My Puma's got steel paws!!! (I will not elaborate on the assembly of the Nochri adapter and mine roller because it is not the purpose of this build review, but if anyone is interested feel free to ask).

I see you like to build very slowly, LOL.
Great work and a joy to watch this all coming together.

Actually, I like to paint and weather slowly, so enjoy while it lasts...

I started work on the side skirts. Assembly is quite easy but time consuming, especially the rearmost piece with the slat armor. It took me about 4-5 hours to get one side done.

Legend suggests straightening the brass wire by rolling it between two hard surfaces and i have to admit it works fine. I had no difficulty in shaping the photoetch and assembling the slat armored piece.

I chose to position the side skirts starting from the rear piece since its position is the easiest to determine.

One can leave off most of the slat armor pieces at the bottom of the armored panels, but they do look nice.

Really impressive build so far.

Very impressive work Nikos.
Well done.

cheers
Walter

Thank you for your comments, it is indeed impressive with all that brass and resin pieces. Much more brass left, stay tuned.

I have ordered some Eureka wire ropes since HobbyBoss does not include any in the kit, nor in their Nagmachon kits. I used the kit phototetch parts for the wire rope holders, but repositioned them according to reference photos. I also added the exhaust gas deflector, after drilling the exhaust and removing the exhaust cap details.





The left side side skirts were also added, getting them done was simple.






Big shoutout to Legend Productions because they have provided spares for almost every individual part in the set, both for the photoetch and the resin details.

Please stop Nikos!! Since my interest in IDF started a few weeks ago I have two Tiran's, a Merkava 1.5, a M60 w ERA, a Rochev, AMX 13, D9 and two Achzarit's to build.

The AMX 13 is done waiting weathering, one Tiran is well on the way, one Achzarit is nearly done and the D9 is nearly done.

You are making me want a Puma and I cannot add more until at least one is finished!!

I went on and did the slat armor. It is very time consuming and requires attention in order to get all the parts straight and level.

After careful thinking I decided to start assembly from the left rear corner. This part of the armor is positioned atop the fender braket and can be used as reference for aligning the rest of the parts.



All that is left is adding the antiskid, some tie loops at the front fenders and various minor details such as chains and last the wire ropes when they come.

In general the two sets are really great with their strongest points being the phototetch, which are some of the best quality photoetch pieces I have ever used, and the weakest point are the instructions.

Here are some missing details and parts that Legend could have included in the Batash conversion set:

- A large antenna mount at the rear middle of the vehicle
- Rear hull wirerope steps
- Wire rope ends, like in their Puma detail set
- Chain length for the front fenders and the side skirt mounts
- Decals although the HobbyBoss decal set should prove adequate.
- Fire extinguishers. as in their Puma detail set
- Resin replacement parts for the fan ducts at the sides of the doghouse, like in their Puma detail set.

For the Doghouse set:
- The arc limiters for the Mags at the sides
- Mag barrels, so as not to have to cut the kit beautiful Mags.

And an accuracy issue is that the top part of the water canister protective cover should be 1.5mm longer and reach all the way to the end of the vehicle deck.















I will also post photos of the set left overs so as anyone can see that Legend supplies lots of spares.

That is some quality PE work Nikos, well executed! Is she ready for paint yet?

I am really impressed with the look of this model, how quickly you are bringing it together and the cleanliness of the build. Very well done thus far.

All that is left is adding the antiskid, some tie loops at the front fenders and various minor details such as chains and last the wire ropes from Eureka, once they are delivered.

Thank you. I have to admit that I was on sick leave from work all week, so I devoted much more time on the build than anticipated.

Such a beautiful clean build Nikos.. It looks so flimsy though?? I know if I built that a strong breeze would have those PE railings off in a second!!

Thank you. It is not al flimsy as it looks, provided you apply your ca glue carefully. I always use a thin tip to aplly ca around the contact surface after having glued the parts together.



I added the antiskid, it may look a little too coarse but after all the paints, oils and varnishes it will show ok 9it is overscale but sometimes you need to please the eye not show the scale). I used 0.4-0.6 mm aquarium sand, but I am thinking of refining it a little by removing the 0.6mm grain. I sprayed some primer to see how the antiskid looks.






I also decided to use the wireropes from Meng's Merkava 3, since they are similar to those used on the mine roller.






Now we are ready for primer, after that preshading and then paint. I will use the new Real Colors by AK or the Vallejo IDF shade.

Very nice and clean build. And very fast... I like it a lot.

Looking forward to seeing the painting process as well.

Mario

Thank you for the kind comment. From now on the progress will be slow.

The model has been primed and is ready for preshading with very dark grey or NATO black.

Preshading:






Basic paintjob done. I have to admit that my unique photographing skills managed to distort the colour shade. It is a tad more greyish than in the photos.

Some photos to show the correct color shades:

That's one smart looking Puma, Nikos! The color seems to be spot on!

Painting the details proved to be quite timeconsuming. But I am finally ready to spray a gloss varnish and add the decals.

The markings were chosen from reference photos. Their exact position is a little on the random side, since most markings on Batash vehicles are handpainted.

It’s looking great - I can’t wait to see it finished!