Just bought the Alanger T-35 and would appreciate any info on either building the kit or some good references, especially the engine bay and interior. I'd like to show it in an abandoned position with some hatches opened if possible.

Thanks

Well I am no expert bt I have been working on one for awhile. First thing is tocheck for bent parts. My first hull was so bad I had to get a second kit t rob parts from. Second the main turrent should not have a machine port in the rear. Thrid pics of the inside of the engine bay and inside of the hatches of few and far btween. Go thru the post here and you will find one I did that some one posted a good pic of the turrent rear. This site has a lot of pics on it.
http://grayknight.narod.ru/T-35/T-35.htm
[url=http://grayknight.narod.ru/T-35/T-35.htm[/url]
THere is also a book called t-35 lanship that is good. I will be postig some pics of mine sometime this week if I can get the paint job to come out. I have washed the kit 5 times but still having trouble with the paint no sticking..

Hi Brett,

as Scott pointed out, the moulding agent has to be removed by giving the kit some bathing in detergents. The source is one of the completest about T-35 to be found online!
Check the turrets fit to the hull, as this has to be improved by some sanding. On abandonded T-35 you'll often find optics and machineguns removed by the crew. Friul-tracks are a welcomed addition, as the kit ones are some kind of simplified.
The interieur of the MG-turrets was just a little plumbing and of course racks for ammo. Remove the main-turrets rear MG for a flap-like pistol-port. Stay away from star on the turrets roof , as there is no evidence on frontline-tanks fitted with this. Best way is to stay on a certain vehicle, that was depicted quite often by germans and build the features incorporated in this tank... (Don't forget, there were not much of these monsters)

Best wishes

Volker

P.S.: Do you know this: http://www.track-link.net/blogs/56

Thanks for the info guys. About the red star, are you saying it should be removed? Also, is the ICM kit the same as the Alanger?

Hey Brett,
The Alanger kit was originally, in it's previous incarnation, an ICM kit.
From what I've heard, ICM ran into some 'financial difficulties" a few years ago and the molds for a number, if not all of it's kits, were bought up and repackaged as Alanger.
The company was re-launched and appears to have little to do with Alanger.
Cheers

jjumbo

Best reference in English is "Land Battleship: The Russian T-35 Heavy Tank," by J. Kinnear and M. Kolomiets, published in the UK by Barbarossa Books. Photos of virtually every known T-35 and its actual fate are included. Also has 1/35th scale plans and color profiles.

I will also give you a heads up on the 4 sub turrents. Some pics weld lines around the top of them others do not. I would recommend not attempting to add the weld lines. I have tried every way of doing it except the new archer decals, and I can not get them to look right. THe weld lines are very fine and really hard to do on a curvered long surface. I am in the process of stripping mine down and starting over. Just my two cents worth.

Okay I think I'll check out the book and leave the welds alone. My top deck of the hull is fairly warped; will this be a problem? The plastic looks flexible, so I imagine it should be okay.

You will neeed to try to flatten it out. I recommend the hot water method. I did this on mine and it worked okay. Do not try it with dry it. What ever type of plastic they use shrinks very bad with the any dry heat. I think this may be part of the wraping problem. I made the mistake and got mine mostly flat as far as the the connection points between the top and bottom of the hull was concerned and I did not worry about the track over hang area. I figured if the this was a little bent it would look like battle damage. The problem was this is where the side skrits attached so this caused an little issue there. Take your time. It is not a bad kit but does have some issues. I used the Ecrud PE set which was not to bad but does have some mistakes in it. One of the problems is the lack of detailed pics and the amount of versions there are. There are at least 4 diffent major version and it seems like every tank have small differencess in them. I recommed the Landship book highely but I will say I am not sure the "in detial" pics they have of the surving example a Kubaika is correct. I think it probably has some post war restored items added to it and other items missing. I personal think each tank was bulit one at a time and each tank is a little different then the next. Not alot is known about these tanks and only one survived the war and has been rebuilt at Kubaika.

Hi,

indeed the star on top of the main-turret roof seemed to be a parade-marking and was not used on those tanks moving to the frontline (most never reached). As another ref you can take Militarias issue #159. So stay away from this part in Eduards set, too.

I build mine about a year ago (ICM-release). Warping wasn't that bad, that some careful gluing step by step and fixing with rubber-bands couldn't cure that. But as always, you may find kits that are warped much more, so bending in hot/warm water will be nec..
I myself didn't use Eduards etched set, as it didn't provide much stuff that really make the difference. I added some strips on the covering of the engine radiator and some attachment-items (tools) here and there, not a big deal. For me the friul tracks made it, altough there wasn't that huge amount of sag, but their detail is much better than the kit provided item!
Another one: Their machineguns are quite delicate, so be careful not to break them! (and be sure, you'll have enough paint in store, this huge monster will suck some ;-))

Best wishes

Volker

Hi Volker - thanks for the link! Glad to see someone read it. I still haven't finished the kit!

Regards - Dan

How hot should the water be?

Also, I was thinking about using castacoat. Would this be a good idea? If so, where should I use it. I've ordered the Land Battleship book, so until it arrives any opinions would be great.

Thanks all

Hi Dan,

I paused a while, until I finished mine, too. But please proceed, you'll be happy to have such a big piece of metal in your stock! (And as far as I remember you're quite close to finish)

@Brett:
I don't have castacout at hand, but I don't recommend to roughen the tanks surface to much! In fact the components weren't cast, but rolled steel and welded. So the surface wasn't that rough. And as someone pointed out before, yes they were welded, but the weldlines were by far not as prominent as on other tanks, so don't overdo it here. The available pics show very delicate weldlines if at all.

As far as reference pics are concerned, the posted link is the best you'll be able to find. I don't think any book will provide more! And by the way, many books tend to 'over-rule' T-35 features (like 'mod. 38 hatch') as there were less than 70(!) tanks build at all (in 6 years!), so one can talk about an individual construction instead of industrial production.



Volker

The only think I should as semi cast surface was the maing turrent. This turret was really rolled stell but I did do a little cast surface on it for a couple of reasons.
1) When you take the rear MG port out it is very hard to make the new area looked rolled like the rest of the turret.
2() The very detial shots of this I could find showed this as a rough roll finish.
what I did was added a little Mr. Surface and kind of smoothed everything out.
I spent 2 weeks working on the weld lines just to scrap them out becuae I could not get them small enough. Like the other person each tank is a little different so do not get hung up on small issues. I highly recommend the FJ tracks as they are most easier to work with . Also very little of the engine and transmission is visable when completed. I am reapinting my 4 sub turrents then I will post some pics of mine.