The SAAF Forum

I will be trying my hand at somthing new. This will be an Israeli 1961 war tank.
Athough tiny, it it really well detailed. Even the rubber tracks I read from reviews work out well.

. by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr
T

Nice subject, always fun to try something different.

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How come every time my ship comes in, I'm at the airport?

After the desater with the italeri 1/72 spitty mk I wanted to try somthing waaaaaaay different
Sofar the bogeys , drive sprocets and turret have been assembled, no big issues yet.

T

Wait they screwed up the Spitfire as well? I bought the new tool Hurricane Mk1 Trop, and it is a disaster. They included the wrong fuselage.

The italeri spit 1/72 mk 9 is way to complicated with a seperate nose section, this doesnt fit, the chin cowl doesnt fot, the wingroot doesnt fot, the prop shape is all wrong, the wheel wells are to shallow....

ANyway the sherman is coming allong nicely, there will be a little filling to do on the lower and upper hull joint. The detail for such a small kit is actually very good, each bogey has the 2 spoked wheels and 2 side carriers to assemble.
The hatch and other detail on the upper hull is also very good.

I have been looking at loads of pix of these Shermans with the "cast hull" and they were really rough! you can clearly see where the cast sprues were cut off and "very lightly" filled with grinders .

I wanted to weather the hell out of this tank but from all the pix the IDF took very good care of their equipement. Very little if any rust other than on the tracks, maybe the desert air is to dry?? They were all re-painted in a light brown from '61 onwards so I assume they must have been overhauled.

. by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr
. by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

Theuns

Got the primer on today, looking quite nice after a round of filling and sanding.
. by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr
Then I modulated the hull sides and bottom to give somne "shading" to the overall IDF sand grey.
. by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr
Next I painted the tracks with alclad black primer as a base coat, I looked at some u tube vids of how to weather them with chalk pastels.
. by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

T

Here is my mix of IDF snad grey
. by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr
weathered tracks
. by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

T

Tracks looking good Theuns. I also want to try an armor kit at least once.

Ta, iI have changed the colour of the weathering on the track now to a more sany yellow, it was pointed out to me that the colour I had on looked to much like heavy rust and in the desert it will be unlikely.

Now it looks more like a light coloured "mud" suck to the tracks from early morning dew on the ground.

T

Impressive, you wouldn't say it is only 1/72 with all these details.
Your tracks are looking good.

first round of weathering done, next comes the dust...
. by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

T

Looking really good ... and quick too.

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How come every time my ship comes in, I'm at the airport?

Israeli DF M4A1 76 in the Golan Hights 1961-67
I still need to make the base nameplate.

Trumpeter 1/72 M4A1 76 IDF by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr
Trumpeter 1/72 M4A1 76 IDF by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr
Trumpeter 1/72 M4A1 76 IDF by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr
Trumpeter 1/72 M4A1 76 IDF by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr
Trumpeter 1/72 M4A1 76 IDF by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

T

Very nice, lovely weathering.

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How come every time my ship comes in, I'm at the airport?

Thanx Dean. I coould not go mad with the weathering as they were fairly "recently" repainted in the sand color in 1961.
The only place I could play abit was the tracks. The Golan hights is an interesting landscape, it ranges from muddy farm fields to rock hard desert moonscape so I depicted some of the mud traped in the treads and the shaffing of the metal tracks on the hard floor.

T