After seeing a few of these being built around the place, eager to see for myself how they stacked up against the venerable Tamiya kits. There is certainly a new King on the block.....



A serious amount of styrene crammed in the box....



This is on the the kits with an interior, and with a high parts count, it will be a long haul - perfect to hop between this and the Wingnut Wings Camel I've just started.

Construction starts with the V-54 12 cylinder engine. It's a great little model in its own right, but can't resist adding additional detail....





Gary

Hi Gary,

Thanks for tackling this one and doing a blog. I'm partway through their T-54-3 (without the interior because I want to maybe finish sometime this decade) and the fit and detail is great - the only thing I don't like is all the attachment points for many of the thin parts, making them impossible to clean up without breaking them - I've ended up replacing many of them with wire (no big deal, but just saying.) Other than that, an excellent kit.

Have a good one,

Jerry

Thanks Jerry. Yep, some parts are an absolute nightmare - had to replace one piece of piping with lead wire already.

Realised that the ignition wiring was too low down, so redid them this evening. Essentially soldered the wires together to make aligment more accurate and small mounting brackets are made from lead sheet...



Gary

Love that wiring......I don't know how you repeatedly blow me away with your skills.

Looks good, and you folks have a serious case of building too much detail.

Still working on the engine....







Gary

Hi Gary,

Awesome looking work so far for sure, will follow another of your great builds!!

Cheers Mike

Thanks Mike.

Finally finished the build stage for the engine...













That was teh easy part. Now I need to paint it!!!!

Gary

Very nice work on the engine. That level of detail really deserves a good paint job, good luck.

Time to get some paint on this I think....





Exhausts are a little twisted but will pull back into their correct alignment when mounted in the hull.

Gary

Gary,
This isn’t a Sherman! Haha!
Have fun and I’ll be watching.
Dan

Thanks Dan.

Paint. Acrylics for base colours followed by oils, pigments etc for weathering. Pretty happy with progress so far....









Gary

V54 engine is complete....









Now onto the tank itself. This is not going to be a quick build for 2 reasons. Obviously the amount of parts - but also trying to find individual sprues!!!!

Hull floor kicks things off...



Certainly makes the old Tamiya kits look very basic in comparison!

Styrene is quite soft so some care is required. Found the welds on the hull itself hindered the fitment of the suspension parts (Tc10, S36, S34 etc) as they overlapped the apertures. A simple trim with a sharp knife solved the problem...



Leaving things for 24hrs to allow the cement to fully cure before moving on.

Gary

Gary, the engine looks great. I agree, it does make the Tamiya T-55 look toy like.

Hi, Gary!

Fantastic start, mate. I wished my T-54-1 would come with an engine, although by no means I would go as far as you deed with yours.

Apparently there is no logic in the way MiniArt cast their sprues but it has to be because of the many versions of the Ts they released.

I will follow with interest,
Gabriel

Thanks guys.

Torsen bars and suspension arms are next up....



I'm beginning to suspect that the kit may have more parts than the real thing

Mould alignment isn't great on the torsion bars and along with 4 sprue attachment points, a fair bit of work is required to clean the parts up. Solution - styrene rod....



Suspension can fully articulate though there is an option for fixed parts if you prefer...



I also found the holes for the bars to be a little to small - even kit parts wouldn't thread through so a quick few twists with a drill fix that issue...



Gary

I'm working on this same kit, but without the interior. The bottom of the lower hull had a slight warp in it, but I'm not sure if this was due to sanding on the hull or not. I've got it mostly straight, but I'm hoping that when I put in the torsion bars and the sides of the hull that the rest of the warp will go away. How well did the suspension parts go together for you? That is my next step in the build.

So far, so good. Definitely dry fit everything first before committing to cement. As mentioned above, the welds do stop the housings fitting properly and will warp the hull if not addressed. Easy fix with a little trimming though.

Gary

Suspension WIP....



Lower hull details being added....



You get a couple of pieces of PE to represent the torsion bar covers. However, they have no folding lines/guides on them - just flat plain pieces. And no bending jig in the kit...
So, after annealing the cr@p out of them, I used a piece of styrene as a guide to bend them to the required shape....



On another note, I found that the small circular panel next to the escape hatch was a really poor fit as it is slightly too small for the hole it fits in. Had to use some filler which was a little disappointing.

Gary

Nice work Gary, that engine looks fantastic!