This is my first Russian tank and it seems to be fairly good so far but I'm wondering if there is a tweak list of things that need to be fixed.

So far I have had to shim the hull opening for the turret otherwise it would slop all around the hole the same thing goes for the commanders hatch.

Thanks
Ron P.

Hi Ron;

What you have, is A really Old kit !! I would use it to practice your Building & Painting Skill's !!! If you are not into the Accuracy thing, then just build it Out Of the Box. The Most Accurate T-55s are Tamiya, & Takom !!

GOOD LUCK; MIKE.

It depends on what T-55 you want to build. It's an old kit and missing a lot as well as mixing a lot of features of the real tank.

For example: all the tie downs on the turret are missing, the headlight guard is square when it should be angled, the fuel lines are totally absent but what's worse the fuel tanks are two different sizes when they should all be the same size. No snorkel, no tools, boxes wrong configuration for most versions, engine deck lacking covers and louvers and molded solid ... etc.

The kit was really based on a Tiran 5. The Israelis took a lot of fittings off during the conversion that AMT/ESCI/Italeri forgot to add back. It's originally ESCI, AMT released it in the US, Italeri owns the molds now.

It has been released under all those makers and a Google search will find you various articles from back when this was the only game in town and what people did back in the day. I built a shelf full of them because they are so cheap but really the only good thing about the kit today are the link and length track. Other than that find out what you want to build and get lots a spares to add to it.

If you get a Tamiya kit there are enough variant specific spares to add a lot of the missing gear and you can get practice before tackling a far better detailed.kit.

I would add that the configuration of the suspension braces is wrong: them all are hinged forward, while on the real tank the last on each side should be hinged rearback (I think it was a way to not locate torsion bars under the engine block); besides, the braces are too long and protrude from the wheel shape, making the previous error more visible. I think that the kit is useful only to make some practice on modelling techniques.

The easiest fix is to throw it in the trash and get one of either the much superior Tamiya or Takom T55s. The AMT/Esci/Italeri T55 is a waste of time, effort, and money.

It is a "challenged model" so to say. Avoiding it makes you bad, discriminating etc... So, roll up your sleeves and start working on it as it will improve you as well. I built mine back in 2006,won gold on a local contest...after that i rebuilt it 10 years after and in april i got bronze on a larger competition. Turret sits to low, so consider 1-2mm rings of some kind. I used donated Tamiya turret, PE and a lot of scratch building. I posted it earlier, so a link is here
http://armorama.com/forums/245019#2068381
happy modelling

Older kits like this make great skill building exercises. They need help and it all depends on how much help you want to give them and what model building skills you want to practice or experiment with.

Have fun. See how far you can go in fixing it, play with researching the various incarnations of the T-55. Model building is not some kind of torture chamber where everything has to be perfect. Have fun, it's only plastic.

Thanks guys! You have been most helpful! Sometimes correcting a model can be a challenge and something I personally like to do. The advice to practice before building a better kit is a great idea, never thought of that!

Maybe you could pretend it is a model of a movie prop ??

Blame the errors on the sloppy fact checking by the movie producers

/ Robin