Hi all bit of a newbie with russian armour,Im building trumpeters KV1 1942 heavy cast turret.Now my problem is the kit turret is very smooth and what Ive heard of russian casting at that time Im thinking it should be very rough, am I right thinking this.

Hi John

I'm working on the lightwieght Turret version. Nice kits straight out the box although I'm considering adding more defined wield lines on mine, and will certainly get something to replace the solid moulded engine grills.

Here are a few links to help you with detail, look etc. Hope you find them useful

Alan

http://www.ww2models.com/refs/KV1/pages/KV1%20(0).html

http://legion-afv.narod.ru/KV.html

Hi Alan many thanks for the links their priceless,the kits are good, though i have had a bit of a fit problem with the front upper hull nothing a bit of filler wont put right.Those lifting lugs on the engine deck nearly sent me blind and insane, oh the joys of modelling. cheers

Hi

Yes I found the rear section of the upper hull didn't want to know until I'd reamed out the holes a bit and shaved off some plastic. Initially I worried about the gap where the top deck meets the sides but if you look at the actual tanks there is a gap there. Russian wartime tank builders didn't do precision fits by the looks of it .

The two parts on the centre of the drive sprockets I found a bit strange. Why it couldn't be in one piece I don't know but overall for the price I think its a great kit, excellent value for money. I want to get the big turret version once this is done.

I'm sticking with the kits tracks, as I said I'm getting the engine grills but other than that it's a straight out the box for me, feeling the effects of the economic situation to be honest. Still plenty in the loft to keep me going

Alan

hi Alan,yes I filled the gap on the rear hull looks like I will have to unfill it never mind,those photo's are invaluable I was just cleaning up the torsion bars what I thought was a moulding seam is actually on the real thing.Things are tight at the moment I retired to france 9 months ago but now I have to go back to blighty to start work again as my income dissapeared with the devalued pound and interest rate free fall,never mind, any way its made up my mind on my next kit the Hobby boss T34/76 1/48th Im a sucker for punishment its got a full interior. all the best p.s. where did you get your engine screens from.

Hi John

Yes you have to be a bit careful these days as to what is a moulding "fault" you have to clean off and what is intentional.

I didn't clean the mould lines off the torsion bars blending it in as such but like I saw on one example created a kind of flat to the curve of the moulding in that area, like they cleaned excess metal off with a angle grinder. It's pretty rough but effective workmanship on the original tanks in my opinion.

Very little of it will be seen to be honest, once the roadwheels are on and a bit of mud caked on but you know how anal us modellers can be.

The thing that is missing is all the wield beads around the top turret plate. I've done a bit of this on an old Italeri Panzer 4 and whilst okay its not my favourite modelling task.

I'm not sure which PE set to go for. Lion Roar do a set with a metal barrel included and Eduard do two sets, a quite cheap one at around £4.00 and a bit more expensive one at around £7.00. It's basically the two top engine grill details and the one on the rear tucked up underneath I'm after.

I don't fancy redoing the fenders in brass to be honest, and I doubt if I'll show the hatches open as there isn't a sniff of interior detail inside the thing, so that probably discounts the Lion Roar set. I'm sure Aber do one but I haven't looked about for it.

Anyway jobs in the garden to do before I'm allowed modelling time. See ya.

Alan

Different foundries produced castings of varying textures, so start by looking at photos of preserved vehicles (bear in mind that some texture is really the result of decades of repainting, not the armor itself). US and French armor castings tended to be rather smooth, while some Russian castings were deeply pitted.
You can texture the cast armor sections with a product called Mr. Surfacer, from Gunze. It's a thinned down putty which can be applied by brush and stippled with the bristle tips (use a cheap, stiff Testors nylon brush). If you don't have access to this product, bathroom talcum powder can be added to a bottle of any ordinary enamel paint to produce a home brew equivalent. If you're more daring, you can apply liquid cement directly to the plastic and stipple the softened plastic directly. Work in small areas at a time. If your casting is very rough, you can leave it at that, or, when dry, you can lightly sand the surface to produce random pattern of smooth flat areas and pitted depressions.

Gents,

When it comes to etched radiator intake screens for the Trumpeter KVs, I strongly recommend going with the Eduard Zoom sets. The Aber ones are gorgeous but expensive and will drive you insane trying to put them together. The Lion Roar ones are the wrong shape, since they lack the flat portion of the frame on the long sides.

No need to replace the fenders since they're very nice as is. You might want to thin down the edges a little but that can be easily done with an emery board or by scraping with a knife blade.

The only really "wrong" details on these kits are the missing mounting blocks for the fender stowage box and the four brackets for the spare track links...there should be only a single bracket holding the aft end of the outer link.

Cheers,

Neil

Hi Neill. Have you seen the Part etch sets for the KVs? Have you any comments on them? I picked up two of these sets on the cheap ... but have no idea on their accuracy!

Hi Neil

thanks for your input. Can you give us reference numbers for the Eduard Zoom sets please?

John, I now know what you mean about the lifting lugs, part A28 in my kit I hadn't got round to those and after you mentioning it I took a look. Thanks for the warning. With that in mind I did what I discovered to be the best way for me to handle small stuff like this.

1. Don't clip the part from the spruce before cleaning it up, cut a section of the sprue holding the part away with the part on it so it gives you something to hold whilst you clean away and you are not waving a whole sprue around. In this case I just ran a drill bit through the hole to widen it slightly.

2. Get some masking tape or double sided tape and stick it on your cutting mat. Push the part with the spruce on to it when you cut away with a scalpel, holding the part if you can under a finger etc. That way the little piece has a tendency to stick to the tape and not fly off never to be seen again.

3. Use tweezers or a blob of Blue/White Tak on the end of a large matchstick to pick up part and place it on pre glued area.

I only had one lug go awol but luckily found it. Stll not sure about redoing the wields as I look at it.

Any other help Neil greatly appreciated.

All the best

Alan

Neil

These are the two Eduard sets I found for the Trumpeter KV-1's

http://www.eduard.cz/products/pdf/ntp/tp084.pdf

http://www.eduard.cz/products/pdf/ntp/tp089.pdf

Are these the ones?

Alan

Hi Alan,

I would opt for Eduard TP089 since it gives you the mesh and the frames for the radiator intakes, whereas TP084 only gives you the mesh, which is not a lot of use. Note that these are the late pattern intakes (flat front end) introduced in July 1941. You mention that you plan to do the "KV Big Turret" kit at some point - for that one, you need the early pattern intakes which are supplied in the KV-2 Big Turret (35888) set. Unfortunately there's no Zoom set with these intakes - the "KV1/KV2 Mesh Early" set includes the late intakes despite its name.

The "Heavy Cast Turret" kit represents a KV-1 Model 1941 with the initial type of cast turret introduced in early January 1942 and produced until June, though the fender stowage is correct for February onward. It's pretty close to the Bovington and Aberdeen vehicles, though there are a couple of minor detail differences.

Use the torsion bar hubs with three bolts, not the ones with six bolts.

The kit gives you the short applique armor for the driver's plate, which is correct for a hull manufactured at UZTM. The Bovington and Aberdeen vehicles have hulls from Factory No.200 which had taller applique armor.

Make sure you add the inspection port to the center of the domed engine access hatch. The engine cooling system was revised at the end of 1941 with a header tank and an overpressure relief valve on top of the engine. The port allowed the driver to check the valve without opening the hatch.

If you want to be pedantic, the transmission access hatches on the rear deck need replacing. Model 1941 hulls in the spring of '42 used flat disc hatches that sat flush with the transmission compartment roof plate. The crew hatch in the forward hull is correct, though.

The bases for the turret roof periscope covers are separate pieces. Make sure you fill and sand the seams because the bolts were actually part of the turret roof plate.

As for the turret texture, a little stippling with Mr Surfacer should do it. Most of the photos I have seen of cast KV turrets show relatively smooth surfaces.

Hope this helps...

Neil

Hi Neil

Just to clarify and apologises to John in advance for taking over his thread a bit, I have the Trumpeter kit 00360 the Russian KV-1 model 1942 Lightweight Cast Tank as its described.

The details you give above, are they correct for this tank or the big turret version, such as the detail around the turret periscopes, they are going to be tricky to blend in without loss of detail of the bolts ?

On my version it only has the three bolted cover to the torsion hubs. I also noted with the kit that some locating holes in the hull etc. are blanked over and to use then I had to cut away plastic, almost like over thick flash, to expose them. I'm talking about the front additional armour plate around the MG, the v shaped section which acts to deflect stuff from the turret joint area.

Looking at the instructions more closely I see they have a section (numbered 17) that refers to the previous blanked holes etc I mentioned, giving a variety of supplied optional parts but no indication of when these should be used. This includes the small cover on the domed engine cover you mentioned, different engine grill mounts, straight curved with no flattening section, a different periscope for the turret and different fender mountings. What do these signify?

I didn't realise Bovy had a KV, I've been around a few times and they are only 40 minutes down the road so I'll have to get another visit in.

Alan

No problem Alan,Learning all the time.

Hi Alan,

Sorry, I got a bit confused between your project and John's

The "Lightweight Cast Turret" kit represents a Model 1942 hull with the angular rear hull overhang. This hull first entered service in January 1942 and was actually a significant rework with thicker armour (since I'm talking to Brits, I'll spell properly) all round.

The turret is the revised cast turret design introduced at the end of January. The designers studied a lot of damaged and destroyed vehicles and worked out which areas of the turret were more or less prone to getting hit. They thickened the armor in these areas while thinning others, resulting in a more survivable turret for roughly the same weight.

If you do an out-of-the-box build, you get a KV-1 Model 1942 with a hull from UZTM, built between February and June 1942. The Model 1942 stayed in production until September when it was replaced by the KV-1S that entered production in August. The beauty of these Trumpeter kits is that you can cross-kit parts to get virtually any KV-1 variant manufactured between November 1940 and June 1942. With a bit of after-market love and some easy scratch-building of detail parts, you can extend that out to any variant between April 1940, when production began, and September 1942.

One of my few peeves with the Trumpeter KVs is that they don't give you any indication of which optional parts are appropriate. Consulting my tweaks list (once I get the book out, this stuff will go up on a web site) here are my recommendations:

When assembling the hull, make sure you leave gaps along the sides of the engine deck/transmission compartment roof plate. These were bolted in place. I've found that the hull tub tends to warp in a bit, and I often brace it with a piece of sprue just below the engine deck so that I get an even gap all the way along the side.

As you mention, this kit only gives you the late pattern suspension swing arms and torsion bar hubs. Those are correct for a Model 1942 hull. Like all the Trumpeter KVs, you get the early pattern tracks with reinforced ends and a guide tooth on every link. These are fine for the period though you can substitute Friul ATL-51 if you want split-link tracks, which were becoming more common by the summer.

The fenders are fine, and include the correct four bolts attaching the lower flange of the bracket to the fender itself. However, you should carve away the inner, vertical flanges that are moulded as part of the hull sides. From the late winter of 41/42, the brackets were welded to the hull sides and lacked the flanges. A bit of plastic rod and some liquid glue will give you the welds. You can use the solid or skeletal brackets - a lot of KVs mixed them up during the first half of 1942.

The kit gives you the correct stowage box but omits the wooden brackets that sat underneath it and raised it up almost level with the hull top. The Bovington vehicle has one of these still in place, though the stowage box is missing.

On the spare track links, shave off the outer, forward attachment bracket on each side and open up the hole in the link with a knife. There should be only three brackets. Again, you can see them on the Bovington vehicle.

Follow the kit instructions to open up the holes on the driver's plate for the applique armour. If you want to depict a Factory No.200 hull, you will need to scratch-build a new applique armour plate - just make it 3mm taller. Use the applique armour for the lower front hull.

The conduit for the power cables should be in the left-most of the two positions possible in the kit. The instructions correctly tell you which holes to open up.

The area surrounding the crew hatch in the forward hull top is a separate piece. It should be part of the main hull roof plate, so eliminate the seam. One trick I tried was to shim it from beneath with some very thin plastic sheet so that it sits proud of the hull top, then sand it back flush.

Use the chevron-shaped armour plate for the hull top in front of the turret, and add the applique armour strips on the upper hull sides.

Add the inspection port to the center of the dome in the engine access hatch.

Use the late pattern radiator intakes with flattened front ends. Eduard TP089 gives you the brass replacements.

The transmission access hatches are wrong for this variant. All the Model 1942 hulls had thicker hatches with hard bevelled edges rather than the rounded edges on the kit parts. If you care that much, you can carefully scrape the edges of the parts, but it really isn't that noticeable.

As with the earlier "heavy" cast turret, the kit turret needs the seams around the periscope covers eliminated. It looks like a nasty job but I've built five of the Trumpeter KVs and all the seams were so fine on those joints that I had no trouble just scraping them with a hobby knife.

The lightweight cast turret is also the only turret that does not come as a single piece. There is a join line down the rear face that needs to be filled. If you're doing the Mr Surfacer thing, the joint will be hidden anyway so that's another reason to add the texture.

Hope this is useful.

Cheers,

Neil

Hi Neil

Thanks for taking the time to explain these things. At first I thought this was an easy out the box build, going by the reviews at PMMS etc, a good kit and great value for money. Then I started to worry thinking it's like those Sherman's I read about, so many changes it makes your head spin. But your last email has got me back on the positive waves. Just need to get those grills ordered and it's good to go.

What do you reckon to that curving ribbed plate at the rear ? It's got some ejector pin marks on it and I thought the PE one would be nice with the curving brackets under, although for that one extra piece to add in I'm doubling the PE price, beyond what I actually paid for the kit Maybe I'll just thin it down and scratch the brackets.

Thanks once again for taking the time to write out in such detail the variations and detail for my kit.

I already sussed the gap on the top deck. I was about to filler it when I noticed on pictures I'd linked on a site to John that this gap was actually on the real tank and proceeded to make it wider, more representative of the real thing.

All the best

Alan

Hi Alan,

Assuming you're talking about the exhaust air deflector plate that sits under the rear hull overhang, I would just fill the ejector pin marks, thin down the edges and the ends of the reinforcing ribs and leave it alone. My approach to photo-etch is "only engage when necessary" Besides - as you point out - it's doubling the price of the model for very little benefit.

Total segue...where are you located in the south-west? Despite being a card-carrying Australian, by birth I'm a Plymouth lad. Shoot me an e-mail off-line if you don't want to disclose your location for national security reasons

Neil

Hi

Yes it is the exhaust deflector plate and I'll probably do as I thought and you suggested.

Thanks once again for your time, I hope it's helped John as well.

I wished I'd known about those plates around the turret periscopes earlier. I had a go at blending them in last night, bit worried that they'll still show the join when I shot the paint on though, or the uneven scrappings of my blending effforts !!


Thanks again. PM'ed you.

Alan

Hi Neil, Many thanks for the info Im of the old school when good advice is given freely its worth taking. bye the way I lived in OZ most of my adult life, Sydney near Maroubra beach.

lol...small world. I grew up in Perth but lived in Randwick for a year before I moved up to the Central Coast. I know the Coogee/Maroubra area well...did a lot of diving around there.

Cheers,

Neil