Tamiya T-62 in 1/35 or is it 1/32?

[Engineer66]

Morning Folks,

Saw this in the LMS the other day for £15 and thought it would do as a test bed for my weathering skills before I unleashed them on the more 'expensive' builds.

. After a bit of rooting around on the interweb it turns out that the hull is the wrong shape! Apparently there should be a 4 degree slope downwards on the top of the engine deck, and also the rear panel is vertical when it should also have a 4 degree rake on it. The turret is too shallow and has a rather strange undercut under the mantlet. The plan is to address all these issues without resorting to buying replacement parts and without using any aftermarket to add details in order to keep the cost down.

Can I correct and improve it? Only time will tell..

Here's the upper hull before I attack it with various sharp and pointy things...

More later...

Thanks for looking

Al

[Dads203]

Hi Al ,

It's a really early Tamiya kit and scaled to house the small electric motor, not very accurate at all but I have seen

A few done to very high standards. I think it's scales out to 1/30th ish, as you have said its a good kit to use for practice.

Dan

[Engineer66]

I agree Dan, it’s closer to 1/32 than 1/35 but it will be fine for me to have an experiment with. Although saying that my natural tendency is not to practice, but to dive in at the deep end and see if I can swim!

The first issue to attend to was the flat rear deck. The engine deck on the full size slopes downwards towards the rear by 4 degrees starting just behind the turret. (I believe that the hull is too long overall, but I'm not too bothered about that Its too big a job to fix). The photo below (From a walk around on Dishmodels.ru) shows the slope on the deck, if you compare it to the height of the fuel cans you can see the pronounced slope. (Apparently Tamiya tooled their kit from some grainy spy photo's and didn't spot the slope)

After some careful measuring and planning I also guessed that the hull was not deep enough as if the deck was given the right amount of slope then it would end up too low at the rear end. The way to fix this was to raise the main deck under the turret by 1.5mm and lower the back end by 2mm with the taper starting just in front of the panel hinges behind the turret. As well as giving me the required angle to the deck it will also give me the opportunity to deepen the two 'cheeks' either side of the hull below the turret which look a little shallow as well.

So out came the Tamiya scriber and working from the inside the whole of the top section was removed and was then split it into two parts.

I then made up a pair of false sides to go inside what was left of the original sides level with the bottom of the fenders to ensure both sides were the same height. After these had stuck I then cut down the rear sides to match the slope of the new sides. I also took the opportunity to remove some of the moulded on detail including the fender supports which will be replaced with thinner material later, and also the shovel.

The two top deck pieces were then glued back on top of the false sides with a bit of angle and square section inside to strengthen the joints and the resulting gaps filled with plastic strip and Liquid Greenstuff.

In the photo below you can see that the top of the exhaust duct is now no longer parallel to the top of the engine deck, as per the next photo.

(Photo from walk around on Dishmodels.ru)

Now it’s a case of let the sandathon commence!

Thanks for looking

Al

[Engineer66]

Thought it was about time i posted an update on this one.

 

I pulled it back off the shelf of doom and (sort of) dusted it off and did a bit more work on it.

 

I have been busy, but forgot to take photos of progress, so here are some pics or where I am at with it now, just about ready for primer.

 

After carving up and rebuilding the hull I then found out i needed to change the shape of the 'cheeks' or the bits below the turret, I'm not sure of the proper name, but here's one after building up with strip...

 

 

I then built it up with Greenstuff and sanded to shape. I did take a 'finished' photo, but can't seem to find it anywhere.

 

The other major change was to the turret shape, the Tamiya turret has a strange undercut to the front, where it should drop almost vertical, (allowing for the curve of the turret) and it is also about 2mm too shallow.

To fix this I cut the upward sloping front of the turret base off and replaced it with a piece of plasticard cut to shape, then added a ring of strip to the bottom edge of the turret before joining the two together, then it was a case of building the front up to the correct profile with scrap and smoothing it all in with more Greenstuff.

 

Again I don't have any 'in progress' pics, but here's a couple of 'after' pics, after adding the cast texture with Mr Surfacer and some added home made details....

 

 

 

 

Whilst all this was setting and in between applications of Greenstuff I set too on sorting out the rear deck, a new grille was made for the left hand side and extra bits of strapping and bolts (from Grandt Line) etc were added. There are still a couple of bits of angle to fit. The new grill looks curved as it's not glued down yet...

 

 

 

Whilst working on the rear end I decided to replace the fuel drum holders as they looked somewhat crude, strapping will be added to the drums in due course.

 

I also didn't want to fit the Tamiya un-ditching beam as I'm hopeless at painting tree trunks so ended up scratch building the empty mounting brackets instead...

 

 

 

Work then moved forward onto the fuel cans mounted on the track guards, again I decided to add those detail's Tamiya omitted, I added the fastening brackets using strip and Grandt Line bolt heads and fuel lines from copper beading wire picked up from Hobbycraft with small slices of wire insulation for the rubber connectors...

 

 

 

 

Here's a general view of the front end of the hull showing the new vision blocks/periscopes as the originals were removed when changing the shape of the hull....

 

 

 

The last thing I spent time on was the DSHK heavy machine gun.

 

Rather than spend an age trying to clean up the Tamiya molding I spent an age scratching the barrel and details instead!

I know it is possible to buy a replacement barrel etc. from RB Model but where's the fun in that, and I also want to try and not use aftermarket on this build, just to see what I can do.

 

The Main Gun Barrel may end up being aftermarket though, it depends on what I can come up with...

 

 

 

I know that all of this work is not totally accurate, but the model was intended as a test bed to try my painting and weathering skills and has ended up evolving into a test bed for my 'bashing' and 'scratching' skills as well!

 

Well that's it for now, next update will be after paint has been applied, and if progress continues at the same speed it will probably be next March!

 

Thanks for looking

 

Al

 

 

 

 

 

[Dads203]

Nice work on a dog of a kit that really doesn't know what scale it really is  

 

I did read that It was about 1/33rd scale, done that way to fit the electric motor and batteries.

 

Dan

[Etienne]

5 hours ago, Engineer66 said:

I know that all of this work is not totally accurate, but the model was intended as a test bed to try my painting and weathering skills and has ended up evolving into a test bed for my 'bashing' and 'scratching' skills as well!

 

Hi,

 

I don't know about your painting and weathering skills ... but now I know that scratchbuilding has no secret for you 

 

E

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Cool project.....Superb scratchbuilding! 

[Engineer66]

Dan, Etienne, Sarge,

 

thanks for the comments, I must admit I did have a bit if a smug moment when I sat back and looked at the finished MG 

 

i haven't worked out the scale but I read somewhere it's about 1/33 ish!

 

There's one or two things left to do before primer, I need to make the mountings for the snorkel tube as I forgot about them earlier. The tool clamps for the shovel need making, and the hinges and bits of angle on the rear deck.

 

al

[Dads203]

That is some very nice work fella and I reckon the finished build is going to 

be a real head turner

 

Dan 

[Engineer66]

Thanks Dan,

 

Scratching details ain't too much of a chore, I actually enjoy that bit the most. It's the painting and weathering that I'm afraid of. I can get a decent single colour finish, but when it comes to modulation, that's something I've never done before. And as for subtle and effective weathering I haven't a clue where to start!

 

it may well turn out to be a head turner, but not in the right way!

[Rob G]

Looking good there!

 

You'll most likely find that it's a 'variable scale' kit, depending on where exactly it is that you measure...  An average may well work out to 1/33. Ish.

 

 

[Engineer66]

Found a couple of pictures of the work I did to reshape and deepen the turret and remove the strange Tamiya undercut at the front whilst I was looking for something else, so thought I'd share them here.

 

 

 

 

 

I've also rebuilt the main gun. When I was sanding it to remove the seam/join between the two halves i discovered I'd managed to sand the fume extractor to an oval shape!

So it was a case of out with the Plastruct tubing and the razor saw...

 

 

 

And I've finally managed to finish the holding straps on the fuel drums...

 

Down side is the tensioners have come out a bit 'wonky'

 

Would they have been perfectly aligned or some what 'skew whif' on the real deal?

 

 

Thanks for looking, feedback welcome as always.

 

Al

 

[AgentG]

Fantastic work!

 

G

[Bullbasket]

I'm a little late in seeing this but It interests me a lot, not least because I'm going to be starting a Tiran5 soon and those fuel packs and their associated piping are much the same. What is the copper wire sold as in Hobbycraft?

Nice build.

 

John.

[The_Lancaster]

Another late comer here! So far so good. I have this kit in the stash and to be fair, it is a right dog so your work is very inspiring for me to maybe consider slugging it out... maybe...

[Engineer66]

 

Sorry I didn't reply earlier but I've had a lot going on at home and have not been able to log on recently.

 

On 07/11/2016 at 4:29 PM, Bullbasket said:

I'm a little late in seeing this but It interests me a lot, not least because I'm going to be starting a Tiran5 soon and those fuel packs and their associated piping are much the same. What is the copper wire sold as in Hobbycraft?

Nice build.

 

John.

 

it's sold as 'beading wire' you can find it in the jewelry making section, I have two types, they still sell the packets but not the reels, which are the ones i prefer. I also have a small stock of electricians solder which works well.

 

This is the stuff I use:

 

 

Thanks for the comments all.

 

Alan

[J.P.]

Outstanding work sir!!!

[Swiftnbold]

I know this is an ancient thread but whatever happened to the build?

I'm building this as my second model and would love to follow the rest of it, I'd like mine to be Syrian Army during the Yom Kippur war.

[J.P.]

Yeah, it was off to a great start, .