The first atep was to build the entire lower hull of the Academy kit. The interior parts of the Italeiri kit were tehn glued in place. Tracks were left off at this point to ease painting.

The next step was the mating of the Tamiya upper hull to the Academy lower hull. this worked out almost perfectly except for some small gaps sides of the transmission housing. these were filled using plastic strip. the acaemy M51 engine deck fit in with a few minor adjustments. The basic hull now complete I moved on to equipment and brackets that cover the M32. These included a welding bottle and mount as well as new boom adapter plates, new fenders and many misc. things that I had no Idea of their usage.

With the hull and running gear out of the way, it was time to work on the boom. First I removed all the plastic steps and replaced them with copper wire. A new lifting arm plate and frame was built as i felt the kit part wasn't all that accurate. Two reinforcing strips were added, one to each boom made out of plastic strip.

The next step in process was the turret. Here I replaced the MG ring with plastic strip and added spme tie downs as well as a mount for some small mortar. Two hatches were added in the fron and rear for the cable. The rear one is left out of the Italeiri kit. Based on some photos I recieved some fittings were added to the interior of the turret . Last was the four smoke launchers placed at the front and rear of the turret.Parts were used from all three kits t o complete the model .

This is basically all I can remember although I'm sure I've left out some items. But if you use the references above you shouldn't have much trouble recreating an accurate IDF M32.

Thanks to Jan-Willem de Boer for the english Translation and the IDF Armour Group with their help in researching the project For more photos of this and my other projects check out my site at.......

.http://home.wanadoo.nl/ronkok/

Ronald kok

The Netherlands