Morning all,
you may have seen in the Latest Acquisitions thread that both myself and John Race purchased one of these dinky little Russian tanks
John is already well on with his build
I am a serial starter and couldn't help but start cleaning up a few parts :hugging-face:
It is such a small tank it is like building a 1:72 kit
all nicely packed inside a stout box that is actually the right size for the contents for a change
A couple of sprues are even contained in a bubblewrap bag
Nicely moulded in hard tan plastic that is much better to work with than the soft stuff used by Miniart
basic tub assembled and suspension started - looks like a skip with wheels
looking at the reference pictures showed that HB have simplified the suspension slightly, no doubt to make moulding easier
I have managed to photograph it from such an angle that you can't see the mods but basically I trimmed a little plastic off the sides of the suspension units and then carved out a notch on each side at the base of the central part
rear plate installed - needed a little trimming to get a flush fit
a few other parts cleaned up and the idlers assembled
each half of the idlers has three release pin marks on the inside faces so these were filled and sanded prior to assembly as they can be seen from the side
the track guards are commendably thin mouldings however they do not feature the return lip on the edges so these will be replaced with pewter as usual
you may have seen in the Latest Acquisitions thread that both myself and John Race purchased one of these dinky little Russian tanks
John is already well on with his build
I am a serial starter and couldn't help but start cleaning up a few parts :hugging-face:
It is such a small tank it is like building a 1:72 kit
all nicely packed inside a stout box that is actually the right size for the contents for a change
A couple of sprues are even contained in a bubblewrap bag
Nicely moulded in hard tan plastic that is much better to work with than the soft stuff used by Miniart
basic tub assembled and suspension started - looks like a skip with wheels
looking at the reference pictures showed that HB have simplified the suspension slightly, no doubt to make moulding easier
I have managed to photograph it from such an angle that you can't see the mods but basically I trimmed a little plastic off the sides of the suspension units and then carved out a notch on each side at the base of the central part
rear plate installed - needed a little trimming to get a flush fit
a few other parts cleaned up and the idlers assembled
each half of the idlers has three release pin marks on the inside faces so these were filled and sanded prior to assembly as they can be seen from the side
the track guards are commendably thin mouldings however they do not feature the return lip on the edges so these will be replaced with pewter as usual
.
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