Magach 6B Gal- converting a Braille-scale M60A3

[scottie3158]

Bones,
Lovely work as always. This will make a great build.

[Guest]

Yes they were boxy and flat. Is there a reference from the top?

I could go dig up my M60 Tech Manuals if you really want to know

Perhaps the plans from the Airfix article was wrong with the height that necassitated one corner to be sloped for clearance.:smiling3:

That’s correct: the front inner corner is cut off a little on the side-loading type. Here’s a TM picture from the American Fighting Vehicle Database that shows the different types:

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I don’t think I’ve ever seen any photos of a vehicle with the aluminium top-loading model, though.

[Si Benson]

Tidy work Alistair:thumb2: Think I built one of these once?

[rtfoe]

I could go dig up my M60 Tech Manuals if you really want to know :smiling3:


That’s correct: the front inner corner is cut off a little on the side-loading type. Here’s a TM picture from the American Fighting Vehicle Database that shows the different types:

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I don’t think I’ve ever seen any photos of a vehicle with the aluminium top-loading model, though.

There, Alistair...you need to nip the corner that's facing the turret for clearance. So I wasn't too wrong :smiling6: phew... Thanks for the reference Jakko.

Cheers,
Richard

[Road of Bones]

Thanks for the input Richard, Jakko :thumb2: I love your Magach Richard- looks to be an early one, with the M48 turret. The figures are especially nice (but your figures usually are!).
Si- good to see you! Find some pics of yours, if you would.
scottie- thanks sir!

Well, after a week of lockdown, I didn’t have much progress to show:flushed:. Last night I got a good bench session in, so I started by thickening up the glacis plate armour, and re-making the tow cable (the last was a bit short and over-thick):

then I turned to the turret. The IDF replace the mini-turret that the TC has on the US version (the one with the .50 cal in it) with one of their Urdan cupolas. In order to make this, I started by cutting 3 concentric circles out of card:

These were then slathered in green putty:

I found an old headlight in the spares box, and sanded it back to make the dome of the hatch. Once dry, I filed and sanded the cupola back, added the hatch dome, and made the brackets and hinge assembly. Lastly I added the covers for the periscopes:

The IDF also make their own, larger turret baskets. This will be full of stuff and have identification panels over it, so I only made a shape of it out of more card, and used stretched sprue to make the ribs. A couple of strips of PE formed the leading edges:

A good evening’s progress! Thanks for looking chaps,

Alistair☠️

[Guest]

Keep going, getting even more impressed.
Mike.

[Guest]

I love your Magach Richard- looks to be an early one, with the M48 turret

Since we’ve been getting into M60-series details here anyway, I see a need to point out that the standard M60 (“A0”) did not use the same turret as the M48 The front end is pretty much identical, but the back is different: on the M48 it curves down to the base of the turret while on the M60, the roof is flat and the back almost vertical. The turret from a model M48 is fairly easy to convert into that of an M60, though, with some epoxy putty (plus a commander’s cupola and gun barrel from an M60A1 or -A3, of course).

[rtfoe]

Before this gets haywire I think mine is an M48 conversion to an Israeli update and not the M60 series. My apologies Alistair as to me it nearly has the same profile from a distance. The two types differ in the front, turret and rear deck and perhaps everything on the inside as well I don't know. Any way it was a thirty odd year old build with archaic hand drawn plans and B/W tourist pictures...mind you it was fun though.

Here are some current images of the airfilters as reference but for the M48 I found...



Perhaps these were the ones referenced from for the article. Sorry for the interruption...at 1/72 the extra detailing you're adding on Bones is crazy but I know it won't look like a Magach without the armour.

Cheers,
Richard

[Road of Bones]

Mike, Jakko, Richard- thanks for commenting chaps, and for the detail knowledge-sharing :thumb2:

Had a productive day at the bench today- I tackled the gun barrel. The US M60A3 barrel has a smooth thermal shroud either side of the fume extractor. The IDF have a clamped thermal cover, probably as their Magachs were converted A1s, which had no thermal shroud. I spent the afternoon using very thin PE fret and scalpel blade packet foil to make the clamps. I also replaced the mouth of the barrel, as the kit one was a bit small, and added the reference vane on top:


I finished correcting the air-cleaners too, by sanding off the detail of the armoured covers, and making a new handle out of fine wire on top of each unit. I also added the inner chamfer as suggested by Richard and Jakko:

I fitted the Urdan cupola, and added a few lifting loops and a bit of bracket detail from spare PE, and attached the turret basket as well:

Time to move on to the turret blazer armour panels then...:rolling:
Thanks for looking chaps,

Alistair☠️

[JR]

Alistair.
Some nice detail emerging here, more impressive with it being so small !

[Mini Me]

Small is Beautiful JR....Liking this a lot Alistair, keep up the good work.
Rick H.

[tr1ckey66]

Very, very impressive detailing work Alistair. In 1/72 too!
Awesome stuff

Paul

[Steve Jones]

Ooooooh! That's nice. Lovin all the mini detailing. Good luck with the armour panels

[Guest]

The US M60A3 barrel has a smooth thermal shroud either side of the fume extractor. The IDF have a clamped thermal cover, probably as their Magachs were converted A1s, which had no thermal shroud.

It’s simply a different design using different kind of clamps You could also have sanded the American thermal shroud off to leave a bare barrel, or even modify it to represent a British L7A1 barrel (with or without a shroud), because the Israelis also put those into M60s. Though I’m now wondering if that was just the barrel or the entire gun, since the breech end is quite different too. Not that you would see that difference on a model with all hatches closed, of course

[Jim R]

Hi Alistair
Great scratchery and attention to detail.
Jim