Merkava Mk.3D Late LIC

[Adam Durrant]

My entry for his one. I’ve had the Meng kit sitting in the stash for a while.

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It comes with the option of all steel wheels or rubber rimmed. I have gone overboard with accessories…

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Since buying all of this I realize that I’ve got double ups of the chain armour and the aerial mounts. Looks like I’ll have to buy another Merkava kit!

I don’t think I’ll use much of the PE, the kit detail is OK, I think it will mainly be confined to some of the “blobbier” surface details like the engine deck grills. The Legend resin stowage solves the problem of filling the turret basket.

Not sure yet if I’ll use the kit tracks or purchase yet more aftermarket stuff…

[Olivier Carneau]

Good choice for your entry. I remember the suspension needed a lot of cleaning job. The box chain and balls are nice enough to spare your time with building ET set.
The MG sets will be a great addition.
Enjoy your build.

[Adam Durrant]

A week of steady building and lots of clean up has got me here. Olivier was correct, tons of work to remove flash and huge sprue gates.

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The Legend set is nice, saves having the fill the stowage baskets and most reference pics I have show them full.

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[Vincent Power]

Looks good Adam. Nice detail on the suspension made the extra work you had to do worth it.

Vincent

[Olivier Carneau]

Good job Adam.

[Philipp Gross]

Nice work Adam! These baskets look fantastic!

Philipp

[Steve Hutchinson]

Great start Adam
The suspension makes my geriatric T-55 look like a Model T ford
The resin baskets do look really good
Hopefully the construction will get easier with less clean up?
looking good
Regards
Steve H

[Adam Durrant]

Great start Adam
The suspension makes my geriatric T-55 look like a Model T ford
The resin baskets do look really good
Hopefully the construction will get easier with less clean up?
looking good
Regards
Steve H

Not getting any easier Steve, the detail is a bit “blobby” so am using more of the PE than I thought I would. The upper hull is also warped which means the fit to the lower is rubbish. I’m going to try warming it to straighten but suspect it will be lots of glue and clamps with remedial filler!!

[Shawn Ramsey]

The Legend set does look nice.

Shawn

[Adam Durrant]

Hull is all done. Only done the lower half of the tracks as the side skirts cover the top. Individual link and plastic so had to do the “glue-wait 20min-then wrap technique”. I would have used AM tracks but as only a small percentage of the tracks will be seen I couldn’t justify the cost.

The Voyager PE is much better than the molded parts, so quite a lot used on the hull. The aerials at each corner were replaced with AM springs and some fine brass tube. The detail on the turret is much nicer, so build should speed up as I use less PE…until I have the build all the chain armour on the turret basket.

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The Legend turret basket set looks like it is a lot of work and I’ll also have to perform some surgery to the turret back. The turret itself is made up of a crazy number of flat panels with butt joints so hopefully the fit is spot on otherwise I might need a touch of filler….