I started today the recently released Trumpy's T-72B kit.
Plese do not expect a highly detailed and commented build log, but just some kind of OOB build to show what you may expect and what you will find in the box.
Sorry for the crappy pictures, but I'm a far worst photographer than I'm a -so so- modeller...

On a general view the detail level is really good, no flash or sink marks found anywhere.

Let's start with the lower hull and stuff













I'll leave the suspensión arms and road wheels for later, so let's take a look at the front upper hull
Again, the pics suck, but you can get an idea...



Upper hull fits like a glove on the lower hull, no troubles here.
No need for sanding or putty, just the usual work to carefully remove the part from the sprue.











Just for -my own- fun, I glued the two halves of the turret to see where are we going with this build...
I sanded only a bit of the left front, and no sanding on the right side.

After taking these pics I follow on sanding the turret front. Here I have to advice that you'll have to sand it smoothly and with a lot of patience to avoid "changing" the armor shape.
For this particular version it should not be a main issue since most of the turret front will be hidden under the ERA blocks, but for other versions this will be a key point...













That's all for now
So far, as was with their T-90 cast turret kit, its an easy build, almost flawless.
Fitting of all the parts is excellent, no putty needed until this point.
I'll leave the moment to add all the endless PE "thingies" for as late as posible

I hope to post some significant advance later this week end

Nice build, hope for more pictures soon. My T-72 is on the way and T-90 cast turret already in the stash

A fast and short update.
I'm not going as Trumpeter's instructions, I prefer to place the bigger parts first and then add the Little ones, instead of doing sub-assemblies. In previous build I found myself damaging the smaller parts while handling the sub-assemblies and trying to place them together at the last stages of the build, so I usually choose to go this way...

First, fenders added, and after them the back upper hull -engine hatch and vents- main parts.
The front add-on armor is just dry-fitted in place, not yet glued..



















The "smoother" turret in place again, just to have a look.















I have to improve the fit in a couple of places of the upper hull, but anyway I'm quite satisfied since I did not use putty at all up to this stage...
Any comments and advice will be very welcome!

looks really nice. Mine is supposed to be here Monday. looking forward to it

Nice build so far. Hopefully Santa will bring the T-90 cast turret and even it's not exactly the same kit I guess your Blog will prove useful.

Olivier

Thanks gents!
Hope this build will be useful for those who got the Trumpeter kit

Olivier: I can tell you that the basic kit is almost the same for both the T-90 cast turret and this T-72...
If you take a look at how the part-break is done, and watch the unused parts you'll end with, that allows you to imagine the future versions Trump will release based on the original kit.
Until now, both kits look quite good and nicely molded.

Advice for people going to build this kit : when you reach the moment to place part G7 on the front upper hull, keep in mind that its really fragile and with a remarkable tendency to glue to your fingers and/or fall towards the "carpet-monster".
So once you finally managed to take it out of your fingertips and putting it in place, I strongly suggest you to not even look at it again!

I found today some parts with a bit of flash, mainly on part E30 which is the one with the very rear grilles.
Here the flash was on the inside of the "vents", so it would not be so easy to be seen when the grilles are placed, but anyway "you" will know that it is there, so I carefully remove the excess with an x-acto blade. Not a hard job at all..

Some more pics later, now is "family-time", so the missus is in command.

Few things added to the hull glacis, and armor block finally fitted.



Remember my advice about part G7? Well, I managed to place it in a wrong spot, so had to remove and re-place it. Of course it went to the floor, but I could find it quite fast -well, not that fast...-
Now its placed properly
(Part G7 is the Little one circled in next pic)





Main gun barrel dry-fitted just for my "inner-child" joy. Not sanded yet, I still did not decide if I'll replace it with a metal AM one...













An initial approach to get a better appeareance of the anti radiation lining at the turret back, since it is molded with very "uniform" and hard edges.
For my taste, it should be more uneven, but we are still far from the moment to pay attention to the turret details...





That's all by now, will follow on the next days.

As I can see the trumpy's T-72B turret is the best 1/35 plastic copy of original ever.

Sign me up for one when the Squadron Tuesday sale price hits approx $30.
Loving the new releases, not loving the inital release MSPR, but the stash is deep and I am patient.

Just got my T64-75 and am loving it.

Makes clearing all these old (ancient?) DML kits out of the stash easier...
And Skif?? As if they will ever get built, sci-fi kitbash fodder for SURE!

Keep up the good works,
Mike

Hi Guys;

Yes the Turret looks fantastic. But when I think about having too put all of those round cladding PE Bolts,-- I break Out In A Cold Sweat. I just Don't see the added Benefit of having them in PE, now I agree that in some kits it is a must. But with this kit. Photo Etch was a real Big issue when you were working with the Old Dragon early kits, yea they needed it bad I am really looking forward too the next T-72, other than the Tos-1 and the Terminator. How about the T-72 ARV !

CHEERS; MIKE.

I imagine they went with seperate disks because even with slide molds they would've been difficult to mold convincingly at all of those different orientations.

Not too much time for modelling, but today I managed to spend an hour with the model.

Just because I guess you'll be interested in the work involved to add the antiradiation-layer cladding, I left aside the hull and the step order indicated by the instructions, and started removing the round thingies from the PE fret.
That's the most boring part of the process, but you better keep your calm and patience to do it the right way, since once removed the Little parts are almost impossoble to work with.
Let's go to some pics of a few of them applied to the turret. On a side note, I'll be cheating here, since I will not place the cladding that will end under the ERA blocks.. They are not too much, but the fewer you have to add, the better

All these Little ladies were directly "glued" to the turret with Tamiya Extra Thin Cement, and to my own surprise it worked really well. Didn't loose any of them (yet, at least) even after moving and sahking the turret to test the fit...
Enough words, now to the pics (a bit crappy as always)













Placing a dozen of this round pieces took about ten minutes, so I guess that more talented and neat modellers will be able to do the job faster and better.
(take in account that the turret will require about a hundred of them)
That's all for now, hope to keep on building this weekend

Hi;
The Turret Looks real Nice, you are doing a Fantastic Job Cant wait too see more !


CHEERS; MIKE.

So far I have to say that both the build and the pics have been really great, so you should give yourself much more credit in both regards :-)

Really nice model..

Will those round thingies on the turret really stay in place when you start the painting process? Just a word of warning there, I tried using Tamiya thin cement on etch once, and the parts seemes to stick, until I started painting them. Probably best to put a drop of super thin CA glue on them as well.

Keep up the good work, looking forward to seeing more.

Sven

Another option for placing photoetch that would work particularly well here would be Future or a similar type varnish. It gives a very strong bond, much more tensile strength than CA glue, and will give you plenty of time for final positioning of the part. No chance of glue "globs" either as it contracts very nicely as it dries.

Sean

Thanks for your comments, gents!

I agree about using Future or similar stuff, just to be sure that no little parts will end flying away when painting.
It is also "thin" enough to allow the details to remain noticeable -they are really very very tiny-
And far more "user friendly" than CA glue

But we are still far from the painting stage, so we will also see what happens with these PE while handling the turret to keep on building it. My first tests shown them firmly in place... Lets hope things keep going this way

liquid plastic model glue should work without issue. I often use my Testors liquid glue to attache PE pieces...I have never had them fall off unless I knock them off. Using future instead of glue will also work well.

Use Super glue if the piece will have any pressure or stress on it as the bond is usually better. Future may be strong too, I don't know.



And nice work so far. Enjoying the BLOG.

I use white glue for PE parts like your disks. Considering they are in a recess, it will be sufficient as a bond agent.

Olivier

White glue is my usual way to go with PE too, but this time tried something different, since the round parts are very small, and the liquid cement seemed to be more practical and easier to use in this particular case.
As far as I went, it was as a good choice as WG, and a bit easier to apply
The only "worst" aspect I found is that liquid cement dries faster, but you can handle this by re-touching the parts with a small amount of cement...

Why Trumpeter went with photo-etch disks for that is beyond me. I've heard the arguments about the slide mold process not being detailed enough, but Meng managed it.

The main trouble I see with them is getting the ENTIRE fret off of the piece. From the images, I saw at least one of them with a stub on it and given the tiny size, I would expect many of them will end up that way. It is just an enormous amount of work for such a small detail.

I have to agree in the fact that they are a real PITA...

I believe that the main issue is not the -boring and neverending- job of removing them from the PE fret. That is just a matter of far-eastern patience and care.
You'll find on future pics that the parts still to be attached were cut-off better and almost without any stubs since I left behind my initial "rush" to show you some PE on the turret...

For me the main issue is that those tiny roundels do not fit perfectly within every one of the depressed/recessed "spots" on the turret, so you'll find that some of them will remain protruding over the surface of the turret itself, while they should be "in" the depression...
You can see that in a couple of the pics I posted

I'm not going to fix it this time, since it will requiere a lot of work and from the beginning this was intended to be an almost OOB project, with only the obvious touchs and sanding here and there.
But the fact is that this issue will remain there and might be quite annoying for some of you.

Not all of the "roundels" are meant to be inset. Some are flush, some protrude. See reference pics. I am NOT sure if they are uniform from tank to tank on the whole inset/protruse thing...maybe it is not a uniform thing?

Hi Everybody;
I think that even with the One Hundred or so Tiny Round Armor Cladding Bolts, I am still going too purchase this kit. But I have too go along with my fello Tread Head Mr. ET, and ask why, Why in the &*^# did you have too do that. Our Hobby is suppose too be Fun, This will be fun comparing this turret with the Miniarm turret that I just ordered for X-mas. This kit still looks like a Stunning Model, and I cant wait too get my Hands on it.
I wonder which Mk; of the T-72 series we will see next.

CHEERS; MIKE.

Knowing former-soviet/russian standards for building AFV's they might not be uniform, not only from tank to tank but on a same vehicle too.
I'm going to check some close-up pics of the layout of this lining to confirm this. All the pics I recall -from memory, and in my case that is not the most trustable source- show more or less "inset" roundels -how did we end calling these pieces this way? lol-

Anyway, and just to be clear here, I'm loving this kit

Agree 110% Mike
And trust me, you'll love the kit even with all these "unnecessary" PE thingies

I hope they'll release some of the A versions soon