BOX CONTENTS

PART of Poland has for some time now been recognized as a true heavy weight contender in the field of excellent photoetched detail parts, designed to bring a model into another entirely separate class, thus adding extra details where they often lacked and accuracy corrections where they were so badly needed. Never, as a veteran modeler have I ever seen a kit of a vehicle or otherwise that was completely made of photoetch! Until now.

The model is provided well packed with protective bubble foam in a flimsy grey cardboard box with detailed photographs on the front of the finished model. Provided are PART's now very familiar rich golden lacquered brass etched frets of which there are 4 large pieces containing all the parts necessary to construct one T-27 "Tankietka" plus a small batch of resin for the road wheels and thicker frontal armour plate non of the parts either etched or resin exhibit any flash or badly formed parts.

INSTRUCTIONS

These are superbly clear for an after market manufacturer ,the contain 4 pages that not only provide a 4 stage plan view of the finished vehicle for reference, but also each stage of suggested assembly sequence is thoughtfully spelled out, typically PART, well numbered and showing ample views with very nicely drawn diagrams plus a parts map.

FRET "A"

This fret holds the parts to construct the side armour and the hull sides plus some of the suspension springs and running gear, on the reverse one can see that Part also provides the rivets in the form of pre-etched weak areas that simply need "forming" out with a small round headed burnishing tool very neat indeed! So no worries about applying tiny rivets and getting them all aligned.

FRET "B"

The fret holds the main sub structure, namely the frontal armour and the bottom plate. Again any required rivets are included in the same way mentioned above. Also here we have the main bogeys to which the wheels will be attached plus other minor details such as the sealing rings bolts and grommets.

FRET "C"

This Fret is the area for which the drive sprockets are included, these are designed to be assembled together in order that the builder achieves the correct thicker gauge not permitted by simply etching a single ply piece of brass.

You can looking at the Photographs that only half of the drive sprocket has teeth included, this is because the tracks of which I will come to later wouldn’t sit very well whilst engaged them, I really think they could have gotten away with it but they must have had they’re reasons?

So if you plan on doing a wrecked T-27, trackless then you would have to scratch build a new sprocket other wise this would appear only half formed, here we also see further more detailed running gear components .

FRET "D"

Fret D holds the Idler wheels again to be formed by "laminating" the etch , here we also see the first section of track ,although there will be two component sections to be joined and interlocked to form the track links (A tricky job I’m sure!) Part have at least provided us with fully assembled tracks in a run these links would be miniscule otherwise but the thin nature of the etch should also allow for quite a convincing bit of "track sag" too. A towing hook and some extra riveted plates are seen here also .

FRET "E"

This our final fret provides the inner portion of the track links as mentioned before these will be combined with parts of fret D to form the whole tracks, this part how ever caters the "Guide teeth" , nothing else is evident here.

RESIN PARTS

The resin parts are very nicely cast, with only one side of detail, the other side used as they have for the casting gate, provided are lower hull sides to add strength to the finished model, 15 road wheels each measuring approximately 1 cm across, 1 frontal armour plate, 2 lugs for the Idlers, and some pre-formed domes, these will be the back of the claxon horn lights etc... plus a section of resin rod presumably to add the axles for the drive sprockets and Idlers by cutting it into lengths?

CONCLUSION

Part again have produced a typically mould breaking subject in a very unusual medium, though the concept of photoetch is not at all new here it is, certainly presented in a very different light, being actually constructed of metal plate, think of the battle damage opportunities highly realistic indeed.

This kit will be a great subject for experienced modelers WW2 and pre soviet and eastern bloc armour ,I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for beginners however if you do have some experience with etch and you happen to like it as I do, then I would highly recommend this kit .