Tamiya ~ T34/76 Model 1941 (Cast Turret) 1/48

[Jamie Tainton]

[Jamie Tainton]

The green is Vallejo Russian Green

[Roy Schlicht]

Great job so far Jamie. I built the KV-1 a couple of years ago and except for the tracks it was a very easy trouble free build. But I'll be damned if I couldn't get those damn tracks to fit so I went and bought some Friuls for it but wouldn't you know it I got the wrong ones (I bought the lite weight type when I wanted the early type). I still haven't bought the proper ones yet. I have several of these Tamiya 1/48 scale kits (including this one) manily for the box art. The box art on their 48 scale line is fantastic.

Roy

[Jamie Tainton]

Yes the box art is very nice, I wonder how long they have to do it? I seem to remember this kit was bought to try and photograph for a painting for Dragon, but proved too small.
Anyway, made some more progress, Need to get the tracks started up, and there is a bit of seam and sprue attachment point clean up. There were some pretty prominent and obvious pin marks that I filled with Automotive glazing putty thinned with Testors, glue. This was dropped in place with a Tamiya glue cap brush as they are more precise than the Testors broom!


I decided to use the same mixture as a base for some mud on the lower sidewalls, front and rear of the hull.






The link and length style works pretty well but I could have used more clear indication as to which end is which.




The putty "mud"


I assembled the parts on the desktop flat, allowed the glue to set someway then threaded the tracks into place securing them with cut pieces ofthe expandable ear plugs that I use for this purpose.


Yeah!

[John Mohnen]

Looking good Jamie, like the mud effects. will follow with interest.

[Tim Coulson]

Looking good Jamie.

[Paul Truesdale]

Looking good....

Interesting here to me is it looks like they carried over their engineering from the 1/35th kits, warts and all..... Good work on the rear screen.

Still it looks like a T-34 so I'm not really criticizing your good work...just funny they would do that. Why is one wheel on the right side in black primer and another missing the center hub?

BTW, was the idler adjustable at all? Anyway of adjusting the tracks? Just curious...

Paul (those are some ugly pin marks in those tracks)...

[Roy Schlicht]

[Jamie Tainton]

What I found with my build is that the front idler does have the opportunity to pivot because they are held in ace with the black retaining plugs, so I was able to move the wheel forward and back. Now this is redundan because the kt has link and length tracks so you really only have one option. But there is a bit of a Problem. Tamiya has unfortunately chosen that the front idler ends up at the extreme read of its swing arc, almost touching the first road wheel. Most photos show this forward of this position. There are threads on the net that talk about this, which I found too late as I have expoxied my wheels in place. And in a position that won't allow the track is to close up! So now this build w delayed to finish cause I may have to buy some aftemarket tracks. Plus I managed to knock it off the counter Onton my kitchen tile floor, which caused damage to the front mud flaps I spent so much time on

[Roy Schlicht]

What is it doing on the kitchen counter? That sucks though. Hopefully it is all good.

Roy