HI guys.
I was a lurker on this forum and finally decide to post something 
It is my attempt to produce a more authentic T-34 with spaced armor from the Border Models kits, which tries to represent a modification to the factory 112 T-34, using various examples of vehicle from late 42 and early 43.
The biggest problem that kit replicates the pictures of fairly inauthentic scale model from who knows when., even that not correctly. Also, the turret is copied from AFV club with is bad roof plate.
As a rule, I replaced all the bolts on the extra armor with bigger ones from punched out 0.5 styrene and which were glued in a more hap-hazard manner as it is shown it the pictures of the real vehicle. I omitted the washers for mental sanity reasons. I have replaced all the grab handles with wire, but on the extra armor there should be 8 such handles instead of 3 as the kit has.
Now inspecting the lower hull. The wheels should be of the 42 variety not the 40 (did not replace as I have noticed to late), and also the sprockets should be replace with once from Miniarm. Keeping the running even in there new T-34/85 is a big disappointment. I made my sample to represent a model with the smaller diameter, 4 bolted transmission cover, so I have also replaced the exhaust pipes cover with the shorter ones (carried over from the rounded baked early T-34s). Also I have not seen one picture of a small turreted 112 tank to not have the rear mash cover being held in place with straps and not the later pins running tru the loops things. So, I have corrected also this.
The front has the MG blister replaced with Miniarm parts as the kit provide one is too short. Grab handles were omitted per pictures, also the bar under the driver’s hatch. The weird straight piece over the rounded nose of the tank was omitted, as I could not see it in any picture.
On the right side there should have been a cutout for the antenna holder which I have added. The skirt holders were reworked, the same with the shape of the first skirt plate. The mud guards were also reworked as at the end where they attach they are not cut as regular T-34s.The kit says to place 2 gun barrel tools in wrong positions. Reworked that by changing one box with a track tool box from pe (but in the pictures the box seems bigger than regular, not with a different holding mechanism)
On the turret side, I cut of some plastic of the vertical plates that cover the mantlet. The 2 metal plates on the mantlet were also reduced in side and the plate over the mantlet was omitted as I have not seen that in any picture. The roof top was also rework.
The result is not 100% right as general shape and size of the extra armor plates from the kit is not correct and modifying that is beyond my pay grade.
Hope that your are not that mean to me, Gabriel
. But thanks for the help.
