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Soviet KV-1S Heavy Tank

Stage eight is where you start and finish the turret of the KV, with the construction being broken down into five distinct stages. You begin by gluing together the two sides of the turret, this turret has a very nice casting texture on it but when the turret is glued together you are left with a seam that must be filled and the texture replicated again. I got around this problem by doing the minimum amount of sanding needed and the brushing on some Mr Surfacer 500 which was then dappled with a brush, two cotes should be all that is needed at most.

The next step is to add the turret top and the commanders viewing slots, there are no problems you should encounter here. After that you move onto the front and rear turret periscopes and the copulas roof (it is recommended that a casting texture is applied to this part for accuracy. You also at this stage assemble the main guns pivot which is another problem area as the bulbous areas each side of the gun are not conformed too by the turret, yes there is a very visible seam on the real KV-1S but the joining points do match. This means more sanding is required on the turret destroying more of that nice casting texture.

Step four of the turret is where you add the turret grab handles, periscope, MG, and lifting hooks for the turret, Neal stokes has been unable to verify if the lifting hooks are correct or not but he believes not. For the purposes of this review I am going to use the small grab handles on the left hand side of the turret as they are easily removed later if need be. The last step on the turret is to add the main gun and its run guard along with the turret hatch, the hatch in the pictures has not been glued in place as there are two ejector pin marks in it and I want to show it open so filling and sanding are in order.