Greetings to all, friends!
The building has slowed down a little.
Even at the stage of painting, I made one mistake. In order to improve the quality of painting and paint over the maximum possible area, I decided to insert pieces of toothpicks between the road wheels and tracks.
The result - I stretched the tracks so that the tape itself became longer, the distance between the individual tracks became very large, and the tension that I had been working on for so long and hard disappeared.
Wade! Greetings to you and all members of the forum!
Alas, all is not well. I would say - all bad. The circumstances of the external environment make their own adjustments to my life. And I can’t influence it in any way. I can only accept them and move forward stoically. To seek strength and overcome all the difficulties that have fallen on me over the past 16 months. The last three months have been terrible. Both physically and mentally. Sometimes I want to drop everything and run to the ends of the Earth. Tomorrow is sometimes scary to look at. So, this is my current situation. In short, I’ve been crying to you all here.
Despite all the crap that happens both around me and with me, I still managed to work on the model.
Not everything turned out the way I would have liked. But, nevertheless, I did.
Along the way, I had to face a lot of difficulties. During disassembly, a large number of tracks broke. The hinged eyes just fell apart into small pieces. I had to restore them.
You can not make working tracks on half-fingers. It is simply unrealistic to disassemble such a structure later! It is necessary to make only a completely through hinge and a full-fledged pin.
Do not use too thin wire. It will be very easy to accidentally stretch such a tape. But to return it to its original state is impossible.
I made an impromptu fastener for additional grouser. Well, I couldn’t leave them like this. They definitely needed to be fixed on the fender! The Chinese, apparently, are not aware of the existence of straps with buckles. Apparently, they were not on the museum exhibit, respectively, they were forgotten on the model. Well, that’s what it costs to take and make etched straps? Moreover, there is so much space on the photo-etched board that it was possible to make a “hundred” of such belts there.
I used a very thin solder. Painted over with Vallejo 862.
Vlad, I sincerely hope that the situation improves for you. Hobby time working on models sometimes helped me with stress relief. I hope it helps you in this difficult time.
Wow! Awesome work to fix and repin track links! That’s serious plastic surgery in my opinion. The masking looks pain staking but it’s obviously very well done. Looking good!
Had a small taste when links ended up tight yet acceptable on a Pz III yesterday. Sitting overnight, several plastic pins gave way. Replaced five links because the eyelets broke like the T-34 links did and added one link to sort the mess. Small frustrating potatoes but it’s almost fixed.
Your T-34-85 is looking great as always. The grousers are a great addition and look good .
So what has been done in 23 hours and three months of work? I wrote about this in a previous post. And I’ll add a few more photos. Here I did a light splatter with Sundy Wash from Mr. Hobby WC04. I used a round bristle brush and a toothpick.
Some places didn’t turn out quite right. The surface appears discolored. But this is not critical. Since this is only the beginning of the final weathering.
And one moment.
During my three-month absence, I tried to make an imitation of glass in the observation devices on the tank turret. And I kept forgetting to take pictures. I made microscopic plates from transparent yellow plastic. I painted XF 49 on one side. I’ll stick them with the painted side on the observation devices. It turned out so-so. It was very difficult to carve thin plates of the same size from thick plastic. Let’s see what will come of it.
Reynier, thank you!
I continue to move forward. There is still a lot of work ahead!
And I also remember the review that I promised. I’ll try to do that too. With an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the model.
Vlad, the work you have done on this model so far has been impeccable. You could stop right here and I would be among many to call it beautiful and outstanding. Excellently finished. I look forward to seeing what else you are going to do to this model, but you should know that you can wrap it up at any time and have a fantastic model.