Hello fellows,
On the bench : a IDF-Merkava mk2 and a sweden strv-103. For a Group Build : SIMAN 4.
I lately finished building but not painting the spanish "trumpeter" Centauro.
If you have questions, please feel free...
Cheers,
Pepper
...
I have a suggestion and a couple of questions about your Merkava.
First, the questions.
What are those rings (expanions, lumps, whatever) equally spaced along the barrel of the main gun? I've never seen anything that looks quite like that except on a sci-fi movie.
What is the purpose of the weighted (?) chains hanging down from the rear of the turret? And are they real, separate chains or just one solid piece of plastic? My guess is that they're some sort of barrier to tumble shots fired at the tank or make them explode prematurely, but again, not anything I've seen before.
Now the comment.
On the top of the turret there are a couple of what look like wire handles with squared corners. One is behind the commander's hatch and the other is between the two hatches. My suggestion is to cut both of these away, and replace them with real wire handles. It should be easy enough to make the handles themselves, and the hinge could be made out of either a small block of plastic with a hole drilled through at each end of the handle, or a small strip of brass shim wrapped over the ends of the handles and sltted into holes on the top of the turret, or even another piece of wire wrapped over the ends of the handles in the same manner.
If you didn't want the handles functional, then just drill holes in the top of the turret at each end and bend the end of the handles over to fit into the holes. Then just a bit of plastic or paper over the ends would make it look like they're really hinged.
Either way, they'd look more realistic than the molded in handles.
Good looking job so far BTW.
Hello Pat,
A "walk around" for you :
http://www.primeportal.net/tanks/andre_patschke/merkava_mk2_walk.htmThe "chain and ball" are called "hair of Shulamit" : As you know the space between the the turret and the main hull are the breach of the tank.
On the Merkava it's located behind the turret, underneath the turret basket.
This is a protective "fence" for the RPGs rockets fired sometimes from 20 meters...
For the main barrel : These are parts from the thermal protection device.
TBC...
Laurent.
