¹⁄35

From 'Backyard Toy' to Soviet T34-85

The Deck

All of the detail on the deck was ground off after removing the items I would later need to modify/mould e.g. the hull mg housing, driver’s hatch etc. The rear plate was cut off and filed/filled to the correct shape. A mould was also taken prior to grinding off the exhaust pipe covers and as the tank will have smoking exhausts, new hollowed covers made from a silicon mould. A new working circular access hatch was made of g/f with silver soldered hinges, (this will provide easy access to the main on/off switch, battery charging jacks and to provide a filing point for the smoke fluid). For the exhaust pipes brass tubes of the correct diameters were bent to shape and as the original were constructed from 2 welded semi-circular pieces, given seam detail.

The entire turret turning mechanism was removed from the turret to be relocated in the hull. The turret will have its own independent R/C and power supply thereby doing away with the need to break any electrical/RC connections when wishing to remove the turret. The turret turning mechanism on the Panther was a very sturdy, well designed unit. Provided with the T34 was a modified standard servo! Not up to the job at all! I designed and made a new mechanism using an ‘off the shelf’ geared motor. By incorporating a voltage regulator (set at 9.8v) the turret turns at the correct maximum speed of the original, 17 degrees a second. The motor is powered through a speed controller providing a variation in turret traverse speed again duplicating the original.

To conceal the void beneath the engine grill a false deck and ‘armour plate’ baffles were made and fitted. The poorly detailed centre and side radiator/engine grills were also removed and new scale items made using silver soldered brass wire and strip. 

New scratch build detail was added including the operating driver’s hatch (the radio camera will view through the open hatch), mg housing (the original mg ball mounting was ground out and an acrylic ball with holes for the mg and sight was fitted into place using body filler), handrails, tie downs, auxiliary fuel tanks and their mountings, bolt heads, hinges, fuel filler caps and the mesh cover for the air intake.

The original g/f mudguards are very untidy and over scale. I removed the mudguards and made new to scale from silver soldered brass strip/sheet. Prior to fixing, the inside of the deck where these will locate were each given 2 coats of f/g mat and sanded to a straight edge The new mudguards were then fixed in place and weld detail applied. 

New tool boxes were made from reinforced plasticard and metal. Various other parts were made including the driver’s periscopes, the working headlamp, working tail light and the ‘working horn.’ The 2 remaining tow hooks and their small clips were fixed to the glacis plate as were the 6 mounting spacers for the spare track links. Unlike the Panther there was normally very little fitted externally to the T34 in the way of tools etc. I limited the tank to the normal 2 handed wood saw made from a small cheap metal saw, cut to size and shape and silver soldered. 

The tow ropes provided with the model are excellent. They will tow a car but are however quite rigid and would not conform to where I wanted them to go. I made new ropes by moulding new from an ‘as supplied' tow rope end and the cable is made from to scale size nylon cord. 

I next moved on to the spare track links. The T34 normally had a section of 5 links fixed to the glacis plate. It was also quite common to see 2 links wedged between the turret and the handrails on the turret sides for extra protection. As this tank will run and wishing to maintain the few extra links I had for spares, I made a further silicon mould using 2 of the links as masters. Some 9 links later, they were cleaned up and joined with scale trackpins (2 mm mountain bike spokes with a swaged rivet end).

The final work was to create what seemed miles of welding all over the tank. The standard of some of the welding has to be seen to be believed. It is so untidy and haphazard that I can only assume that either the workers learnt on the job or that the need was greater than that time would allow to do the job properly! On parts of the actual tanks that I have examined the ‘slag’ has not even been chipped away from the welds! 

It is quite impossible to reproduce the welding that badly. Due to the scale effect it would look wrong and convey the impression that the modeller cannot replicate the original! I have made the welding as poor as I can without appearing overdone!