Okay, now I got some proper pics taken of my T-34. Here's what has happened so far.
The base kit is Dragon's T-34/85 (Utz mod). Most of the hull's already together. The roadwheels in the kit were almost completely replaced with a maquette wheel set, except for one.
Thinking about it now, it would have probably been easier to hunt around for the same type of solid hub wheels from another dragon kit (or even go so far as to buy a whole kit to donate wheels). If the axle holes had been smaller than on dragon's wheels, it would haven been a simple job to drill and enlarge the holes.
They weren't. I had to plug the holes with sprue and drill new axle holes. This turned out to be tricky. Just marking the absolute center of the wheel was hard, and drilling them wasn't much easier. Without proper tools (drill bench!) getting the holes at a right angle was also hard, leading to less than perfect alignment, which then required me to enlarge the holes again to make them sit right. Because of this, I ended up gluing the wheels in place with 2-part epoxy. This will of course make painting more challencing, but I think I'll be able to pull it off.
Moving to the rear of the hull, this pic shows the details added to that area. The engine cover hinges have been replaced by scrap PE. That rack next to the right exhaus is also made from PE left-overs. Fenders are cut down and lined with styrene strips. Finally, I replaced the moulded-on solid handle on the engine acces panel with copper wire.
Some kind of a pic, but from the front. Unneeded recessed part locators have been filled, fender shorthened again and a weldseam added between the fender and hull plus several bolts added to the fender itself.
Here's were most of my scratch-building efforts went. That cage-looking stowage container was a real excercise of patience. I must be careful not to accidentally squash it while handling. The two storage boxes were much simpler. Built from sheet styrene, detail made from scrap PE and wire. The etched engine screen is from Aber. I originally built the all-PE cover, but when it was ready for the mesh, I found out it ended up too small. Well, not a big, since it'll be closed. Cutting off the solid screen from the plastic part was simple and the PE mesh replaced the styrene details.
Now if I find good reference, I could build the butterfly louvres behind the cover as well.
Tracks, nothing spectacular. It's the kit tracks, built in segments and ready to be painted.
Here's the turret, almost completed. The only aftermarket part used here is the gun barrel. The kit offered 2 hollow halves meant to be glued together. Well, at least there were two locator pins, but I decided to solve the whole issue with some cash.
A shot from the back of the turret, showing the added details. The grab handles were all made from copper wire to replace the styrene parts. I made the seam between the turret halves with stretched sprue glued in place, then softened with liquid cement and pressing with a hobby knife blade. The casting numbers are part number shaved off from kit sprues.
Another pic of the turret, now from the side. Nothing grand going on here, one bulge in the top edge removed and another near the pistol port. Perhaps I'll blend them in some more with some mr. surfacer.
This view shows the new larger rain cover plate made from styrene sheet (with welds again made with stretched sprue). One missing bolt was added to the gun mantlet. (from an academy accessory sprue, IIRC)
Some more work to be done here. It should look like this:
I was thinking about first doing the core of the "wing" extensions from styrene, then gluing them on and blending them in with 2-part putty. How should I do this?
I should have noticed this before construction. A drop-fit resin replacement mantlet would have really hit the spot here.
Assorted small detail parts in zip-lock bags. That's a small scratch-built stowage rack in the middle picture. The dome-shaped resin headlights are from JS-models. The hull machine gun barrel I replaced with a hypo needle.
Decals will be a mix of wiking-decals (registry numbers) and Kuivalainen decals (the post-war roundels).
This leaves me with one thing I haven't figured out yet. The overall green color.
What would you suggest? The real thing can be seen here:
http://www.andreaslarka.net/ps245003/ps245003.html
