ICM T-34/76

[Greg Beckman]

The kit does have it's challenges, but you are doing the best that the kit will allow. Chopped up fender looks good.

[Philipp Gross]

Thanks Greg! It's quick and easy, and that's about all I could possibly ask from this kit right now.

I'd like to damage the fenders more, but as I wrote it's a bit difficult. We'll see if I can work up the courage to start chopping it up some more

Please don't hesitate to tell me if I (or ICM) made any serious mistakes, it's not too late to fix them now

Philipp

[Dave Rowe]

That looks good Philipp. The kit seems quite nicely detailed.

[Philipp Gross]

Thank you Dave! It definitely needs new tracks and a little bit of etch, but otherwise it's extremely well made.

That being said, until tracks and etch arrive (hopefully tomorrow), I'm done here:



I added a little more damage to the fenders to break up the perfect straightness. These are still a little too proper for a T-34 with 2-3 years of service behind it, but I don't want to overdo it either.

Philipp

[Greg Beckman]

Beat up fenders are looking good. The only thing I would recommend, but might be too late is to replace the hull MG bulge with a DML item if you have one as the kit one is way undersized. I'd add a weld bead on the front hull where meeting the rounded part. The vision slits on the turret as molded are not too nice, but looks like your working on that as I see putty in the pics. Never the less, great effort.

[Philipp Gross]

Thanks for the feedback Greg! Regrettably I don't have any T-34 spares. Weld seam sounds good, I'll add one. As for the vision slits, I tried to blend them in with the turret casting. Thankfully I'm used to that from various US tanks

Philipp

[Philipp Gross]

Yeah....about that "quick and easy" thing...

The photoetch and tracks did arrive today. Turns out the etched frame that goes on top of the mesh didn't really like to be annealed and basically burned up before my eyes. Since I'm slightly more comfortable working with plastic, I went to work and got this:


Hard to belive, but the holes are supposed to be battle damage and not the result of my own clumsiness

A question to those more knowledgeable: It seems like the hole for the rear light is supposed to be there even though the light as seen on earlier T-34s is not there?

And while I was at it, some etched tiedown loops to replace the thick plastic ones I had cut off long ago:


Next: Tracks!

Philipp

[Greg Beckman]

The brass looks great.....I've seen a lot of T-34 grating and most of it was dented and torn some.

[Rob Matthews]

Philipp - that was speedy work but great going. It looks visually a really nice piece. Love the bent fenders and damaged grill - hits the spot.

A tip that I have tried for bending fenders as well as with a pliers is to use a lit joss-stick to apply very gentle heat to the plastic

Shame about the gaps but well within modelling tolerance (Mood tolerance )
I'm intrigued as to the base

Keep it coming - the site is soon going to have to be renamed Plastic Soviet Armour

Rob

[Shawn Ramsey]

Well that was fast.

What are you going to do about the tracks??

As Rob stated can't wait to see what you have planned for a base.

Shawn