Merkava Mk.III BAZ

Awarded: Gold

Users' choice

This gallery has 9.3% of the users' votes.

By: Vojtech Samek

Manufacturer(s): Revell

Modifications: homemade roof armour, engine, engine bay, non skid surface, interior of the hull compartment, both hatches, new fume extractor, steel type wheels modified from revell´s ones, new cross wind sensor, new smode dischargers... etc.

After-market parts: OKB Grigorov, Goffy model, Black dog

Description: This Merkava represents serial production vehicle Mk.III BAZ with all modifications. Even every part of the revell´s kit was modified. Biggest deal was scratching the engine from plastic card, wires, metal plates. All changes were made according to the excellent Michael Mass book "Merkava Siman III". Painting was done by tamyia acrylics. Posthading, wash, filtres applied. final step were pastels and pigments.

Judge 1: Perfect. Nothing else to say.
Judge 2: Exceptional skills you display here, your scratch building is some of the best I've seen and the painting and weathering is equally as good. The only problem is 8 photo's simply aren't enough! Fantastic work.
Judge 3: Very nicely done model. The scratch building is fabulous and adds a lot of interest for the viewer. The only minor technical issue that I note is that the three anti-RPG balls along the aft edge of the turret at the right side appear to be defying gravity a wee bit. If the model was portrayed “on the move” you could see a bit of swaying displayed, but given that it is pretty statically displayed, I’d expect to see these pretty much dead vertical. Just on a personal note, my preference for this subject would be for just a tad more subtlety on the weathering and a bit less in terms of colour variance in the finish, based on the references that I’ve seen. Again, accolades for a very well executed build.