| One | The KMT-4 mine rollers was taken from the Academy IDF Merkava 2 Kit. The details on the rollers are not very well reproduced in scale. I have to use a small round jeweller's file to remove the smooth surfaces between those teeth. All 8 pieces have to be cleaned one by one before I applied "sticky" Tamiya putty to create rough textures. That's why the unpainted model shown has bluish colour on the rollers before first spray coat. |
| Two | It took me a few days just to find the correct size of chains for the KMT-4 mine rollers! You should know where to get one for your project? Let me know if you really don't have a single clue. |
| Three | I decided to rework on the fenders since they are really too thick! And this meant carefully removing the two fenders from the upper hulk. Yeap, removing them was a breeze. However, the real test came when you tried to add the thinned scratchbuilt fenders! How I tackle this is to reuse the dimensions on the model. Those picky AMS modellers will probably tell me off since I never get the proper dimensions from those accurate scale plans. Personally, I am not that crazy for those minor accuracy, but I think there is a limit for inaccuracy. Right? |
| Four | The Verlinden Blazer set was really worth the money. However, extra efforts are required to align properly for the turret. I have added covers for the smoke dischargers using thin aluminium strips & of course my good old Tamiya putty. |
| Five | The whole turret minus the area to be covered by the blazer armour tiles are painted with again my "sticky" Tamiya putty. With proper control, Tamiya putty is as good as any top quality putty available on the market. It's all got to do with the guy who use it! |
| Six | As mentioned, the Verlinden Blazer set required lots of attention to get it right. You should probably invest in some good reference materials before you start this. Luckily, you can ignore all these if you use the Academy IDF Magach kit! |
| Seven | Another very useful set by Verlinden is the earlier M48/M60 update kit. Those photo etched parts are the most convincing way to superdetail your M60 models. However, I don't recommend this to newcomers since it can be quite tricky just to remove the moulded parts on the Tamiya upper hulk. |
| Eight | A spare Tamiya Merkava 105mm gun was cropped & fitted to the model instead of the original Tamiya M60 gun barrel. After doing some photo comparison, the gun need to be extended by one segment. |
