Ryfield Models T34/85 - Construction

It begins... Don't let me down Ryfield... 

One of the suspension arms was missing its projection that couples with the spring member within the hull... Drilled the end out and made up with styrene rod... No biggy... 

Cast and rolled steel textures underway...  

Possibly the easiest hull to practice textures on...  

Hull is slightly warped but nothing to be alarmed about... Nothing tape can't pull down in due course... 

Resribing for epoxy welds to the turret seams 

Weld seams included on most parts... Noice..! 

Some of the cast textures are quite good... 

PE to the rear grill included in the kit... Will be going on soon... 

Welds and Mould Seam sculpted from epoxy putty... 

Copper Bling... 

I'm a little concerned at the fitment of the back plate... Looks a little gappy... Time will tell once I close up the hull... Might need to fill with sprue goo and resribe the joint between the plates...  

Lookin good 

The one peice barrel was a bit soft and misaligned to its muzzle... Considered chopping the muzzle off and replacing with styrene tubing... But opted just to rewcribe the junction to diffuse the joint... 

Some of the call outs on the instructions seem to be incorrect... But going off the cad dwg and matching the shape in order to choose the correct hatch from the 2 supplied was needed... Low and behold in the following step it shows the other hatch...  

Randomly you need to slice several bolt heads from a sprue and apply to the back plate at the holes... Another oddity... Must be several varants with this kit as the rest of the back plate has its bolts... 

There are 4 vents through the cast steel guarding could be modelled open so you could peer through the photoetch grill into the engine bay... But you probably wouldn't see much though... 

Watch out for the periscopes to the turret... They're a bit oversized for their mounting and can crack the frail parts that make up their housings... 

Road wheels were a bit of an odd design... Mismoulds here and there... Will require a pin wash of putty between the tire and rim interface... 

Gotta say I was never much of a fan for soviet armour but she's growing on me... Lol 

Turret almost complete... Some oddities in how Ryfield went about it... But none the less it's built up fairly well... Although some very small parts to clean and bond in the assembly.. 

Mould seam along the spare track was a bit heavy and had to remove the studs along with it... Replace the studs with aluminium rivets using a 0.8mm drill bit as a punch and the thick aluminium you find in Milo or Coffee tins... Drilled the end tracks out with a 0.5mm drill then passed a 0.4mm peice of copper through to emulate a spare stud within the track... 

PE Grill and the detailed spare track.... 

PE Grill is very fine and delicate... You'll need to roll it to match the curvature of rhe guard... I rolled it using a large stainless steel sewing needle whilst the PE Grill sat on an eraser as a soft bed to allow it to conform... 

Spare track on... 

Rear hangers were replaced with 0.4mm copper wire bent to shape... Fortunately my PE Bender had a finger that matched the width of the hanger fairly well...  

Getting there... 

Tanks with PE... Little tricky... 

Almost there... 

Tracks on...! 

Pretty much ready to lock the hull down... 

Hull closed... Fenders and forward hull apex bonded... 

I lost one of the PE Handles to the rear tanks... Just as I was cleaning up my desk ready for paint it turned up... Last peice to bond on and we're all good for priming... 

The rear hatch with the PE Grill has been left loose so I can squirt some black paint inside and around the surfaces under... 

And she's built... First Soviet Subject and Ryfield Models kit.. I'd give it a solid 7.5 outta 10... Little bit of flash... Mismoulds... Mistakes and vague instructions at times...Minor warping... And some odd choice of engineering... Fit was tight but could've been better... If your in the market for a T34 isn't bad but just don't pay too much for it like I did being impulsive... All in all a good build... Time for some colour...!