I've recently built my first 1/48 kit (Tamiya's Firefly). It's a decent enough kit, and goes together very well, with no fit problems.

Anyway I fancied another 1/48th build, and popped into hannants today. I was taken by the Hobby Boss kits.
They retail at £8-99, against ~£18 for the Tamiya kits.

So I bought a T34/76. (This one)

Imagine my surprise when I got it home and see it has a full interior (including engine) and PE. Amazing value, especially compared to the Tamiya kits.

I guess the proof will be in the build. Any issues with this kit?

Ive had this kit in my stash for two years now and have never had the courage to crack into it yet. I have read quite a bit of bads- most notable in the realms of fit and the tracks. About the tracks- something has to be done about those wretched ejector pin marks on the outside faces- either replace them or coat them in mud. You will also have to apply a cast texture to the turret and MG mount

I've just read a review on this site, and a quick inspection of the kit confirms the review.

There's quite a lot of flash - though easy enough to deal with. As yopu say the ejector pin marks on the tracks will be more problematic. Not sure if I'll buy some after market (any suggestions?) or just cover them in mud.

On the plus side, the interior is very impressive (especially for £9). And the chassis & hull seem to mate together well (no warp as per the review), so hopefully they won't need to be glued and the inerior detail will be avaialable to show

What colour is the interior of a T34. Green or whitewash?

Hi, I've built a few of them and they are great kits with the tracks being the most time consuming and fiddly. You will like the KV's also although no interior, the tracks are easier. Interior color is white with the ammo crates on the floor black.

almost forgot, here's a link to a nice build on the kit:


http://www.militarymodelling.com/news/article.asp?a=4107

Also the Track48.com gallery

Both the Hobby Boss Russian tanks are, in my opinion, the greatest 1/48th armor kits ever offered, with the KV-2 being by far the greatest of the two, especially if Tamiya tracks are used on it (easy to do; they benefit from more accurate much bigger link hinges), and even more so if the Hauler resin gun barrel is added (it has the rifling moulded in: This is the most useful resin piece I have ever added to a model... In addition, the one piece resin barrel construction will save a LOT of work compared to cleaning up the seam on the HB's fairly ugly split plastic part)...

The only serious problem with the HB T-34s is the moulded-in top rear deck photo-etch grille, which required the manufacturer to add an ugly, vastly overscale, plastic "frame", I suppose to prevent the photo etch metal from curling under heat (it still curls the whole part a little)...

The T-34/85 turret looks a little more accurate than earlier variants to me, but the gun axis should be raised to narrow the gap of the gun mantlet with the rain guard on top of it (or raise the gun to full elevation to conceal the gap).

The tracks are nothing to complain about: They in fact have such fine moulded pivot joints (incredibly you can see the light through every single track hinge!)the links can be individually "bent" with perfect realism for posing a "thrown" track better than anything else (unlike other separate track links, they "hold" their position, no matter how complicated the "thrown" pattern)...

This, in addition to the full interior, means no kit ever offered a better package for a destroyed tank, which happens to be a favoured role for the T-34 in dioramas...

The accuracy and detail on both these HB 1/48th tank families puts most Tamiya kits to shame, especially the overall accuracy, which is barely matched by a mere handfull of Tamiya 1/48th vehicle kits: Crusader, Marder III, Steyr 1500, Tiger 1, Pershing...

Today, only AFV Club really plays in the same league as HB did for 1/48th armor. (HBs Shermans were a lone HB exception in being not good at all, but the A1 76 mm is still borderline correctable, and the front hull 1 piece transmission cover looks better than Tamiya's)

Gaston

BTW, Squadron has the KV in German form Hobby Boss 1/48 for 5.00 US!! Going to order two.