Merkava Mk 4. Project and my Introduction!

[Trevor R]

Hello everyone! My name is Trevor, professionally I've worked as a mechanical engineer in the past, and am now working towards my PhD in material science. I have been interested in armor since I was 9 years old and have followed Erik's videos since way back when it was just the BT. I am finally at a stage in my life where I have the knowledge and resources to work on my own projects!

My work tends to be very heavily planned; I design things in CAD and create full assemblies before committing to making anything. I have two projects on the go currently, the first being a 1/6 scale Wiesel AWC (I'm going with the 20mm variant), which I am doing with machined and plasma cut aluminum. This project is quite slow, but I have the lower chassis pretty well set with the road wheel suspension working. I just need to get the idler assembly finished.

My other project, which I've been working on for around a year on and off, is a 1/16 scale Merkava Mk. 4. This project is almost entirely 3D printed out of nylon 12, outsourced to be made with the multi-jet fusion printing process (MJF). The non-3D printed components are some internal structural things such as the suspension mechanism (torsion bar), and some mounting brackets for the electronics I'm in the process of figuring out. These are done with machined aluminum.

Here are some pictures!

This first image is directly from the CAD software using some primitive coloring.

Here is the same view, but colored based on unique components to show just how many there are.

Finally here are some pictures of the current build:

I hope you like it!

[Erik]

Hello and welcome! Nice to have such a long time follower on board!

Your Merkava looks incredible, and the outsourcing part sounds very interesting.

I'm also eager to see a build thread of that 1/6 Wiesel.

[Hagberg]

Aloha!
Great choice of tanks. Welcome to Minipansar.

[mrTyko]

I do like the Merkava
And welcome to us.
Robert

[Hans K]

Välkommen till forumet.

Hans K

[RC_BobM]

Outstanding CAD work Trevor. The Merkava looks great. Nylon is a good choice of material, but must have cost a few pennies. Great project.
Bob

[Trevor R]

Thank you for the replies, everyone! I am happy to have found this forum of people who enjoy similar projects!

As you predicted Bob, the nylon is not the most economical material. One of my goals for the next 1/16 project is to find ways to reduce cost without sacrificing finish or integrity. I am leaning towards still using nylon for the exterior, but creating more of a paneling system with it and using a combination of laser cut wood and FDM prints for the structure since those are things I can easily do in-house.

To respond to Erik, The Wiesel build thread will hopefully come fairly soon, I have the suspension working for the road wheels, and one side of the track put together. The current hiccup I want to address before making a thread about it is getting the idler wheel working properly since it needs to have suspension, as well as tensioning mechanisms built in with fairly limited space to work with. It doesn't help that I also need to keep things relatively simple since I'm still new to machining

Trevor

[Trevor R]

I am making more progress slowly, began the painting process of the merkava and also got a 1/16 tank commander figure to give a better sense of scale for the model.

The painting has been done almost exclusive with spray paint with some manual washes and weathering pencils used.

The procedure I’ve been working with is priming light grey, using a black paint and a brush to add shadows and whatnot, then spraying the sand color from a distance and finishing off with liberal use of washes and other weathering strategies. Once everything is painted I may come back with some pigments. I am considering looking through reference material to determine additional stowage to help bring the model to life.

This tank will be RC eventually, I just have not worked with my own RC before so I’m currently making a cheap test bed to learn how to execute this effectively before committing to putting hardware inside this model.

[Magnus]

Snyggt jobbat och välkommen hit

[Erik]

Looks awesome!

[Erik]

Looks awesome!

[mrTyko]

Nice progress

Robert

[mrTyko]

Nice progress

Robert