Ron NL-S

That turned out superb! During the process I feared it might look like a car with flying thingies stuck to it, but it came around looking like a prototype indeed.

Quite colourful! I like the extra's like the boot. But where's the other??

Did a T-62 recently by using nailpolish on the turret to soften up the plastic, tapped it with an old toothbrush and when dry and hardened sanded off the excess. Looked good to me after painting it.

I was wondering if any has this book and could tell me if it is worth purchasing? I am a complete novice when it comes to airplanes (really that different from armour in 1/35?) and I have acquired some in 1/48. This book appears to be rather dated. It is also stated that this is volume 7.... 7 in a series on planes or 7 in a series on the whole spectrum of building?

Nicely done! Cleanly built. The camouflage looks really good. I mentioned this with another modeler, showing his vehicle, before; Pay attention to the molding seams. There are some around the antenna, the fire extinguisher (which you thankfully did not paint red!) and the toolbox front left. This tends to catch the eye, especially if one starts weathering the vehicle. A dab of paint on the retaining straps of the fuel cans on the front and said fire extinguisher would really finish the vehicle off. I tend to forget these sort of details too, until I look at pictures I post.

Neat little tank, that's on my list to do, too. Colours came out just like in the Tamiya catalogue. 45 years old? Really? A tip for improvement; look at the casting seams, like the inside of the turret hatches, along the wheels and the figures' heads, ears and shoulders (typically Tamiya). Removing those will lift the endproduct significantly.

Having recently done a few of those, I think modellers today have become overly critical, spoiled and too demanding (entitled). I think raising such a poor kit to an acceptable level is what the hobby is all about, instead of inch-to-mm whining (modern equivalent of rivet counting). On the other hand, looking at kit prices today, a fair level of delivering what is promised, should be a manufacturers goal as well. I chose to go for cheap kits and lower my demands and expectations.

I never knew they had an armoured sleeve over the gunbarrel. Can you or anyone else tell me why this was done?

I always figured that parts were painted before assembly. especially early on when there was both time and materials to do so.

Question; why are the wheels red in between?

Woah! This one is unreal! That pattern.... and the mud... the details.... Superb! Just 2 things.... the rubber on the spare wheel? And the inside of the barrel? They seem to have been forgotten?

Thanks! yes, a dab of paint and a wisp of dust can make a difference.

Thank you!

I present to you Trumpeter's less than accurate and easy T-54A, made to represent a North Vietnamese Army T-54B as seen during the Easter Offensive 1972 in the An Loc vicinity. The whole process can be read about here: NVA T-54B An Loc 1972

And all of a sudden...... it was done. After a decade this was is finished too. It certainly was no easy build and Trumpeter hopefully has improved on their models since the 1990's, when the basis for this one was originally released. Fit was not always good and the instructions very confusing and incomplete. Dimensions and details far from accurate in places, but in the end it looks like a T-54.... to a good extent. The main colour is Tamiya XF-81 Dark green, which is a considerably lighter and more greener dark green than the XF-61 Dark green. I chose a lighter version because of the more extensive weathering this kit was going to have. That weathering consisted of a neutral grey wash by Mig, followed by the dark variety, topped of with the brown one around and on the running gear. Wrestling the tracks meant reglueing on a number of occasions and liberal amount of superglue had to be used to keep the tracks in place. As long as I do not touch them, they remain there. The tracks were painted natural steel in the places the metal gets worn, followed by the afore mentioned washes after which I added some "rust" powder, which looks almost bordeaux red. The final touch was drybrushing again with natural steel. I then covered the entire lower half with a ground down reddish brown pastel, using more of it the further I went toward the rear. Some very light dusting was done the higher up the tank I came. Some touch ups have to be done as the pictures made evident. The headlights need paint, the antenna mounting, the base of the main gun and I will remove the spare track on the turret. Doesn't look right. Some weathering around the turret DShK is needed too. All in all I am quite pleased with how it turned out after all.

The final part of the construction was the turret. A fairly basic enterprise really, but!! It got an extra; a turned aluminium barrel. I had ordered that a decade ago and now it final made it to its destined position. It is the first time I used such a barrel and I found out that paint sprayed on easily chips off. Like I said before NVA tanks look quite bare, so I wanted to add some more visual interesting things, so some tarpaulin rolls and the extra MG ammoboxes are added. I used putty on top of the rolls in order to make them fit the grab rails and well onto the turret side. I had to carve the back of those rolls quite considerably. The coaxial machinegun was actually nothing more than a small pip of plastic, so I manufactured a new one. Drilled out the port in one go as well. You can again see quite a bit of filler, but I am liking the white one less and less. It shrinks considerably when drying. The trick with adjusting vinyl tracks; cut the shape of the link, so you get more attaching surface when superglueing them. You'll need that! The part to the upper left is what was meant to go on top of the left mudguard as spare links. I replaced that with the bit of vinyl on the top right. I think it is clear why...

Ohh I am loving this!! If I had display space I'd dabble into projects like this too.

What? No chipping? No washes?? No weathering at all??? Love it! A nice and colourful tough in this otherwise so "drab" forum.

And how things are looking at this moment: Sprocket and idler are from the T-62A project, which still means an enhancement to Trumpeter's kit. For my build I am focusing on the battle of An Loc, but from what I have read it does not really matter for the T-54. They all appear to share the same characteristics; they are pretty bare, lacking many parts such as mudguards and external fuel drums. Actually I could not find any pictures of T-54's or 55's in action that had them. Some did retain the carriers for them and I added them too, even if out of aesthetic aspects. I also added one mudguard, for the same reason. I did however leave of the shovel and pickaxe. They look horrible and I figured that tanks this disheveled and campaign worn most likely would have lost them anyway. This time I did add the fuel lines around the fuel tanks, but doing that showed that the dimensions of the tanks and their placement seems faulty, especially near the turret ring. No matter. Now there is something instead of nothing. Made out of telephone wire by the way, with the insulation being the connectors. The tow cables is made from the cotton string that came with the kit. I tried making my own by twisting copperwire, but even a 4 strand cable was way to thin. So the cotton strand it was and I made it more rigid by applying glue to it and shaping it over the tank, letting it sit to harden. The kit comes with a myriad of extra, unneeded parts, which I assume would be used in other versions like indeed a B or T-55's. Among them were parts for 3 ammunition boxes, spread out over the sprues. You can guess the fit of these 4-part each boxes by the amount of filler needed. I assembled all the other stowage- and toolboxes too. Reduces parts on the table and I get an idea what to use them for later. Many of the more delicate parts had ridiculously thick attachments, which made the risk breaking those parts a real thing.... .. and what are these supposed to look like??? The wheels in various stages or wear and tear. Way at the beginning I thought it would be cool looking to show a wheel with the rubber band worn off and I added one of the original wheels to make the other side a bit more interesting too. I have photos actually showing the use of A-wheels on B-vehicles. Logistics, I suppose. The vinyl hubcaps are horrible to clean up! Lots of flash on them (arrows).

I made the questionable decision to resurrect another 10 year old project. This time it is Trumpeter's T-54A which was/is meant to become a North VietnameseT-54B. What I did in 2010: august 29, 2010 Here I am again, on vacation in Sweden, with weather not that good and as it has become a tradition of mine to do some building and show it off. This time I went for something completely different. Instead of the usual halftrack, I went for a T-54! Yes, you read it correctly.... I went of my usual path and I am being "punished" for it. I am building Trumpeter's T-54A and it doesn't live up to the expectations I had from a Trumpeterkit. More of that later. First the backgrounds. I want to build this T-54A as an upgraded version, as used by the Vietnam NVA-tank during the Easteroffensive, which means a barrel with fume-extractor and different runningwheels. The barrel in the kit is quite useless, so a metal part will be added and the later style wheels were giving to me by a fellowmodeller at Twenot. The kit rubberbandtracks are even worse than the barrel, so they were exchanged for Tamiya rubberband tracks. These, however, do not fit on the Trumpeter idlers, so these need to be replaced, too. The same goes for the DshK, which has a distant resemblance to the real thing, so that must be changed.... Here are some pictures I made, so far; The tracks, with the problem being evident: The fit of the hull was bad and there were plenty of gaps to be filled up. I used stretched sprue and evergreen, softened up with glue and, once fully cured, sanded down. NVA tanks look quite beaten up and used in the pictures, so I wanted to have worn wheels for this vehicle. I sanded them all down, because they had these strange ribs on them. I cut out pieces here and there, made curved edges and with one wheel I removed the rubber band completely:

Cool! Not an everyday, run of the mill pattern you have there. The snow tops it off nicely. But what is the red on top? Areal recognition?

I consider this one to be done! On the following pictures a number a small issues was shown, so I had to fix those. Replace the broken antenna, paint the "glass" of the optics etc. I had also forgotten all about the fuel hoses between the external tanks, even though they are quite prominent, until it was too late to add them. Finding good references photo's for details of contemporary vehicles proved difficult, but in case of those hoses, one could easily copy those from a T-55 for instance. The white markings had to look as it they were handpainted by the crew and I always find it challenging to do that convincingly. With this one I am rather pleased by the result and I used Tamiya's XF-2 straight out of the jar. Painted some small runners on the front too. I toned the white down with a neutral grey wash, making it look a little grimy. I suppose Soviet tanks always were... I must admit that I did not give this kit the attention it should have gotten. There are a number of places where I should have sanded a bit better, remove some flash, work a little more precise and such. But I guess I got biased by reading reports and statements online, when I researched the kit. It was stated that it was such a horrible kit, nothing was right so I ended up cutting corners. I really shouldn't have... It was really not all that bad! The main flaw I discovered was the wrong rear end. The mudguards are too long and straight. They should follow the curving of the track. The engine deck is very long too, but neither of these issues hampers the fun of building the tank. All in all I enjoyed my first "Russian heavy metal"! And I also learned a lot more about events behind the "Iron Curtain". More to follow.... Thanks for looking!

Splendid! Love the colours and composition. Can you push down the top threads of the wool, so it doesn't look like hair anymore?

I did not like the outcome of the turret, so I redid that one. Off into a bag of oven cleaner it went. The decals took some scrubbing though. References show all sorts of white markings. There appears to have been no real uniformity in either applying them, their location or their form. I have seen all from T-shaped to crucifix-formed with straight and angled arms. Even running all the way down the backside of the tank over unditching beam and fuel drums. All sorts of unit numbers too; simple, with or without a small divisional symbol, with additional numbers in either squares or near-circels. The decals I used, once again from Trumpeter's T-54A kit, were so stiff and unpliable that I cut them up in order to make them take the shape of the turret better and diminish the creasing. I doused them in Microsol first, dabbed, tapped and pushed them down and finally used Microset. But you still see the creases, especially along the top edge. Another problem occurred when I sealed the decals with the matt clear paint; the entire surface became considerably darker! So I had to redo the whole tank, making it much darker then I had initially planned for. The rather sparse stowage comes from the sparesbox. It lacked more suitable stowage. Just out of nostalgia I used only this Tamiya set for the weathering. Tracks were drybrushed using Vallejo's "natural steel", gave it a wash with dark grey, followed by a darkbrown wash and topped of with the brown from the weathering set along the outer edges. Unfortunately the vinyl tracks were twisted and bent, making it impossible to get them to fit properly. The tracks actually are made up of one set of Tamiya T-55 tracks, combined and cut to length. The supplied kit tracks are too short and as a result will sit too tight, losing the typical sag of the real thing. Weathering in general is kept minimal. Looking at pictures of the event itself all tanks look remarkably clean. None of them had come a long way during the invasion, so I suspect they had been standing at the ready just across the borders.

This build surely isn't the hardest one, but it isn't the easiest either. The kit has its number of pitfalls, but all in all goes together rather quickly. However for my endgoal I needed to address some things and make some changes. First of all the wheels. I replaced those with a set from Tamiya's T-55 as I wrote earlier, but the main issue is that the wheels do not fit the shock absorbers! Or more precisely the polycap wheel hubs do not. So I had to shorten the axles, meaning the wheels had to be glued in place permanently. Which meant leaving off the hull for easy of painting. I would have to anyway if I were to have any chance of fixing the vinyl tracks later on, since these have to be made to fit and glued in place too. Several of the reference pictures show T-62's in a rather dark shade of green, so I tried Tamiya's XF-61 Dark Green.... which turned out quite dark indeed! But I sort of like it for representing a relatively new vehicle, so I'll run with that. Another detail is the deep wading equipment. Tamiya provides a short one to be attached to the rear of the turret, but pictures show a long one attached to the rear of the vehicle, often on top of the extra fueldrums. I had a tube in just the right diameter, so made a new one. Added additional drum fastenings as well.