With my Meng T-90 and Trumpeter T-72B builds finished finished I thought it about time to start work on this beast, kindly provided by KitMaker network for a full and thorough assessment. You can find my detailed review of the kit here.

The Takom kit is one of 3 available on the market with Amusing Hobby and Panda also offering examples, pretty incredible considering only one of these where ever actually built. None the less it makes for quite a show-stopping piece and allows for a huge amount of creativity with paint finishes. My kit is going to be pretty much built out of the box, with the only area that I shall address being the cast texture and some of the welds.

First up Takom's imposing box art:



This tank really is mad looking:



Construction starts as standard with the running gear, always the most tedious step and the Object 279 is no exception, although quite a step away from the norm:



The two longitudinal beams onto which the suspension is mounted are constructed first from two parts:





My samples where totally covered in greasy mould release agent, so watch out as you may have to clean these to prevent issues later on when painting.

Here's the end idler mounts:



Some very small and fiddly pieces need to be inserted:



It's quite hard to get them to fit properly:



There's also some pretty heft mould lines to contend with, in rather awkward locations:





Here's the completed beams:



Gaps to fill:



There's a few welds that should be present around the end idler mount which are totally absent on the kit, with nothing but a smooth finished. Admittedly this isn't major and most will likely cover these parts under a coat of dirt, however its worth highlighting:





The drive sprockets and mounts are fairly straight forward:



The alignment of the two parts isn't quite spot on with the teeth being slightly out, hopefully this won't be significant enough to cause problems when fitting the tracks:



Not a bad representation compared to the real thing:



Heres the finished units:



Note the quite substantial join between the two sprocket mount halves which will need filling (i'm going to address these later and impart some texturing with Mr Surfacer):



Next up the hydro-pneumatic suspension units, of which there are 24 in total (12 each side). These are made up of two parts:



The fit here really is a little difficult with a fairly major gap visible when attempting to join the parts as they are:



You've also quite some quite awkward mould lines again:



The easiest method to overcome the gaps is to remove the locating pins and sand the pieces totally flat thus:



I got there in the end:



The main suspension components all assembled:




Next i'm going to have to clean up all those road wheels and tracks, not looking forward to it........

I also bought the TAKOM kit because of the figure. I'll be watching this blog

Thanks for stopping in, I hope the blog will be useful!

This is a good looking build and it's worth mentioning RB now makes an aluminum barrel for it... for both versions of the gun!










Jeff

RB Model makes a barrel for the Panda Object 279. Are you sure they make a barrel for the Takom kit?

Hi Rob ,

Glad to see this one being built ! Got it in the stash

also ! Looking forward to your build !!!

regards
JOEY

Are you sure that they do not? I'm only going by this statement:

"RB Model has released a new turned metal barrel for the Object 279. The 130mm M-65 barrel is stated as designed for the Panda kit, but could probably be fit to others with a little work."

Found here: https://armorama.kitmaker.net/news/17038

So don't shoot the messenger! I guess making an aluminum barrel fit is better than using the plastic piece that comes with the kit?








Jeff

I don't think anyone is shooting anyone. If the mantlet mount is essentially the same on the Panda Hobby, Amusing Hobby, and Takom kits then the barrel may fit all three kits...but, RB Models doesn't make a barrel specifically for the Takom kit (not yet)...I know because I checked the RB Models site before I replied to your original post.

I hope the barrel does fit the Takom kit as it will be a great addition along with the Voyager Model PE set. By the way Voyager Model makes PE sets for the Takom, Panda Hobby, and Amusing Hobby Object 279 kits...this I know.

Way back when, we didn't have the luxury of things "fitting" so the modeler inside us had to make it fit.

Still, an aluminum barrel is better than a plastic barrel. That is my point you are missing.








Jeff

Nope, not missing your point. I agree with you and I understood your point even before you made it multiple times. I love metal replacement barrels. I have many metal barrels. They fit very well into the kits I build. Hurray for metal barrels!

In between the ongoing T-90 painting i've managed to get a small bit of work done on this, and almost have the lower hull finished. There's some small detailing to add to the bottom hull:







Here's the running gear beams dry fitted:



I've added some rough texturing to these parts as I really wasn't happy with the smooth finish. This has been achieved with Mr Surfacer which is then sanded down and imparts a light cast texture:



And, the most tedious part of every build, cleaned up the road wheels:



Up next i'll get the running gear fitted and move onto the upper hull....

Between a manic work schedule and unfortunately some unwell elderly relatives its been a bit of a struggle to find much bench time lately, so you'll have to forgive me. I'm slowly plugging away at this though and getting bits and pieces done when I can.

I've more of less finished the running gear and lower hull, save for the horrendously tedious looking individual tracks-I might set them to one side for the present.

Here's the suspension beams with some rough texturing imparted with Mr Surfacer:



These just 'click' onto the lower hull and can actually be dry-fitted with a fairly snug fit, which will enable their removal to assist with painting.



In place:



And with the sprockets dry fitted:





Again another heavy application of Mr Surfacer, mainly to hide the join gap:



And, thats mad boat shaped hull:



Up next the turret and upper hull...

Any updates?! Please! You are doing a really good job.
I won the Amusing Hobby version in my model club raffle for $1. Now I see it is worth about that as it is the one with most errors.
So I will be getting the Takom kit.
Does anybody make tracks yet for this kit?
Thanks!

You're in Luck Alan, having finished the Meng T-90 a few weeks ago I've got this back on the bench to get construction completed. Unfortunately the Takom kit is far from perfect, however I hope you find my updates useful. Alas no metal tracks available yet as far as I know, the Takom tracks are horrid, talking of which:

This is the next step:



I spent a couple of evenings cutting them all from the sprue (6 sprues in total), a real nightmare!



I've promptly dumped them to one side to deal with later.

Rather bizarrely the instructions now jump to the turret, no bother, it makes a welcome change from dealing with the hull. There's a huge amount of room for improvement here, especially some gaps between the upper and lower turret parts and the cast texture which could do with improving.

I began by gluing the two halves together along with the gun mantlet and searchlight:





Nice big gap:





Maybe I'm just a sloppy modeller, however this seemed unavoidable.

I'm not overly keen on the cast texture:







Notice as well the ring around the commanders hatch, which is totally smooth on the Takom kit- in reality this should have some rough welding present as seen in the top left of this photo:



The same should be present around the site mounting casting although its difficult to see on reference photos (bad exposure on any of the walk around photos I have).

I set about applying a thick irregular coat of Mr Surfacer on the turret surface, stippled with an old brush. You'll also notice I've added the above mentioned welding with Milliput:



This is then sanded with various sanding sticks:









I then applied a coat of Tamiya primer to determine whether the new texture is satisfactory- I'm fairly happy with it:











Here's the turret with all of the fittings added, you'll note that I've replaced the grab handles with metal wire, the kit parts being pretty poor:













Quite a bit of filler was required on the site of the coincidence range-finder:



I'll probably have to glue the mantlet in place as well as its moved out of position, thus the barrel ends up slightly wonky:



Talking of which, there's no way I'm using the kit barrel:



Takom's plastic is quite rough and brittle, which I've found difficult to sand smooth, so the barrel really would end up looking rough, the muzzle doesn't lend itself well to plastic either:



There was some discussion earlier in this thread about whether the RB Model barrel, marketed as being for the Panda kit, would fit this, well I'm pleased to say it does fit. First up here's some commercial shots of the superb barrel:





Some modification work is required, first up chop off the end of the Takom barrel as you'll need this for mounting the RB barrel:









I used some putty to fill the joins:



Here's the complete barrel (I've not yet glued the muzzle):



And there you have, the completed turret:




Up next i'l make a start on the upper hull........

Very nice work on improving the turret Rob.

Hi;

With the amount of Work that you have put in this kit, I am Surprised that you did not replace the Coax MG as well. You have done Splendid work on the Beast, and I mite just have too go out and purchase this kit myself.

CHEERS; MIKE.

Thanks very much Jason & Mike.





A very valid point and something I hadn't thought about now until you mentioned it-I've just put in an order for an RB replacement.