Well, I finally got my driver's station from CMK (I messed up the order, so it took some time), and got on building. I was -I confess- not overly concerned with accuracy; I just wanted to fill up the driver's station that looked the piece. The CMK set is excellent, but it's obviously designed for the T-55... and there are some differences.
I used whatever I could; most of it won't be seen, anyhow.









Closing up the hull. The fit is excellent, but when assembled, I'd leave the splash guard off until I'm finished with all the hull... it's easy to break it off.







Idlers on



The top of the hull is on



The fit was OK; there were some issues at places, but it went together at the end. Nothing major, really.

Starting on the mud-guards...







Now, this was the most contentious issue so far. The attachment points are just tiny little pegs sticking out of the mudgards; there are no corresponding holes on the hull. The other issue is that the triangular pieces that secure them to the hull are attached before the mudguards are fixed to the hull, so their position is not exactly perfect. I'd suggest to leave those off, and add them once the mudguards are in place. (They do have a little marking for each where they are supposed to be attached, but the whole assembly is pretty flimsy and difficult to manage. I'm going point by point, gluing sections once the previous section has dried. I also wedged very thin everygreen plastic strips under the mudguards to give them additional support. One thing is for sure: they will be very fragile; do not lift the model up by them. It's going to complicate the assembly of the running gear, but oh well.

Well, it is falling together. Despite of my misgivings, the mudguards are OK...









Obviously it's not painted yet. I did a quick green coat for the underside of the chassis and the turret. I would like to do some dust and mud on the sides before I attach the roadwheels.

The one issue I have, however, is that the turret does not "click" into place... the peg holding it is too small, and it easily falls out.

Coming together... dry fitting. I cobbled together a driver's compartment using CMK's T-55 set. I took some parts, modified others. It's somewhat accurate, but not accurate enough- but it's enough to make the hatch worth opening.










And gluing it together. The frontal armor plate went on like a dream




The top (which is in scale thickness) took some finesse to do, but using some clamps and some patience, it did go on.

The finished hull



First coat of green (Tamiya Dark Green)



Road wheels attached. The pegs fixing them to the swing arms are very small, so I made sure that they stay by adding some two-part epoxy once they were on.



The turret is on. Here I ran into some problems: the turret is supposed to click into the turret ring just like in the case of any other tank models. However, it just does not click into place. I can't figure out what exactly the problem is, because I cannot peek under the turret and the top of the hull. This issue should be easy enough to fix if it's fixed before the tank is assembled.



I replaced the grab handles with metal ones, as the plastic parts snapped when I tried to remove them from the sprues... I also added the headlight, and other small parts I've left off until now.








I needed to replace the towing cables as they are plastic, and would break when installed. (They are slightly bent when in position).



The PE holders can hold the cables in place without gluing them in place.

I did the Su-76, only had one minor fit issue, great kit.

Yeah, you see the SU-76 was not as good as this one. But this kit -even though it does have fit issues- is definitely a great one.