Gidday all.
Just a quick question on the best paint out of the bottle to use on IDF armour. I am currently building the acadamy m113 fitter and want the colour to look just right.( Is sinai grey a good match?). Any help welcome.

I love the m113 and this breaks my heart. 113's ready for scraping.
Cheers and good luck.

What Sinai Grey are you talking about (what paint company)? Most instructions will call for Sinai Grey. I have yet to find that color in a bottle at my LHS. I have order online a bottle of Lifecolor UA 035 Israeli Sandgrey that I really like. It has the almost green, almost grey, almost sand look that modern IDF armor is painted in.

Here is a web page with my Fitter. I used the Model Master Israeli Armor Sand, which I think is too sandy colored.

http://idfmodelling.free.fr/kit_m113_08.html

I find that the "SAC bomber tan" by model master is a good and readily available base color for IDF vehicles. I think that was it anyway... can't remember 100% because that was a couple years ago and i am currently out of that color so i can't look and confirm it. anyway, it isn't quite perfect, but once weathered and washed and drybrushed and tinted, it really does the job quite nicely in my opinon.

thanks for the help lads. Will look for the sac bomber tan at LHS and I have never seen sinai grey either.

there is no standard colour for mimicking properly IDF military vehicles. The reasoning behind this is because of the fact that you cannot emmulate a model based on a pic and have it right... there is NO RIGHT colour, but a mixture of various colours. You have to take into consideration the various abuses of the tanks, the effects of the sun, the season they are in, the type of thinner the crew used to thin the paint to be sprayed as it is a paste that is mixed in the field. You can see a tank that looks sand in colour, and in the next picture, it will be different. There are many ideas on the colour of IDF vehicles, yet there is no concensus... so if you want to go based exactly on Sinai Grey that's fine. Model Master makes that colour, but mix a little Green Drab with it, about 30, 70 as the paste is indeed a more green based paint. Here is a pic of my tank, which has been "approved" by IDF crews and various modellers.



now I don't claim to be a pro IDF modeller, but I have learned ALOT since I have started modelling IDF stuff exclusively. What I did with this is to start with Model Master Green Drab (don't know the FS number off hand) as a base. While it's dry, but not cured I mist a mix of 30 US Marines Sand and 70 Green Drab. After that has cured I do a light coat of successive mixes of those colours up to 60 US Marines Sand 40 Green Drab. I then dry brushed a 90 US Marines Sand 10 Green Drab lightly on the tank to show the turn of the colour to a light shade. The effect I got was the ability to show differently in different lights. Sometimes it looks more sandy coloured, and sometimes it looks grey, and then sometimes it looks Drab. I hope this helps you, I use this on all my IDF vehilces post 1973.

I hope this works as this is the prime example of what I mean by no "RIGHT" way to paint it. These paint chips were taken from the Merkava in the Latrun Museum in Israel. They are from one tank and highlight what I mean by no single colour...



I hope this helps