(Israeli Defence Force) with Voyager brass and resin upgrade set
Take a look at: Conclusion, Gallery and pdf…
I was asked recently by Bill Curtis, our esteemed Armour Editor for SMN, if I would stop playing in the bath with boats and build an armour model. My first thought was ‘What shall I get to build?’ Then, inspired by the articles by Les Venus where he is building kits that previously consigned to the bottom of the stash, I decided to look to see what I already had. I really like this ‘Kits from the Attic’ idea that Les is championing. While I have no wish to endanger recession hit model shops and kit manufacturers, in these cash strapped times, it makes sense to slip one onto the bench from the stash every now and again, most of us have far too many kits hoarded in cupboards and attics.
What worried me was the amount I had, and my stash is minuscule compared to some, that I had forgotten about! But what did I have that would make a decent length build, a flexing of the techniques muscles and, hopefully, an interesting and entertaining read? My eyes fell on the very thing. A superb, if nearly over engineered, Dragon kit of the Israeli M51 Sherman, known as the ISherman. As a kit, it is a challenge. Dragon make great kits and they never fall short on the parts count which is high on this kit, over 730 according to the box lid . As one of their ‘Premium Kits’, it also comes with a decent set of photo etch to raise the standard even more. The Dragon DS tracks, with separate slide moulded track horns (eight small sprues of them) are based on the later all steel tracks, but at least they are not single link tracks. Also there is a turned aluminium barrel for the French 105mm gun this beast of a tank carries.
When I originally bought this Kit, it was not long after buying the M50 Super Sherman of the IDF by Dragon and after building the very nice, but much simpler kit of the M51 by Academy shown here. I had a bit of a thing going on for IDF equipment and I still have really.
I know that some modellers buy loads of kits of the same subject but I normally do not. It was totally out of character for me to have three IDF Sherman kits, even though there are differences. I put it down to my fascination with all things IDF, and I noticed quite a few other kits and conversion sets in my stash reflecting this but they are for another day. To make this kit even more ‘interesting’ I had also bought the Voyager PE and Resin Upgrade set for it. which includes loads more PE, although some of it repeats the kit supplied, but does have the brass for folding into stowage boxes and enhances quite a few of the already superb kit parts.. So, enough of the background, let’s have a look at what the kit has. It all starts off with evocative artwork on the box top, and for once I have thought it worth showing the box side and bottom, Dragon really know how to hook modellers with their boxes.