Philipp Gross takes a look at a very useful little aftermarket set from Korea…
DEF Model is a relatively new manufacturer of Aftermarket goods from South Korea. As such they have focused their efforts on Academy models, up to the point of directly cooperating with Academy in recent times and having some their upgrade sets included with Academy. DEF Model provides basic photoetch, but often enough this is paired with resin and metal parts to give the modeller a complete upgrade package for their kit.
No exception is set, which is desinged for both Academy’s and ICM/Revell’s recent T-34/76 kits. The Academy kit was reviewed here recently: LINK
Everything comes safely packed in several layers of resealable plastic bags, reinforced with cardboard sheets. You see on first glance what you get.
The set contains four etched brass sheets, a turned aluminium barrel, a clear resin headlight lens and a block of grey resin with 12 hexagonal nuts and 12 bolts. Also included are three pieces of 0.5 mm brass wire, each 11 cm in lenght. A very interesting inclusion is the etched painting mask for the roadwheels, something I’ve never seen before in any photoetch set.
The metal barrel has a hollowed out muzzle with very fine rifling, almost impossible to see with the naked eye. The instructions say it will fit both Academy and Dragon kits without modification, for ICM kits you are required to add a short piece of the kit’s plastic barrel to bring it up to lenght.
The etched grills too have excellent detail, with multi-level etching done to replicate the mesh laying over the metal framework. For the ICM kit there is also the entire rear cover included, though depending on your skills it might be easier to just cut open the plastic kit part.
The resin nuts and bolts:
The instructions are a single A4 sheet, printed in colour on both sides. It should be more than sufficient to explain the use of all parts for the average modeller.
Lastly, the most important thing 
Conclusion:
Indeed there is everything you need to greatly improve your T-34/76 Model 1943. The overall parts quality is exceptionally good. Things like the clear resin headlight lens and roadwheel paint mask are extraordinarilyy useful and have rarely been seen before, let alone included in a general upgrade set. The parts should fit to all available kits with little to no modification and with a retail price around 10 Euros it provides excellent value for money. At this point I really can’t find anything negative to say about this. I’m fairly sure I’ll get a few more of these for my future T-34 builds and I hope DEF will continue to expand their range with more similar sets for other tanks.
This aftermarket set was purchased privately. A full build will commence along with the Academy T-34 as soon as time permits.