


...I closed it all up and added all the details in a very productive evening session.


(The hatches are blanked off with 0.005" sheet, glued on with Gator's Grip. When the final painting is done I'll soften it with warm water and then simply press them out. At least that's the theory!)




The .50cal MG is a new one on me - the receiver is moulded as two halves! It goes together well enough, but I'm not happy with the charging handle being a tiny stump - it might need replaced.


But it's all now covered in primer, so let the airbrushing commence!

Interesting bit about the receiver Tom. Halves are new to me too.

Have to admit the blanking off with card is new to me too. Usually I just make a tube of paper and insert it in the hatch opening, then stuff some wadded tissue in the tube to push it out to form right up to the lip of the opening. Hope the theory re Gator grip doesn't end up Chaos Theory

@Pete - I hope so too! (Gonna find out soon enough...)

Some "proof of life", or "proof of colour":



I won't be adding any decals - the kit only has big spurious markings for a WoT What the heck! scheme, and the only real pics I've seen just had small registration numbers on the fender stowage boxes, and I don't have anything suitable handy. So it's straight on to pin washes and weathering!