Time for another quick build update. This time some of the progress thats been done on the T-90.

I came across a few problems when making the wheels for the T-90, sadly after opening my miniarm pack and counting a few times I discovered that instead of having 24 wheels as need (12 halves for each side) I had 23 wheels, which left me with half a wheel! It was a little more problematic as the resin wheels have the late config 6 spoke wheels while the plastic wheels in the Tamiya kit have the earlier 8 spoke wheels (so a simple plastic wheel swap was out).

To make things worse the half a resin wheel was the inside wheel and not the outside facing wheel half that would be visible! In the end I had to chop up a Tamiya plastic wheel, remove the little "hub cap" and then do some surgery on the resin inside facing wheel to fit the plastic Tamiya part. This at leastgave me a useable outside facing wheel with 6 spokes. I then had to fall back on using one of the plastic Tamiya 8 spoke wheel halves for the inside wheel. I placed this wheel in the centre of the wheels so it wouldn't be so noticeable. Luckily the inside 8 spoke wheel was not that visible when surrounded by other wheels and the incorrect part blended in without standing out!

It made a little more work for me that I was expecting, but luckily I was able to work around it and salvage the problem. If I had only had 22 wheels in the miniarm set that would have been even more tricky! Thankfully I at least had 1 half to work with!

I've also been cracking into the resin T-90 tracks. These look great, but are very very delicate and rather tricky to assemble as they snap together. Perth Military Modeling' review states that these track links "flex" to let you snap them into place. However in my experience they tended to snap clean in half before "flexing" so I had to be extremely careful. Also there is no guide as to how many links you are supposed to use each side... so a little trial and error was needed as well as laying them out alongside the vinyl Tamiya T-72 tracks for an idea of length.

The tracks around the wheels and sprocket they give a really nice and natural fit:



Some detail shots of the links. The detail on these is crazy, as well as extremely fragile!

Got any pix of your reconstructed wheel? Sounds like some heavy duty surgery!

great job on that modification. can you post pictures of the modifications that you made?

Hi guys, here are a few quick pictures from my workbench, the wheel is still a little rough around the edges in parts and needs a little tidying up, but these photos give you an idea of the changes that I had to make. Was a bit tricky but the only option I had in the end!

Side view, plastic / resin mix wheel to the left, all resin wheel to the right:



Top view:



The dreaded back... my dirty little 8 spoke secret:



Theres a lot of surgery required in the miniarm kit, heres where I am up to with the Hull, with the Tamiya forward Hull totally cut out removed and swapped with the resin T-90 Hull, a good scribing tool and a steady hand are essential! :

After a few days hacking the Tamiya T-72 kit apart and screaming at the miniarm instructions (more on that later) I have finally made some progress on the T-90 and at least now it looks something like an actual tank.

Here are some update shots of current progress. The Hull is mostly finished, the tracks going through the last few dry runs to work out the correct amount of track links (is it really too much to ask for a manufacturer to give the correct number of links as a guide?), and the Turret has only just started so there is A LOT more to do on that.









One word of warning, if you ever build the miniarm T-90 Hull upgrade DO NOT follow the instructions, they are wrong. Foolishly I followed the instructions regarding the placement of the brackets on the Hull sides that hold the extra armour panels. They include numerous very small and delicate resin brackets that each have specific numbers on the resin sprue and a very specific number order for placement. After gluing them all to the fenders, dry fitting the armour panels and studying the reference photos of T-90 close up details, I discovered to my horror that Miniarm had put their numbers on the instruction sheet on the wrong sides. So I now had the left hand's set on the right side, and vice versa.

This meant I had to very carefully remove every bracket (6 each side) and then swap them over... quite a fiddly and time consuming job. Thanks Miniarm!

This is a nice kit and well made, but the lesson for the day really was dry fit, dry fit, check a reference photo, and dry fit again. Oh and ignore the instruction booklet in the box.

Pretty nice tank..
JB (watching as always..)

WOW! I have miniarms T-72bm sets and now you are scaring me! lol Keep up the excellent work. Ryan

Thanks for the kind words guys! JB always a pleasure to know that such a diorama genius is following the blogs really looking forward to your thoughts and feedback as the build progresses.

Ryan, actually in terms of kits I can't fault the Miniarm sets. They are really nice and great quality. It's just a shame that the instructions are so vague or contradictory. To be honest though that seems to be a trend with these after market kits, and really can't understand why. Alright the desire to want to add aftermarket stuff shows we are experienced modellers or those looking for that bit extra, but using that as an excuse just seems lazy. Especially considering the high price of some after market stuff. It really does vary from brand to brand, I always found CMK's instructions quite good though.

One thing is for sure once you get your Miniarm kit built it will look fantastic! Just be sure to have plenty of reference photos to hand to help you along the way

This is really Sweet Jon !!

I have a couple of the Miniarm Conversions and Turrets (this one included), but I've been nervous about starting without all the 'correct' info and 'research'...

It's great to hear your feedback.

This is a great Blog !

Cheers

Paul

Thanks Paul!

For good reference images of the T-90A try this site Prime Portal Jose was kind enough to point this site out to me awhile back. It has great detail shots and I've referred to the walkaround a lot during my build. I have a T-90 book from Russia but aside from a few technical diagrams it has little detail. Most images are during training exercises or parades so they are quite distant.

If I come across any other issues during the build I will be sure to point them out.

Finally finished the turret for the T-90. Was quite fiddly and took a lot of consultation with the reference photos I had.

I noticed a few more odd things on the Miniarm instructions. Firstly Miniarm advise a list of Tamiya parts that should be used from the T-72 set, however they don't provide any explanation as to where they go... which is a bit odd. Also I discovered that many of the parts suggested for use are wrong (it seems to be parts needed for the T-72 upgrade set and I assume this list is an oversight and left on the instruction sheet in error), actually the only Tamiya parts you will need are the snorkel and the large brackets to connect the rear storage box. The rest is superfluous. The set advises two small lights one front facing and one rear facing as found on the T-72, however I have found no reference images that show a T-90 with this rear facing light and the Miniarm photo shows neither present. For the sake of completeness I added the small front facing light, which should be positioned just behind the large ERA blocks on the front of the turret (again Miniarm give no indication as to where this should go, I worked it out from reference images).

Another odd point is that one of the photos in the instructions shows a T-90 with an earlier turret config and not the welded turret of the actual kit and other photos in the leaflet. This is the first image on the first page, it's best to ignore this photo altogether as the layout of the parts is wrong and different to the other photos.

Here's some photos of the completed turret. Excuse the dust present on the model, I was moving things and some of the plaster dust drifted onto the model and settled. I'll dust this off of course right away, but didn't want to stop taking the photos as I had already started.

Just awesome!
Now paint?
DK

Haha thanks Dimtry, I will soon!

First though I have to add the rear fuel drums and the cabling, as well as the tow cable

Then I can crack into priming it and painting

I am so impressed with people who delve into a model and get it done. I am so slow and timid at it that I rarely get anything done. Again, I applaud the progress. Dmitry

Great work on the ruined apartment building, but you need to remove the DShKM style ammo box from your turret. T-90A use T-64/80UD boxes since they "borrowed" whole station design from Kharkov vehicles.

Thanks for the tip George I didn't realise that!

I based it off this photo, problem is as the ammo box is inside another box it's hard to see what type it actually is.



I had assumed they were the same as the T-72.

The next question is, if this isn't ammo as I had assumed then whats in this box?

Looks like coaxial PKT's box to me:
http://www.primeportal.net/tanks/yuri_pasholok/t-90/index.php?Page=11

Thanks George, that would make sense. I think I have some old PK ammo boxes lying around in my spares box, if I do I will swap them and make the changes needed.

Sorry for disturbing you real pro´s with tis newbie question? I´m about to build a "what if" russian "mammoth tank" from the games command and conquer and I wonder what the tube like box at the back of the turret is? And Jon I really admire your work! Great job!

Hi Olle, thanks for the compliment!

That object on the rear storage box is the tanks snorkel, used for river crossings etc where the tank has to be submerged. T-72's and T-90's can be fully submerged underwater if prepared.

A what if tank? Sounds cool, I always liked those alternative WW2 fantasy mini's myself. With the robot Tiger's etc. Good luck with the build!

Sorry for the lack of updates guys, but here finally are some pictures of where I have gotten to so far.

Base and ground work



















Rough layout with the T-90





Some of the figures

I dont know what to say Jon
The building is really strange to me, I mean that normally the building are build with concrete block you can find them with Hansa system really great.
if not there are build with concrete panels.
Like the one you are using as ref pics you can see all the small concrete panels connetc together and you can see the small steels bares on the balcony:



And with you building, it look like flat plaster panels for the complete facade. Right??
You are using reforced concrete so maybe you need more steel bares.

The rest of the dio is really great.
I love the figs, but to my opinion you need to work more on the building.

Cheers
Seb

Thanks for the feedback Seb. What exactly would you recommend?

For example on the reference picture on the exposed concrete walls on the balcony there are very few metal bars shown as exposed. Where the concrete wall or floor is whole the bars aren't showing, they only show where a piece of concrete has been destroyed.

Most of my balcony walls are complete, so I'm not sure where I would be able to add the steel bars in this case...

Any ideas or suggestions from anyone would be great and much appreciated.

There are actually nice areas in your building Jon. With great attention to texture and some cool details.
My big concern is the global design of it. It looks a bit "round", no sharp enough.
Modern architecture is made of strenght lines, whereas yours, everything looks a bit soft (smooth?)

Good points IMO : the border of floor panels are excellent. Texture and metal/styrene parts are great.

But for more visual impact try to work on other things, like the windows. They are just rectangular hole in your building. Maybe you should add more levels on their side.
My main advice would be to be sharper than you are now.

Hope my english isn't too confuse.
Have a great week end Jon friend.

Alexandre.

Thanks Alexandre

I agree, actually the down side to using the plasterboard is that once you take off the backing paper the plaster inside doesn't have much sharp definition on the corners. When you cut it it tends to crumble ad curve into these "softer" shapes. I think thats one benefit of your method in your pripyat dio, the cardboard coated with gesso lets you get rigid sharp edges and a good concrete texture.

I think I will try to sharpen the edges by using some household filler to fill out gaps maybe and sharpen them out.

As for the windows, I was thinking of adding some window frames, anything else? What did you mean by adding more levels to the side?