Well, something wrong has happened to me twice recently. First of all I've bought a model by Eastern Express. Funny? Two and half USD was a price that moved me to buy the model. Secondly I started to build it... In fact building such models I see as a challenge, and the worse a model is the greater is a challenge. Eastern Express produces very bad models, but I decided to make something looking more or less good from it. I decided to fix obvious historical bugs and replace the most visible off-scale parts, but not to correct dimensions.
The turret was the easiest nut to crack. I left the commander's cupola of the original model (though it took much time to glue it). The loader's hatch was drilled out and replaced with the one from UM's T-34. The vent was also replaced by UM's one. The PTK-5 periscope is from Dragon's T-34. I made the false periscope from a drilled-out piece of plastic. The radio antenna was placed on the turret's back.
After some work with plastic I continued with metal parts. The welding seam was done with gluing thin copper wire around the turret. The cover of the mantlet was cut off a thin foil.
The most tricky part was to make pistol ports. I heated the needle and gradually thrust it inside a plastic to make not only a hole but a hole with a bead as it was on a real tank. After that I glued inside a hole a piece of plastic and gave to it a rounded shape with a file.
The result of a whole work is on the photo.

Vladimir-- wow! Very nicely done. The wire weld is most impressive. Keep up the good work.
DJ

Vladimir, you've done a beautiful job. I too like the idea of using wire for the weld seam. I can't wait to see how you finish it.
Bob

I continue with the turret. Some metal work needs to be done. Original model lacked lifting eyes, so I had to do them. First of all I drilled four holes in the roof. Then I took thin wire, put the wire round a drill of a proper diameter and turned the drill several times to take a loop. After that I took the looped wire off and glued it in one of the holes. I did the same four times. Now the lifting eyes are ready.
Original hand rails are awful. I replaced them with the ones made of thin wire.
All I had to do was to install a gun. I decided to ease this task and bought the barrel made by Modelpoint. Still, I had to drill a mantlet to put it inside.