T-55 to Tiran 4.

[diablo rsv]

Nice work John, you made that seem a lot easier than I imagine it was.

Wayne

[Mike]

Nice bit of scratching there John - We've just got a 1:35 scale Tiran 4 with a dozer to review from Miniart via Creative.  The difference in scale should hopefully be enough to stop you from gnashing your teeth

[Bullbasket]

15 hours ago, diablo rsv said:

Nice work John, you made that seem a lot easier than I imagine it was.

Wayne

Thanks Wayne. It actually wasn't too difficult. It just involved some VERY careful work with a very sharp blade.

 

John.

[Ernst]

This whole thread reads like a tutorial. That spare track is gold. I can imagine it's very rewarding to really personalize a kit.

Ernst.

[Jasper dog]

Tremendous scratch work going on John, just been having a catch up. It is actually quite enjoyable isn't it, even if you do make it look too easy...

Attention to detail is really first rate, particularly liked the heat shield over the exhaust. 

 

Nice work 

Darryl

 

 

[Jim Wasley]

This one is another great build John,Detail Detail every where,may send you my little people to paint their eyes,All this fine detailing on a 1/48,A true credit to you.

Cheers Jim. 

[Bullbasket]

17 hours ago, Mike said:

Nice bit of scratching there John - We've just got a 1:35 scale Tiran 4 with a dozer to review from Miniart via Creative.  The difference in scale should hopefully be enough to stop you from gnashing your teeth

Thanks for the comments Mike. Oh, Miniart's Tirans can make me gnash my teeth. They produce kits the same way that Mozart wrote music.........why use one part when ten will do!!

 

John.

[PlaStix]

Hi John. I hope you and yours are well. Well.....where to start? The first thing I had to do was check you were actually working in 1/48 still - because the level of additional detailing you are putting into place, looks like what talented modellers would struggle to add in 1/35! Your attention to all the small details, especially in this scale, takes your model building to the next level......in fact several levels beyond that even! I'm going to leave my recently acquired 1/48 T-55 in it's box for a while! Awesome modelling as always!

Kind regards,

Stix

[Mike]

33 minutes ago, Bullbasket said:

Thanks for the comments Mike. Oh, Miniart's Tirans can make me gnash my teeth. They produce kits the same way that Mozart wrote music.........why use one part when ten will do!!

 

John.

Trueish.  They're slightly hobbled by the size of their moulding machines, but they also like to squeeze every variant out of each base mould (which you can't blame them for).  plus - one man's "over-engineered" is another man's heaven

[Bullbasket]

1 hour ago, Mike said:

Trueish.  They're slightly hobbled by the size of their moulding machines, but they also like to squeeze every variant out of each base mould (which you can't blame them for).  plus - one man's "over-engineered" is another man's heaven

Yes, I agree. I'm not knocking them as I think that they are good kits. I've got one of their Tiran 4s in the stash. When I am after one of their kits, I go for the ones without the interior, as to me, that's a lot of work on something that probably won't be seen. Plus the difference in price!

 

John.

[ScanmanDan]

Great looking progress John.  Keep it coming, she going to look superb. Such a neat subject for a conversion. 

I'd love of Miniart were to do some 1/48 scale stuff but fear they try a full interior and cost a fortune.  Some of their figs and diorama sets in 1/48 would be ace though.

[FrancisGL]

As they have commented above, a sensational work with the modified parts, very difficult to achieve.
Nice job.
Cheers and TC

Francis 👍

[Bullbasket]

7 hours ago, Ernst said:

This whole thread reads like a tutorial. That spare track is gold. I can imagine it's very rewarding to really personalize a kit.

Ernst.

Many thanks Ernst. Yes, I was quite pleased with it in the end, but couldn't face making a second.

7 hours ago, Jasper dog said:

Tremendous scratch work going on John, just been having a catch up. It is actually quite enjoyable isn't it, even if you do make it look too easy...

Attention to detail is really first rate, particularly liked the heat shield over the exhaust. 

 

Nice work 

Darryl

 

 

Thanks a lot Darryl. The heat shield is definitely something that the AM people could come up with a replacement for.

 

Thank both,

John.

[Bullbasket]

9 hours ago, Jim Wasley said:

This one is another great build John,Detail Detail every where,may send you my little people to paint their eyes,All this fine detailing on a 1/48,A true credit to you.

Cheers Jim. 

Appreciate the comments Jim. Thanks. EYES!!! The bit that I hate. I have trouble with 1/35th eyes, now I've got to do some in 1/48th. Ivan comes with the kit, but I've got to try and turn him into Moyshe. Oy vez!!

7 hours ago, PlaStix said:

Hi John. I hope you and yours are well. Well.....where to start? The first thing I had to do was check you were actually working in 1/48 still - because the level of additional detailing you are putting into place, looks like what talented modellers would struggle to add in 1/35! Your attention to all the small details, especially in this scale, takes your model building to the next level......in fact several levels beyond that even! I'm going to leave my recently acquired 1/48 T-55 in it's box for a while! Awesome modelling as always!

Kind regards,

Stix

Hi Stix. I'm very well, thanks for asking, and I hope that you and yours are in the rudest of health also. And thanks for the comments. Your very kind. I've been building this one now for a month, and I haven't enjoyed a project as much as this for a long time. It's something that I can really get my teeth into. Having a great base kit helps enormously though. I expect that this won't be the last one that I shall build.

ATB,

 

John.

[Bullbasket]

20 hours ago, ScanmanDan said:

Great looking progress John.  Keep it coming, she going to look superb. Such a neat subject for a conversion. 

I'd love of Miniart were to do some 1/48 scale stuff but fear they try a full interior and cost a fortune.  Some of their figs and diorama sets in 1/48 would be ace though.

Thanks Dan. I definitely think that this won't be the last Tamiya T55 that I'll build. 

20 hours ago, FrancisGL said:

As they have commented above, a sensational work with the modified parts, very difficult to achieve.
Nice job.
Cheers and TC

Francis 👍

Thanks Francis for the comments. I appreciate it.

 

John.

[Dads203]

Exceptional work again John, this is really starting to come together and the details you are adding are really chuffin good mate 

[Andy Moore]

Just catching up on this one John. Some amazing scratch work all round, although the T-54 engine deck is especially nice. That should make a great focal point on the finished build.

 

Andy

[Bullbasket]

12 hours ago, Dads203 said:

Exceptional work again John, this is really starting to come together and the details you are adding are really chuffin good mate 

 

7 minutes ago, Andy Moore said:

Just catching up on this one John. Some amazing scratch work all round, although the T-54 engine deck is especially nice. That should make a great focal point on the finished build.

 

Andy

Thanks Dan,. Thanks Andy. I appreciate the comments that you've both made. It's getting near to being complete now. Just a couple of jobs to finish and then it's on to the painting. Decals might take a while as I'm waiting on those coming from Peddinghaus. I'll put an update on later today.

 

John.

[Bullbasket]

Getting near to the end of the build now.

A bit of detail to the mantlet dust cover. Seven retaining bolts down each side, a lump in the middle which is supposed to represent the lifting loop, under the dust cover, and three rods with bolts on the end. This is where I believe a .50 cal. MG was mounted.

Indentations for the ammo canisters for the MG on the RHS of the turret filled with Milliput, along with the holes for the piece of kit hung from the side of a T55, and the holes for the grab rails drilled out. I removed the cable ducting for the searchlight as Tiran 4s didn’t carry one. Also the lifting hooks were slightly off piste. They were probably moved on the 55s to make way for the searchlight. And Tirans only carried one hook at the rear in a centre position, so the two indentations for the T55 were also filled.

 

Grab rails bent to shape and added using .33mm nickel silver wire. Two U shaped brackets were made from thin card and glued in place. This was where the aerial sections were stored in a canvas bag, down the centre of the turret. Aerial base made from two diameters of sprue slices and glued in place. I added bolts to it and a short length of .5mm stainless steel tubing as a base for the aerial. Sight added in front of the commander’s hatch. This came from the Aber set for the Firefly.

 

Final jobs on the turret. Loaders hatch cover fixed in place. I will add a .50cal MG later. Wire grab handle added to the commander’s hatch, and it and a bracket were glued in place. Cable for the positions light at the rear reinstated. I’m going to attempt to make some of these lights, but they are so small that they may defeat me. The large bracket on the LHS at the rear was made as follows. Three pieces of card, laminated together, and then cut to size and the end sanded round. A sliver of sprue was glued to the end, which was drilled to accept a small piece of tubing, ready for the aerial base, and then four bolt heads were added to the base.

 

And this is the (nearly) finished build.

 

As far as I can remember, the only two jobs left to do are the .50cal MG in front of the loaders hatch and a pair of jerry cans in cages, fitted to the rear of the turret. Then it will be onto the painting and hopefully, by the time that's all done, the decals will have arrived.

Thanks for looking.

 

John.

 

 

 

[Pete in Lincs]

Lovely tiny fiddly mods. It's all in the detail.

[BlackMax12]

Looking good John.  Like you say lots of little adds and corrections. These weren't all that

big but they were pretty busy.

 

Lloyd

[Bullbasket]

17 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Lovely tiny fiddly mods. It's all in the detail.

Thanks Pete. Trouble is, they're not doing my eyesight any good. I need some stronger glasses.

12 hours ago, BlackMax12 said:

Looking good John.  Like you say lots of little adds and corrections. These weren't all that

big but they were pretty busy.

 

Lloyd

Thanks Lloyd. Hopefully by the time that I do another one of these, the AM boys will have some stuff ready.

 

John.

[Pete in Lincs]

1 hour ago, Bullbasket said:

I need some stronger glasses.

You're not the only one. I was only thinking the same this morning! 👓

[Bullbasket]

Turns out that I hadn’t finished all of the jobs on the turret, as I found three more, one fiddly and the other two more straight forward.

The first was the storage tubes for the commander’s signal flags. This is just a group of four tubes fixed to the left hand rear of the turret. I made them from four lengths of stretched sprue and glued them in place.

The other fairly straight forward additions are the two jerry cans and their holders, that were fixed to the back of the turret. Again, these came courtesy of Tank Workshop. I had to make two brackets to go onto the backs of these, which I made by bending to shape, some scrap etched brass.

 

The fiddly job was the MG mounted in front of the loader’s hatch. First of all, I’ve been banging on (no pun intended) about fitting a .50cal MG, when in actual fact, the Israelis mounted 7.62mm Brownings and not their big brothers. Upon checking my store of barrels, I found that I didn’t have any. The only thing that I had was the one in the Hobbyboss kit of the M4A3E8, which required a lot of scraping with a knife blade to get rid of the prominent mould lines down each side of the barrel. Hopefully with a coat of paint it should pass muster. I cut off the mechanism beneath the gun and made a new pintle for it.

 

The mount that was fixed to the bracket on the front of the loader’s hatch was made from a strip of card, plastic tube and a sliver of sprue. I’m leaving the gun off until all of the painting and decaling has been done otherwise it’s a racing certainty to get knocked off.

 

Now, unless I find something else that I’ve missed, that’s it. Priming and top coating should be up next , but as I've not heard anything about the decals yet, I'm in no hurry, so therefore, it may be a  while before this gets moving again.

 

John.

[FrancisGL]

Hi John, 

Wow!, the level of detail is very good, and there are a lot of different materials along with the original plastic, it almost hurts to paint it ... because all that work will "disappear" under a coat of paint, even if it looks great ... lol
Cheers and TC
Francis.👍