Introduction

The PT-76 is a Soviet light amphibious tank which was introduced in the early 1950’s and soon became the standard reconnaissance tank of the Soviet Army and the other Warsaw Pact armies. Masterclub’s resin tracks are designed to replace the original kit tracks for the Trumpeter and Eastern Express kits.

review

The zip-bag consists of 210 track links, 420 track pins and 2 drive sprockets. The overall quality of the tracks is good, but there is a lot of clean-up that needs to be done. Each track has a small resin cast line that needs to be sanded, and in most cases you also need to remove some flash. This is a delicate task since the tracks are made of resin and therefore are very fragile.

Once you’re done with the clean-up process, the real challenge begins. The tracks are connected with resin pins, and like the tracks, the pins are very fragile and much care is needed when handling them. Each track though, also needs to be drilled by a 0.4mm drill bit. This part of the assembly is where most of the damage tends to happen. With the 210 tracks which come in the set, I broke 18 of them. Fortunately Masterclub included about 20 extra links to compensate for broken or damaged ones. Before inserting the pins, it is wise to use the drill bit to line up the tracks for easier insertion.

The drive sprockets come in two halves and are easy to remove from the resin blocks. All that is needed is a quick sanding to remove some residue. The tracks fit almost perfectly on the drive sprocket.

The tracks are indeed workable, but since the tracks are so fragile much care is needed when they need to be attached on the model. When the tracks are in place, the end result is pretty good and much better than the original rubber-like kit tracks.

conclusion

Much care and patience is needed when assembling the tracks, and though it is a very time-consuming process, the end result is worth it.