I have the Hobby Boss T-54 tank. The kit is good but I don’t like the lack of painting instructions. What are the vision blocks supposed to be? Black, or some other color?
Wow, thanks!
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And if you want to get really fancy, paint the outside surface of the periscope black, then paint any areas that would be ordinary visible surface (i.e.,the green parts in the picture), with clear gloss over the face of the periscope, but only in a scale large enough to be able to see the ‘inside’ of the periscope.
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Are the hatches closed? If so, black for lenses is good. Else you have a lightened surface on the other side of the visor and this would require some medium grey-blue or grey-green instead..
The metallic frame around the windows should be painted with a color that is more brownish than the usual Soviet green of the armour.
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The external parts of the TPK-1, MK-4, TVN-2 and TKN-1 (for night conditions) prismatic observation devices were painted with the same paint that was used to paint the T-54 tanks themselves, depending on the year of production.
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My particular Mk 4 had a repaint at some point and sports two different greens, I’ll get a photo when I return home.
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This means that the MK-4 was part of a tank undergoing major repairs/modernization at one of the armored vehicle repair plants (BTRZ). The tanks were repainted, and their observation devices were repainted accordingly.
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Painting them black is definitely a way to go. But I have a trick I like even better - black decal film.
If you look closely (hell, you don’t even have to look that closely sometimes) the edges on painted periscopes look, well… painted, with uneven edges. Cut some black decal film to the right size and use it for a much cleaner edge.
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Rather late to the party, but here’s what I do for periscopes and vision blocks:
I use slices of acetate (bubble packs) and stick them to the kit’s “glass”. My first attempts were on olive-colored styrene, and I used plastic cement to “melt” them on:
Then I started painting one surface of the acetate black and using the wet paint as glue:
For the only anti-laser coating I’ve made, I used pieces from the outer wrap of a pack of cookies (sorry, forgot what brand):
Peter
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