Again, thanks goes to Darren and Jim for allowing me to do another build review/feature for you guys.

This time it will be a double build, yes two kits at the same time. I will be building Panda Models 1/35 T-14 Armata and Bumerang IFV (Object K-17.)





Since I just received them today, first part of the build is research, so not much in the way of in-progress pictures right now.

Stay tune and hope you enjoy.

This is a build i will follow for sure. Looking foward to your progress pics, Pete.

Erik

Well, is the first build update on the Panda Models T-14 Armata and Bumerang IFV. Looking through the instructions, I thought I would jump to the turrets of each since it looked like the hulls would take a bit longer with suspension and tracks.






First up is the Bumerang turret. The turret starts on step 11 with the PM133 Kornet anti-tank missiles. Then in step 12, you glue the turret halves, add sights, antennas, lifting hooks and handles, and main 30mm gun and 7.62 coaxial.






Kit parts had little to no flash, but seem lines are visible, especially barrel and antennas.

Gun mantlet cover has nice folds in it and fit with out any gaps.



Right and Left sight didn't need any putty and no problem with fit.





Right, left, and rear of the turret: Fit of the turret halves was good and no putty was needed. A light sanding where the halves meet eliminated the seem and blended the halves together. Take very care with the antennas, I managed to snap the front and left rear in two a couple of times.







The 9M133 Kornet anti-missile pods needed the seem between the pods halves sanded. The photo etch cover is stiff, so annealing needs to be done on the photo etch to help bend.









Not sure what these two holes are on the bottom of the turret is. Couldn't find nothing in the instructions for them.



So far no corrections are needed to the instructions for step 11 and 12.

Now the T-14 gave me a lot of trouble and I will be back later today with more pictures of the T-14 turret and what I have encountered.

**NOTE** If I miss anything or if any one chimes in with anything I miss, don't worry, because this will not be the final draft. I will be submitting a Build review/Feature at the end.

Annealing the PE for ease of bending....genius.

I don't want to underestimate Pete's work, but annealing PE is a technique as old as the PE itself -older, in fact-...

Perhaps, and it's basic metallurgy, but the thought just never even occurred to me. The only thing I'm good at with PE is gluing it to my tweezers (or fingers).

I started building the T14 a while back, but landed up boxing the kit after a couple of days of work. It's not that its a bad kit, fit is good with some very sharp surface detail. Nevertheless, it has the feel of an 80's vintage Revell or italeri kit. Certain details are missing or overdone but not to the point of being a deal breaker. Instructions are confusing at times which means quite a bit of cautionary dry fitting to avoid any potential disasters. The plastic tends to be brittle which is a problem with cutting more intricate mouldings from the sprues. I've decided to wait for the new Zvezda offering as it will likely be a better and more accurate kit. Just my 2 cents worth.

The first thought that came to my mind when I saw the first pics with the two turrets together was : "A brave man, indeed".
Even without a close-up of the turret it is evident that it was a really hard bone to assemble...
Keep sharing your hard work!

Like the Bumerang kit, I started with the turret in the T-14 kit. The turret is covered in step 9, 10, and 11 of the instruction book. Like Mark said, the plastic reminds me of a Revell German kit with the green color plastic and very brittle.

*****NOTE******* DON NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT REMOVE THE SHADED AREAS ON PART E1 IN STEP 9. THERE IS NO NEED TO DO SO.



As you can see here, I did cut the shaded areas and in step 11 where you have to attach the top of the turret (part B6), it came to my attention that cutting was not needed. I was lucky to make the cuts clean enough to where i didn't need to much glue and putty to fix.





The main gun barrel had problems. To begin with, part E7 was not keyed to part D56 and D57. The hole was also to small. Sanding and carving away plastic is needed to get the barrel to fit.



And even with all that I carved and sanded, the barrel was still a very tight fit as you can see with the dis-colorization of the plastic.





The turret basket frame in my sample kit was broken. Luckily the photo etch mesh was very soft and easy to bend. So I started gluing it to the basket frame a section at a time. Can't even tell it was broken.











The gunners sight area of the turret was another issue. Part D40 is the piece that closes the area around the gunners sight along with the lower turret, E1 and upper turret, B6. Big gaps could be seen and pieces of Evergreen stock and lots of putty kind of fixed the issue.









And the issues keep piling up! The photo etch coverings on the Afghanit Active Protective System seem to be to big. Looking at the picture of the real thing, the covers are squared and not curved like on my kit.







Part E9 and photo etch part PE-10 proved to be difficult. Again, it seemed that the photo etch was a tad to big or not shaped properly. I t glued just fine during step 9, but when it came to step 11 and attaching the top turret, part B6, there was an issue with fit. I had to remove part E9 and cut off the locating pins and "forced" the part back on to shape the photo etch properly.



In step 9, it is labeled next to part A33 "optional." It was unclear to what that meant, leave off or another part to replace it with. Well after fighting with attaching B6 to E1, it came to me that "option" meant "leave off." Part A33 along with part D50, D43, D44, and D51 are not seen, so there fore not needed.

In step 10, E5 is marked wrong and should be E3. In step 11, part E10 should be part C24.

Photo etch part PE-2 and PE-9 don't square off real good, so soldering will be needed to get a good shape.

In step 11, when gluing Part C24 to D34, there is no key to align parts. Glue part D34 down first to upper turret, then after putting together the rest of the 7.62 machine gun, you can glue C24 to align the gun in any direction you want.

This T-14 kit has started out with issues, but unlike Mark, I can't just box it away till another day since it is a review sample from Armorama. Next is the hull, so lets see what that brings.

Im back to the hull of the Bumerang.

First I started with gluing the upper and lower hulls together to ease with handling of the model. Of course, before closing the two pieces together, I added all the necessary parts that needed to be placed on the inside before closing.Fitting the upper and lower hulls, I found that the front of the upper hull is warped. Instead of using clamps, I super-glued the two pins and used accelerator and held together till it set and it held together well.





Next I jumped to the rear to make the hull whole. Fit was good with just a little putty to fill a couple of seems. The photo etch step (parts PE3 and PE4) was not that difficult to assemble. I worked part PE4 around PE3 to ease in construction and proper shape. The only issue I found with the rear, which is covered in Step 3, is the rear tail lights. There is no color call out in the instructions or color reference sheet for the tail lights. Reference photos found on the internet will aid in this.











Now back to the lower hull. First issue on the lower hul was not in the construction but in the instructions. The first thing in step 1 is to attach Part C45, C46, C47, C48, and C49. The instruction does not call out to do the same to the other side.





The mix media tow cable is very nice, but there is no place to secure it behind the storage bin. So secure it to the sponson like the cable is on a reel.











At the end of Step 1, you have to glue 8 Part PE1. The instructions does not call out to do the same to the other side.



The water propulsion system is very nice and has clean detail.
The only change I did here is in Step 1, you have to glue Part B19 and B20. There is not pin to attach these parts so I glued the whole system first, then attach B19 and B20.









The only issue I found with the front of the lower hull was the copper cable securing to the tow hook. In reference photo's, the real thing has a cable clamp securing the cable to the hook. I used a piece of Tamiya tape and wrapped it around the cable to simulate a metal clamp.





In Step 5 of the upper hull construction, the instructions call out for one C75, but the picture shows two and there is two on the sprues. One other issue was on the right side of the hull where Parts B55 and B56 needed to be attached, there was no locating holes. So I had to drill locating holes. Part C74 also did not have a locating hole, so one was drilled out.





The top rear hatches where tight on the hinges and made the bar between the hinges bend and curve. There are two solutions to fix this, replace the bar with plastic rod or cut the original bar and trim to fit. I did the trimming and used liquid cement to soften to get a better fit.







Final issue was the side rails. They where fragile coming off the sprue and bent and warped really bad. So I chose to replace them with copper wire.







The rest of the upper hull went together with out any hitches.



















And the mating of the turret to the hull.







Next for the Bumarang will be paint of course. As for the T-14, just like the turret, the hull is proving to have a few short comings. I will show you those in my next update.

Impressive work on both builds.

I admire your patience while having to cope with the typical shortcomings of Panda kits. Vaige instructuions, parts not listed on them, many tiny parts that get misformed while removing them from the sprues, soft plastic etc...

Good job with the Bumerang!
This kind of build reviews always prove to be really helpful.
And also prove that Panda is still far away from reaching the quality of the best manufacturers like Meng or Tiger Models, or even Trumpeter.
I'm enjoying your builds, but these are -another- two Panda kits I'll never get.

Well the Bumerang is finished and is just waiting for a flat clear coat.

Back to the T-14

I went ahead a glued the upper hull to the lower hull to make handling easier. But first, the periscopes had to be installed. In the instructions, in step 6, the periscopes on the right are numbered backwards.







The rear of the hull posed a little problem. First, the part number for the guide horns for the spare tracks is wrong. There is no T1, so I used two T3 guide horns. Next, there was no length given for the tow ropes. I cut the ropes about 80 mm to 90 mm.







Here where the towing shackle is secured to it's latch was a bit tight. Care needs to be taken when trying to slide the shackle into the latch.









There was no issue with the front lower hull armor plate. Care is just needed when removing parts A2 from the sprue.





The suspension went on with out a hitch. Part A28 in step 1 should be A30. I left the road wheels, idler wheel and sprocket off to ease in painting the under side and road arms. I left glued the road wheels to the arms and left the idler wheel and sprocket off to that I can work on the tracks and put them on easier.









I will show better close ups of the tracks on the next update.



The rest of the upper hull parts went on with out a problem except for part D8. It is very fragile coming of the sprue and I almost broke it in several locations. Also, very much care needs to be taken when cleaning it up. Also D1 and D6 are very fragile coming off the sprue. On the engine deck, the instructions call out for two D4's and two D5's. There is only one of each. I placed them on the outside of the engine grills. The photo etch grills are very nice, easy to work with, and fit properly.





























I left off part E8 and PE6, the flag staff in preparation for the flags and streamers. I placed the decals on typing paper and will use white glue to fold and secure them to the staff.









Last, I started on the slat armor on one side of the hull. The slat is a bit to thick and doesn't look to scale. The mounting bars a bit fragile when cutting them away from the sprue and ease is need when cleaning them up.











Well that's it for now. In the next update, I will show the flag and streamers on the staff and the slat armor attached. I will also show the building of the tracks.

Critiques and comments are always welcomed.

You remove that plastic if you want not install part B6, which is the upper Turret cover

Scott, yes, the instructions say to remove those shaded areas if you want to install part B6, but as you can see from the two pictures below, I did remove the shaded areas and had to glue them back on and add putty to fix the cut I made.





Here are the finished tracks. In step 5 where you assemble the tracks, the instructions call out to use a jig, part T4. Well, there is no part T4 in the kit and if you look at the parts break out on the last sheet of the instructions, there is no part T4 shown. So needless to say, building the tracks was a bit tedious. I first placed/snapped each guide horn on to each individual track. then I took about 6 tracks and put those together. After that I then connected the 6 piece track to each other to form the whole track. Once the track was together, I then glued on each individual track pad. The tracks came out nice, but since the road wheels/arms are not workable, I don
t think it was necessary to have workable tracks.









This was the first time I attempted to use copying/typing paper for the flags. On my Academy M1A2 SEP V2 build, I used all ready printed flags from Duplicata Productions. The red flag was just paper cut to size, then the flag was soaked in diluted white glue, then formed and let to dry. The T-14's flags and banners where decals. I went ahead and applied the decals on paper just like placing them on the model, let dry, then cut them. Again, I soaked the flags and banners in diluted white glue, let dry, formed, and placed them on the poll.





Next up will be the completed build review submitted to Darren for publication. Pictures of the completed builds and my conclusions of the kits will be included in that write up.

i have to admire your patience and commitment to this build. Despite some challenges it is a pretty good end result with both kits. I have just completed assembly of the Boomerang and have to say that is actually a surprisingly good kit. Sure, it does require a bit more patience and attention than usual, but it is light years ahead of the T14. It's one Panda kit that is well worth a look.

Good review, it looks the Takom kit is still easily the best T-14 around.

Hello
After i had a read on this thread I oppened the Bumerang box and tried to put the upper hull on the lower hull and ... nice surprise it seems that it fit perfectly.

Nice review Pete, looks like Panda still has a little room for improvement with their kits, but that T-14 turned out very nice.

Pete, what paints did you use?

Blucop,
I strictly use Tamiya for large coverage and their clear paints for anything that needs to be clear such as tail lights and such.and Valejo for all detail painting. I also like to use Model Master Metalizers for painting small things that are metal.

Pete did you use a specific Tamiya color, or was it a custom mix?

I mixed the colors to closely match what I saw in the reference I used. I used XF-27 Black Green with XF-67
NATO Green.

Thank you Pete!