Introducing the Legend 1/35 scale Puma. As an older Legend release, it takes a lot of work to produce a nice model! In this pic the (2) piece hull, in grey primer, have bee joined together and seams have been addressed. The cream colored suspension parts have been added as well as brass tube inserts for axles. The road wheels supplied in the kit are under size, so the newer Legend Centurion wheel set was used. The road wheels in the Puma kit were the size of a standard Centurion rim without the tire! Brass tube was inserted for strength, as when completed this will be one heavy model!
As written above, the newer Legend multi-piece Centurion road wheels were used as well as replacement sprocket and idlers from a sacrificed AFV club Centurion. Tracks used will be from the excellent AFV club offering. The simple clean and click together assembly of the track set is nice. Each road wheel is (3) pieces, the grey putty seen in the pic is to smooth out the base of each hub.
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On it's road wheels! First a jig was made to hold the bottom of the model above the desk to measurement of the desired ride ht. Despite my best efforts most of the axles pointed unlevel and firmly below the horizon line, just tacking the wheels on without a jig would have been disastrous...with each wheel pointing the wrong direction! Each wheel had its axle hole reamed out wide to allow the wayward axles to fit inside them even at some of the odd angle I was left with. Wheel fit was sloppy at this point, and that's were the body jig comes in, since the body was level, the wheels could be slid into place broad side. No matter what angle the axles were protruding the wheels would be level and 90 degrees to the hull. Super glue that had been sitting in an open air dish was used to give me a little time to attach each wheel.
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A rear 3/4 showing the suspension on this side. Two notes for the would be Puma builder; it appears most of the suspension parts are direct copies of the Academy Merkava suspension (which the real Puma shares). So warped or spares can be robbed from those kits. The other note is the final drive case, it is very undersized. More on this later, but I should have grafted on the AFV club case to fix this. The modeler will be well served to purchase the new Sabingamartin Puma book, as it has clear drawings (and pictures) of the suspension with the skirts removed.
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Final drive case fix step one. There was no way one could just mount an axle and slip the sprocket on the model as the real centurion drive cover is very beefy. The long, thin, axle would be visible on the finished model. As I take you through this process it will be clear why the fix was needed. Again if I grafted the AFV club transmission the following steps would be be avoided! Brass tube was machined to fit inside the white plastic tube fixed to the AFV club sprocket.
Final drive case fix step two. Using our old friend the jig, we can set the ride height of the sprocket accurately on both sides. Plastic sheet was laminated together to the correct ht. based on photographs. Tamiya tape securely latches the sprocket tight to the block. The old resin axle was ground off in preparation for the new brass axle location.
Final drive fix step three. Using red paint the new location of the brass axle can be located, pretty simple. One may ask why not just pop off the Legend cover at this point and replace but I was concerned about the AFV club part forcing the sprocket out too far. I never had pictures or drawings of the cover until it was too late, so I was forced into these steps and making due with what I had done to this point.
The new axle installed!
Final drive fix four. To conceal the plastic axle and build out the cover, I machined a length of acrylic rod. A cap of styrene allowed me to introduce a rounded edge to end the part, acrylic is hard to shape in this manner. This shot shows the finished part in primer on the left and the unfinished one to the right. Note the finished assembly is bored out to allow the plastic axle to pass through it.
Final drive fix five, the plastic sandwich. Clearly illustrated here is the sandwich of parts needed to finish out the Final drive. Of note is the sheet plastic attached to the Legend part, this is the actual size of the final drive!
Installed at this point too, is the missing extra idler (just ahead of the case), again robbed from the AFV club kit.
Final drive case finished. The shot shows the entire assembly finished, a far cry from what it could have been! The new case will need some putty work and texture in a future step, but is basically finished. Looks much better!
Here is what you get if you do nothing to fix the problem......the thin unrealistic axle is visible without mods to the case, yuk!
The finished final drive as viewed from broad side. Hex bolts, Tamiya putty texture, and a couple of circular access plates finish out the part. This shot also contains some PE work done on the engine cold air inlet ports above the running gear. The large box to left and above the run is a bit under size according to my research, but too complicated to replace.....so I left as is.
Moving to the back of the AFV, I have added a number of parts including the spare track. A tan Tamiya Abrams tow pintel compliments the cream colored legend parts below the tracks. White sheet styrene was used to build out the rear fenders to a depth more like the reference photos I've seen. Extensive work was also completed on the infantry telephone box just below the upper deck to the right. A new light bulb with an "C" shaped rain gutter "eyebrow" was added to the box (lower right hand side) as well as a grab handle and new latch. More of the Final drive texture can be seen in this pic too.
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In this photo the rear left hand side detail is illustrateded. Just visible behind the spare track is an IDF identification plate sourced from the Legend "IDF Tank Accessory Set". Though the tail light shrouds were include as resin parts in the kit, they were out of round and poorly made. New shrouds were machined from brass and glued to the model, one of my favorite parts....they look so good in brass! Bolt detail and brass flanges can also be seen in the First Aid box to the right of the picture. Unfortunately this photo also illustrates another shortcoming in the Legend kit...the left rear fender. The fender is too thick at the rear just above the mud flap when compared to drawings and photos. Again as I caught this late, it will have to do. The styrene mudflap hangs correctly from the ground dimension up, but the extra thick fender makes the flap look to small when compared to photos.
Another low angle shot, much more to do!
