I am foaming at the mouth !! I must have a T-90 !
This kit looks pretty good to me from your posts and reviews.
I cannot believe you are thinking about puting Zvesda's turret on a Tamiya body. It looks like Zvesda went all out with this tank. It looks 1st rate to me. I have never seen a T-90 up close. It looks spot on with the few photos I can find up close. Shut up and build the damn tank !!! I can't wait to have one.

Cheers.
John

Well...here you are

http://dishmodels.ru/wshow.htm?p=1702

http://dishmodels.ru/wshow.htm?p=1700

http://dishmodels.ru/wshow.htm?p=874

http://www.primeportal.net/tanks/yuri_pasholok/t-90/

http://otvaga2004.narod.ru/publ_w7_2010/0045_t90.htm

http://armor.kiev.ua/Tanks/Modern/T90/

http://army.lv/ru/t-90/631/12

http://btvt.narod.ru/5/90/90.htm

Thanks a lot Mauro.
A while ago, the tanks in Moscow site existed and had a huge collection of pictures but for some reason it suddenly disappeared.

So after sorting the track painting I continued with the build. First thing was attaching the rear hull plate and then mating the hull halves. The fit here was very nice, with only one small area at the front needing some filler and one area at the rear also needing filler. The rear plate is a fairly busy affair with various bits and pieces to attach once the hull is mated up:





The fit of the two hooks, cables and un-ditching beam was perfect. Then comes some more building on the rear deck including attaching the two cables up to their hitches:



The instructions say you should cut each piece of string to be attached to 10.5cm, I would say to give yourself an extra 1 or 2mm here. For some reason I ended up with about an extra 1cm on one string bit, but it was easily wrapped up and attached. I suppose a metal tow cable would be more aesthetically pleasing and would certainly weather better but the one good thing about string is that it is easily shaped and glued into place without much fuss.

The front en-trenching blade was also finished:



Sideskirts went on next and although the general fit is positive I encountered a small gap appearing between the hull and the top of the skirts as I tried to ensure the skirts sat flush at the front and back. I won't know if the gap needs filling until I give it a shot of primer, in any case it is a very small gap and nothing troubling.





So another few steps to go before the build is complete.

Thanks for reading.

-Karl187-

Those grills are very suspicious

Why, did it knock over a bank? !

Yeah I said a few posts back the metal mesh I was using was out of scale, its the only pattern/size I have to hand at the minute.

I just remembered something I forgot to ask earlier. I'm planning a small scene to put the T-90 on and I want to have a roadsign/warning sign in Russian on it. So I was wondering if one of you Russian speakers out there would translate the following phrase for me:

'WARNING: ENTERING MILITARY CONTROL ZONE'.

Thanks for any help with this.

Try Eduard's Zoom set to Tamiya's T-72... Maybe It can be fitted to your T-90 and it's not so expensive... Or you can try this very fine mesh that comes in a coffeemaker filter. Best regards.

José.

Usually I use metal meshes available at harware stores. They are cheaper and incredibly useful

Anyway Karl I'm sure you've already known
You 've already glued your grills?

Actually I just used the kit supplied mesh. To be fair to Zvezda its a better representation of the actual grill than a photo etch part. The Zvezda mesh isn't too hard to work with, just a pair of sharp scissors and a little patience and mine went together just fine.

Rob have you glued it with common plastic cement haven't you?

Good info, thanks a lot. I think I'll use on mine if I can't find a convincing metal mesh

Cheers

I just used cheap super glue Mauro. I think its a decent representation of the grill, photo etch is often too 2D and flat.

Jose- thats a good idea about the coffee maker filter, I must go and hunt one down!

And yes as Mauro said I have already glued the mesh in place so I can't go back. Using the a T-72 etch set never occured to me, but its not a bad idea. Although I reckon we will see a dedicated etch set for the T-90 in the next week or two.

I think the kit supplied mesh is decent enough, I've just never liked that sort of material though.

So Christian beat pretty much everyone to the starting line with his T-90. But it looks like I got to the construction finish line first !

By the way, check out the view count on Christian's thread, it is standing at 22,106 already- damn impressive> !



























After my last post there wasn't really a great deal to do. The steps of putting on the fuel drums and tubing is optional- only on long route marches or operations are they actually used so much of the time they are unlikely to be mounted, in which case the cradles need to be clipped to leave a nice square joint-cover with four nuts- there are plenty of references out there for how it should look and modifying the kit parts would be easy.

For the setting I plan for the tank I need the fuel drums attached. They sit on the cradles easily but connecting the tubing up was a bit tricky, some tape was needed to bend things ever so slightly until the glue had time to set.

The engine louvre covers at the rear are usually positioned open- the shape doesn't appear quite right to me, I reckon these might be replaced by etch pieces in aftermarket sets.

The front headlights are quite tricky too (the clear parts will be added after painting) and I had to cut down the left one to fit properly. The last thing is the side armor plates which go on very nicely.

So now its time for some paint. I reckon this calls for my Badger.



Er...the other one.



Thats the one !

Thanks for reading.

-Karl187-

Hi Karl,

Very nice build. looking forward to seeing paint on it!

i can see why you choose the later badger as the first one seems it would be difficult to control and stripping it down and cleaning could be a real B*TCH!

Gary

Well done Karl! Now i'm waiting for the "badger" job

I Notice that isn't there any putty on your model . Also on the 2 pieces gun burrel any seams are visible
I know that Christian (aka Warsavpact) has had some problems with the gun barrel assembling, what about you?

Can I assume that kit fit is quite good?

Cheers

Great build so far, looking forward to seeing it with paint.

S

Gary- thanks a lot mate!

You too Steven, glad you like the build.

Mauro- there wasn't any putty at that point, just a little to plug two small gaps when I mated the hull. As for other areas I wanted to wait and see what the primer showed up. There were a couple of bits toward the end of the barrel which needed cleaning up but I must say it did fit quite well and the seams mostly dissappeared after a sanding session. The worst parts I noticed under primer were the fuel barrels and some bits around the sideskirts, I've plugged them with Vallejo Putty and some Mr. Hobby Dissolved Putty (brilliant product by the way).

Kit fit overral was excellent, one or two areas needed some fiddling and sanding and the odd bit of cutting. Worse bit was the gun barrel attachment. Just snip the bit off the end at the back of the barrel that protrudes and it will fit very snugly into the mantlet, no need for glue in fact.

The only other area I had trouble with, which I forgot to mention yesterday, was the turret ring. Fitting the turret to the hull is very fiddly because the hull is thick and the turret really needs to be pressed down hard to get it to lock and turn freely, I ended up having to shove a pair of tweezer's through one of the open hatches to force it down into place so I didn't break anything. Seems to come on and off quite well after that.

Thanks for the info Karl, i'll keep them in my mind when I face up to my model
Unfortunately i can't find mr dissolved putty, I think I'll use some diluted Tamiya white putty to fill small gaps

Regarding the warning signboard i've found these ones





They are not military but i think that more or less it would be the same
i think you could directlely print the first one and then you could use it on your dio

cheers

Mauro- thanks for those signs- do you know what they say?

I found a good way to print stuff like that is on matte photo paper- its kind of like really thin card, good for mounting and it is more durable than ordinary paper.

MDC in the UK is where I get all my Mr. Hobby products- they probably deliver in the EU aswell, check it out:


MDC

Vallejo Model Putty is also pretty good- I find it dries a lot quicker than any other putty, allows you to get on with things easily.

Some Russian guy should confirm, but as far as I understood it should be written

"No trespassing"

Thanks for the link Karl


Cheers

Karl, superb job on the T-90!
I might have been first to start the building the T-90 but i have learnaed alot from you , especially the track/lower chassie part. That's the beauty of "tandem" builds, one gets ahead of the other on some sections and the other one can learn from it.

I read somewhere a few posts back about a diorama being mentioned...what kind of dio are you planning? Sounds very exiting! Looking forward to seeing your T-90 in full color.

Once again...great progress on your build!

Basically yes. It literally reads:
"Entry of unauthorized [personel] forbidden"

This one:

found here: http://www.garnek.pl/acidart/5754130
reads:
"Military zone entry forbidden".

I'm not an expert since I've only studied Russian for 3 years in high school and never was particulary good at it, but I have a feeling that the first one will be more suitable for placing on the fence of some warehouse or on the doors of the back in a shop, than beside the road on a military checkpoint if you catch the diffrence.

Karl very nice build and nice photos! I'm looking forward to see it painted!
And I'm seriously tempted to add this beast to my stash. Oh so much good kits!
Cheers

Here a pic

http://galinaaksyenova.livejournal.com/56870.html?thread=433446

Thanks for the translation Jaroslaw


Cheers

Nice find!
This one reads:
"Forbidden zone no entry"
(the last two words are literally "passage closed" but it's kind of awkward sounding in english I think)