Clayton, brave indeed.

I remember my build about 15 years ago. Even then it was a terrible kit. Those tracks look nightmarish. Maybe some gentle heat can get the tracks into place?

Great that you are taking the challenge and turning this dog into a silk purse

Thanks, Tat and Jesper for the encouraging words (I need them, LOL)...I'm thinking that if I battle-damage the thing enough then the shortcomings (the model's and mine) won't be so noticeable!

I made a little more progress on my Tornado. It is going slow as the quality of the kit is proving to be a bit of a demotivator at the moment.

Next is a gloss coat and then a lot of colorful decals. Weathering will be very light, but hopefully the result will be a good one.

More to follow

Jesper - Your paint is already making that Tornado an eye catcher. I look forward to seeing it with decals.

Thanks, Paul. It will be colorful for sure.

It will be interesting to see how the decals fit. I suspect the Italeri Tornado (which the decals are from) is slightly smaller and more accurate in scale.

Fingers crossed

Well, this Two-headed Dog is ready for painting...the end of the build was just frustrating, not maddening...the lack of positive anchor points for most of the small parts, coupled with vague instructions and brittle plastic, topped this fruitcake with whipped cream...


(if you anything that doesn't seem to belong where it is, it's because I had to improvise to cover various anchor points for parts that didn't exist, LOL!)

Our Polish friends have come a long way in the last 30-40 years, from sub-standard kits like this to the the beautiful after-market PE, Resin, and turned barrels available today from Polish entities. Kudos to them!

Looking like a flyer to these eyes, very good work!

Clayton - I'm glad to see that you managed this build despite the difficulties. I just ordered my own two headed dog to go with single turret kits already on hand. Have you decided on colors? I have not seen any specific references yet . . .

Clayton, I think you have succeded with this little dog. Especially the tracks came out better than expected.

I got some references on this tank in my stash somewhere. Let me know if you want a couple of color profiles or you already have a colorscheme in mind.

Thank you's for the kind words! The colour scheme I was thinking of is for the 1st Co. of Light Tanks, defending Warsaw in early 1939, a simple green, brown and khaki (I do not have an airbrush....yet), so I was going to spray green and then mask the other two colours. Any other ideas or hints are very welcome! Thank again!

Clayton, sounds good. It will look awesome in that color scheme.

Decaling underway. As feared the fit is terrible as the original decals are meant for the Italeri tornado and not this dog. Lots of solvent and later touch up painting is required. Hopefully it will look good nonetheless.

More to follow

Looks like quality work to me....;-)

Exactly, Clayton

All the decals are on. From a distance it looks good, but up close there are a lot of details to fix. Out with the paint

Looks great! They are no longer 'dogs'!

Ok, time to unveil my Dog! This 1/35 Mirage Polish 7TP is painted to represent the 1st Co. of Light Tanks, in defense of Warsaw, Okecie Airport Sector 10-11 Sept. 1939. There are no markings on the tank, other than the funky camouflage (the brown looks much redder in the photo than it actually is)...the new technique I used to finish the beast was using spray paint and masking for the first time. An eventful build!

Strange thing about those treads, they were really tight when I put them on (enough to pull the wheels out of kilter), but now they have loosened to the point of gapping...very strange...

Clayton, nice build. I Think the tracks are really what is making this tank an extra bad dog!

The material stretches. It really is the tracks that bring the kit down, though I know how chunky to nonexistent the details are on these kits. Woof.

The RPM/Mirage single link track are a cheap alternative and at least one boxing of this dog has them. And it has been boxed by a pile of different companies as any eBay search for 1/35 7tp will show. It's all the same plastic.

Ah well, a kit like this makes you really appreciate the new ones available now, no doubt! I tried to add Battle damage to the plastic, but it's so brittle that the model threatened to bust apart...well,it was a DOG!;-)

Clayton - You truly did make a silk purse out oif that sow's ear. It gives me hope that I will be able to build my own 7TP out of that kit.

Jesper - Your bird sure does look spectacular!

I have started working on my own Dog again this past weekend. I filled the slot in the hull where the electric motor gear went. I'm not sure it will be seen but it seemed to be a good thing to do.

I had a set of Eduard PE for the Tamiya Panther and fitted the mesh screens on top of the engine deck. I'm still fairly new to PE and was pleased with the results. There are four frets included in the package and if all were applied this old dog would probably be a dog no longer. I just used a few of the PE bits, the rest will go into the spares box. The last thing for the weekend was squirting some Tamiya dark yellow out of a rattlecan. Here are a few progress shots:

Paul, nice choice. Definitely a dog in terms of details and accuracy, but the fit should be ok.

I have now finished my Tornado. It looks good from a distance, but honestly it will never make it into the display cabinet. My kids will probably play with it. Not many details that can break of anyway

It was fun to build a dog, but I am looking forward to start on the Eduard Bf 110 as the next kit although I hear the engine nacelles also have dog issues.

Looking forward to follow the rest of your builds.