I was given this kit as a present and thought it would be fun to share the process of building it. It might inspire someone new to the hobby or maybe even a veteran within it.
And yes, the sprues indeed say 1971, even though mine might be from a later batch, since there is quite a bit of flash, indicating well used molds. The vinyl tracks are badly deformed and twisted, so I hope to be able to remedy that later on.
I am not quite sure whether I will depict it as seen during Operation Zitadelle, Kursk 1943 or as a Norwegian Stridsvogn KW-III, being taken over by the Norwegian military, after the German surrender, somewhere between 1946 and 1953.
First impressions; for its age, it certainly is not bad. not bad at all!
Additional armorplating appears very thick. i think it needs replacing.
The barrel, allthough in one piece is solid, so it needs hollowing out.
The cast on towing cable looks horrible. A new one is needed.
What i did so far;
the usual Tamiya holes needed filling and I drilled out the holes in the wheels. On one occassion this went wrong, because the drill skipped and bit in the wrong spot. Some more filling seems to be necessary.
You’re gonna enjoy this. It’s a fun old kit, with many shortcomings typical of its’ era. But it looks like a Mk.III when completed, and will look fine on a shelf with a little extra help here and there.
So glad to see you tackling a older kit . These classics are fun and can be turned into a masterpiece , as I am sure you will do … Keep sharing progress
Just finished one of these earlier this year. It is decent, my tracks were not in tough shape. I thought the biggest deficit was the figures which seem so grossly oversized. Have fun. It would be a nice kit for someone new to the hobby I think.
DAKjunkie
I built one of these as a kid, motorized version. Loved it! It should work well for you. As pointed out above, a little heat will help with the tracks, or if you want you can go with some after market ones.
Ken
Yep, just throwing out options. The tracks should work out just fine. I always liked Tamiya’s vinyl tracks, way better than others, like Monogram or Nichimo.
Ken
During this during I noticed more and more that Tamiya has omitted quite a lot of very visible details or simple made mistakes. Things like the frontal armor, the chest on the back of the turret or the lids over the air intakes.
Some of these omissions or mistakes are fairly easily corrected. Some not so much … with my skilllevel.
The cast-on towingcable was horrible, but I only had 1 spare: a vinyl one. And that was not behaving the way I wanted it to. So I had to resort to cheating and lots of superglue.
