Merkava III in the Golan

 

Detail is good, but some features annoy. 

I liked the construction of the tracks which make assembly fairly easy. Unfortunately the tracks have some issues too... 

Like with the Revell kit, the first road wheel is different from the rest and thus incorrect. At least I could not find any pic which shows this configuration in the wild. Second: in the row of the guide teeth are considerable gaps that catch the eye. I first decided to accept the wrong road wheel as correction is complex and went to fill the gaps of the guide teeth. 

some styrene profile was cut, sanded and glued. 

the result 

the side armor neatly aligned looks a little bit dull. 

I sawed the slats and bent them a little.  

as with almost all of my projects in Gentlemen scale Miniworld provides the maschine guns. There is nothing more detailled that I know of. 

one of a few that go on the tank 

PE from OKB Grigorov. Some pieces are hard to comprehend as they are nothing but work without enhancing the appearance of the tank - like the ventillation grids. So I skipped them. Others make all the difference. Here you see the parts of the rear stowing basket 

soldered. 

 

ModelTrans offers a conversion/correction kit designed for Revells Merkava. I bought one a long time ago and was disappointed by its quality - or better to say the lack of it. Casting is not up to date, fit neither (I tried the Revell turret too. Same issues!). With some work I managed to achieve an acceptable result. 

With all the effort going into it, I finally decided to go all the way with the tracks too and replaced the whole Trumpeter assembly with Revell road wheels, complemented by the two that ModelTrans provides in his conversion and Tracks from OKB Grigorov.  

Those tracks from OKB Grigorov offer splendid detail. Here you can compare it with Revells and Trumpeters version. Lets see how difficult they will be to assemble. 

Miniworld is king when it comes to maschine guns in Braille scale. 

The turret with some more details and modifications. 

Primer!