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Hi Guys, I will try to build the 1/35 Tamiya M60A3. I will build it out of the box, except for a metal barrel. I still need to find one, but as I am going to the model show in Lingen this weekend it won't be a problem.Here are the pictures of the box and content. I hope to start the model this weekend at Lingen. Cheers,

This vehicle building malarky over the past 4 weeks is getting me quite hooked. My last vehicle prior to my recent MAZ-543 TEAL & SCUD-B and M50 Super Sherman was a WWI Schneider CA.1 I built in November 2105: http://www.tapatalk.com/groups/missinglynx/schneider-ca-1-1-72-wespe-retrokit-t165831.html Since then I've only been building my usual fare of 1/72 aircraft. I decided my next vehicle build would be something I had a detail set for to cut down on scratch-building. I had a Hauler detail set for the Revell M60 i was sent to review along with the usual haul of aircraft subjects I was reviewing on a regular basis for HyperScale. The set has some parts so small it's just sick, so I accepted the challenge as there were few dollars at risk. I felt the hardest part would be to cut away the track guard stays and replace them with PE items. This was because they were moulded so closely to other parts of the hull and surrounding detail. I cut all four from one side with reasonable success, only to find that Hauler's very small instruction sheet was a bit confusing, and one PE stay had the lightening holes so closely etched to the edge that it got damage removing it from the fret. Fortunately, this stay is the least visible of the four. I eventually got the stays in place, along with an open-farmed box that surrounds a light as far as I can tell on a box mounted on the track-guard. The results aren't too pretty in the photos but I think they will be OK... I was about to do the other side when I realised there was no point in doing so until I tackled the kit's turret basket. Revell has done a good job engineering the styrene parts for this, but tooling limitations have meant it is unavoidably over-scale in appearance. So improving this became the new make or break. But before proceeding, I needed to do something about the turret's smooth surface as photos show its cast texture is evident. I did this by painting on liquid cement and stippling with a stiff paintbrush. I contemplated thinning all of the kit's turret basket parts down but decided this was probably too hard to do successfully, although now I'm not so sure if I had cut the bottom of the basket into three separate rails. Anyway, I decided to thin the kit's basket rail support brackets and make the rails from wire. The result has a more scale appearance, but due to my lack of skill the basket rails are a bit bent and bowed in places, so mine has had a much harder service life than most! The Hauler mesh inserts for the basket were now effectively a little undersized for the basket because the wire rails were much thinner than the kit's plastic ones, which meant I ended up with gaps where the mesh meets the turret and between the mesh of the basket floor and the back face of the basket. I shall hide these gaps with stowage of various kinds. The next job for the turret is to replace the overly thick hand/stowage rails with wire ones and make a wire hawser to replace the moulded plastic item. Then it's back to the hull and track-guard stays and various other details, plus I need to decide on a nationality to represent. My boxing offers Egyptian, US and Greek markings.

This was built a while ago when Gulf War stuff was all the rage! This is the Tamiya kit in 1/35th scale and is sprayed with Xtra Colour Desert Sand enamel and weathered with Oils This takes me back a bit!