Sword 1/72 Beechcraft T-34C Turbo Mentor

hsr · August 30, 2021

This is the Sword 1/72 Beechcraft T-34C Turbo Mentor. The T-34C was an update or the venerable T-34 with a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 turboprop engine replacing the piston engine of the earlier version. It was used by the US Navy as a Primary/Basic trainer from the mid 1970 until replaced by Beechcraft T-6 Texan II around the turn of the century.

This was not an easy build and I can't remember when another build came as close to ending up in the garbage as this one and if I came across another one it will go to the top of the list of planes to rebuild and try again. This is an early effort by Sword and is a far cry from their current offering. The box touted "Limited-Run Technology" and I can only interpret that as a warning. The surface detail in pretty good with fine recessed panel lines. However there was a lot of flash and the fit was bad. The instruction would have been very nice for a resin kit, but fell short for an injection molded one even a limited run. There were no parts numbers on either the sprues or the instructions and parts placement was vague, The cockpit was a complete single resin casting including seats and control stick with the instrument panels separate. It was very nice but took a lot of trimming to get it to fit. The front wheel well was also a resin casting. On of the vague parts of the instructions was the placement of the front wheel. I clearly chose poorly since it ended up with a definite nose down attitude. The fit of the main wing to the fuselage was exceptionally bad and while I thought I had every thing properly aligned I ended up with a wing that is not square with the fuselage. :crying: The canopy was thick and cloudy with barely discernable framing. The painting on the box cover did not agree with the color drawing in the instructions. and neither completely agreed with the decals. The decals were thin, had good density, and were easy to place. However they required copious amount of Solvaset to get them to bend around curves. The front part of the sharks mouth was a little too small for the area it needed to cover.

I used Tamiya White Fine Surface Primer (lacquer) for the white because it goes on smooth, doesn't yellow like other paints and can be lightly sanded, and I used Humbrol 19 (enamel) for the red. This lead another frustration since the red did not want to adhere to the lacquer. so in some spots it peeled off with the masking. I have not had this happen with the gray Tamiya primer.

Not one of my best efforts but here it is: