KoSprueOne that is the least I can do after the fantastic effort
you put into my campaign



Paul

Keep up the good work and posting the photos,i`m following this build with interest as i`ve got the T-55AM in my stash.
Seeing what you`re dealing with on these three gives me an insight as to what i`ve got coming up !.

Sorry for delay in reply, Paul. That was a good idea for a campaign and a bunch of builders showed up for that one!

armouredcharmer - Thanks for dropping in and commenting. Yes, I will def post more pictures of the finished tanks. These three are going to a local show this weekend so they HAVE to get done

T-55C1 Bublina painted and basically done

Just scored a couple ribbons at a local show and I'm STOKED!

I bought some excellent printed reference material for any clue of how to paint the SLA-APC



This is where I'm at with the base color over all. I'm going 'old school' with the base color first then a loose pin wash then several layers of dry brushing. Each dry brushed color is subtly lightened with each pass.





Colors used so far:

Base color Tamiya XF-18 Medium Blue as a heavy wash over gray primer.

Loose pin wash with a mix of 50% Tamiya XF-50 Field Blue and 50% Tamiya XF-64 Red Brown.

The successive layers of dry brushing with Tamiya XF-18 Medium Blue lightened with Gunze H-311 Gray FS 36622.

These are paint that I already have at the bench so looking at my Ref it's a close match

Nice job on a tough kit (kits). That blue ribbon is well earned!

Thank you, Jacques. That was a first time learning experience with UN white and now a first with SLA blue

Started weathering with acrylic washes. Maybe a little too red-ish. Continuing today with some clean up of the 'water spots' and tone the grime color to a more dirty sand hue ?



thanks for looking in . . .

Grime on the tracks using ground up pastels mixed with hobby acrylics into a sloppy wash. Tonight I'm going to rub out some color off the tops of the detail to reveal more black then dry brush gun metal.



Thanks for looking...

Hi;

I Second the Statement by JD; Congratulations on A Job Well Done, your Hard Work was justly rewarded.


CHEERS; MIKE.

Thank you very much. I appreciate you taking the time to check in and comment

There tracks are painted and weathered. Today I installed them and they are very cooperative. None of the paint flaked off and they are very soft, almost sag naturally into position.



After I started gluing them to the drive sprocket and idler wheel, things got weird . . .



Heads up - if you're doing this model, cut out 1 or 2 links before glueing the ends together. The tracks are obviously a little too long

. . . and 4.5 months later, I finally get back to fixing the tracks by shortening the length because they were too long.

The following pictures will illustrate how I did this by removing just 1 link from each side. I first had to break off the drive sprockets and the hubcaps of the idler wheels to get the tracks off.

The pictures show the left side only but I fixed both sides the same way


^ Break the wheels off of the model


^ cut one link out


^ CA glue back together


^ track installed but before sag created


^ Sag created by glueing around the contact area of the idler wheel and to the top of the center road wheel



thanks for looking

Great work fixing the track issue, very nice and realistic sag effect!

Thanks for the comment. I'm satisfied with the improvement

While I was fixing the tracks and had them off the model, I also repositioned the front road wheel, on the right side, a little further back from the idler because they were touching.

And so inappropriately




I broke off the suspension arm, filed it down in certain places, and then repositioned a few mm's back to get proper spacing.


^ dotted line is where I shaved off some material for fit. The arrow points at the little piece of styrene shim for the new location to glue to.


^ the blue dotted lines are where the stock assembly brought the parts to an uncomfortable position. The black lines are where they were repositioned straight back into an appropriate location.


^ OK much better space as (arrowed). Also, space A and B are realistically appropriate.

Thanks for looking...

I've (finished) the three SKIF T-55s in this series. I thought it would be a simple and quick build up and blog because Ive never built a SKIF kit before these three kits. If I had known it would be sort of complicated like this, I would have made three different blog threads for each one.

Comments and criticism are ok. A couple things I intended not to include from the start were the fender fuel tank lines and any AM products.

Thanks for looking!


SKIF, FAVORIT tank T-55C2, kit no. 231

Painted and marked as a Czech Driver Trainer tank.



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SKIF, T-55C1 "Bublina" tank with mine sweeper KMT-6, kit no. 224.

Painted and marked for UNMEE service.



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SKIF, South Lebanon APC-55, kit no. 242

Hi KoSprueOne,

This is quite an epic build(s)! Very interesting to see, and your results are great! I don't know if I'd take on any of these kits, but that said, I seem to be among the few who likes to build the Panda MATV! So, I guess we each choose our path to follow.

Really nice work,

Cheers
Nick

Thanks for your comment, Nick. This was my first time building SKIF kits and it was a learning experience for sure

hi

where can I find the same reference books you got ?!

please advise

thank you

I have no words; just "wow!"

Hi Gilbert, I found and bought the two Russian magazines on E bay. The Bluesteel ref was, I think, from Sprue Bros

Thank you, I think

Great job on these tanks! The amount of work you put into these really shows. I don't know if I can match your skill. My builds look easy compared to yours.