As promised - here is the next installment!
So what has been done since last time?
Well I am happy to announce that bar a few minor jobs, she is finally ready for painting!
Firstly all details that will not be attached to the hull prior to painting have been glued and cleaned up. My only real gripe with these - in fact, the only gripe I had throughout- was that the nozzles and handles on the jerry/water cans are separate pieces and therefore very fiddly and hard to clean up. Great care is needed when working with these as to prevent anything from pinging off into oblivion!
Next is the excellent .50 cal. Should you be so inclined you could probably leave the ammo box open and add a belt of ammunition via an appropriate aftermarket offering without too much effort.
And then there is the commander. I always like to include at least one figure in any AFV build I do as I feel it adds a point of interest to the model and helps to give the impression that the subject is a 'living' machine rather than a static model. Therefore, Tamiya's habit of including nicely tooled figures in their kits is a big bonus for me 
Technically if you look at the instructions/box art this is the figure for the loader but I decided to offer him a quick field commission. Mainly because although standing straight up out of the hatch and pointing at some distant landmark (as the provided commander is doing) is an undoubtedly heroic pose to strike, in reality it would be decidedly unhealthy behavior on a battlefield as you would no doubt attract all sorts of unwanted attention. Plus the loader figure is the only one modeled with an intercom/radio set, something that it would make sense for a commander of any vehicle to have.
Last off plastic-wise is the scratch built clamp ( made out of plastic card and a small bit of stretched sprue) located on the front transmission cover - thanks to Bullbasket for confirming my suspicions as to what this thing actually was!
Probably not 100% accurate but as my first attempt (ever) of scratch building I am very happy with it. Although I would recommend using strips of appropriate width plastic card rather than trying to cut things out of a single sheet like I did- It will save you a lot of time!
And now, to the question of what paint to use to do this thing up as a Six Day War era M-51 . . .
. . . Oh boy.
Those of you who are familiar with modelling IDF subjects of any era will not doubt be aware of the great controversy that comes with addressing the question of 'exactly what color were/are Israeli vehicles?'. For those of you who are interested in trying to come up with your own answer there are many resources both online and in print that discuss this very subject. But for simplicity sake, here are the main points I took away from my own research:
- It is highly probable the IDF never really standardized one scheme or colour for AFVs in it's earlier (1950s-70s) years. Various shades most likely existed across its fleet of vehicles
- True colour (aka: non-Polaroid), quality photographs from said early eras are either non-existent or extremely hard to come by
- Tamiya's colour call out is probably not correct! To be fair they do say that it is an 'approximate' one
- Environmental conditions and the time of day definitely played a big part in what colour vehicles would appear to be to the naked eye
- A good rule of thumb is Olive Drab for Suez Crisis era, Sand/Sand Grey for 1967/maybe 1973 and Sinai Grey for the 1984 Lebanon War era. Modern vehicles use an updated version of the '82 Sinai Grey.
Again, anyone who is looking at this build to get ideas for their own please take all this with a grain of salt! I am by no means an expert on the matter and your own ideas/preferences/findings may be completely different to mine. That being said, here is an good resource that I found particularly useful http://idfmodelling.free.fr/article01.html
Now - enough research! time to crack on and see what I can come up with
Using the aforementioned article as a guide, I chose to experiment with a mix of Tamiya XF-60, XF-57 and XF-59. Although the guide suggests X-60 and XF-57 for the vehicle I'm going for, I wanted to add the XF-59 to have something to compare it too. Here is what I got by mixing XF-60+XF-57 (on the left) and XF-59+XF-57 (on the right):
For me the XF-60+XF-57 (50/50) mixture is a clear winner. The other seems just too brownish for me. Now I don't like brush painting Tamiya acrylics (Yep, guilty as charged- I am a hairy stick wielder! Ironically I do own an airbrush but I a ) haven't particularly warmed to it yet and b ) due to a recent long distance move it is still sitting in storage hundreds of miles away along with a few other unessential personal belongings) but seeing as the only acrylic call outs I have are for Tamiya (Lifecolour is far too expensive for me and I like to support my local model stores by sourcing as much paint as I can from them) I think I will just stick with what I've got.
And on that note I leave you with a final shot of everything before it gets a coat of paint. Next time I will try to not leave it so long before I update the thread!
Cheers,
Poacher
