Meng T-90 camo finished

The camouflage pattern has been applied, more or less to the instructions so now it needs a coat of gloss varnish before the weathering. To recap the paints used were Tamiya with the base coat being a 50/50 mix of XF-61 Dark Green and XF-67 Nato Green, the sand was a XF-57 Buff with some XF-2 White thrown in and the black was a 2:1 mix of XF-1 Black and XF-69 Nato Black. A final touch up of the base coat was done to get rid of any overspray;

Coming along nicely I think!

Meanwhile.....

While the T-90 was drying I was itching to start another project so after a fairly involved build you would have thought I'd have picked something easy to throw together, which is what I WAS considering but then I got this out of the stash;

It's rather large and made of resin so LOADS of sanding required. Considering it's a resin kit it's going fairly well at the moment;

Detail is pretty good and as you would expect there are some issues to deal with because of the nature of resin but in the whole it's quite an impressive kit. I won't be posting many progress pics as this model will feature in a future edition of Model Military Int'l but I will throw in a few teasers now and again :o)

Meng T-90-Paints on!

I managed to finally get some paint on the model after priming it last week. The base coat is a 50/50 mix of (rather ironically)  XF-67 Nato Green and XF-61 Dark Green and the sand camouflage is XF-57 Buff with some XF-2 White thrown in. The sand looks patchy because I have'nt finished it yet (I just ran out of time tonight and back to work in the morning) plus it was a bugger to get through the airbrush, even with acrylic retarder AND flow improver. I would much prefer to use enamel for this job but it would just get stripped off during the weathering later on.

The wheel mask that came with the kit is very useful by the way :o)
Anyway when I get some spare time in between work and household DIY I'll try and get the camo finished.

Meng T-90 update 28/5/14

The build is now finished and last night I washed the model in warm water and washing up liquid (Fairy Liquid so that my hands stay soft lol) so it is now left to dry. When it is I can get some primer on it to start the painting process.

The build is quite an involved one even straight out of the box but to me the level of detail is very good. As with every kit there are areas you can improve and extra detail you could add but I'm quite happy with the kit as is. The only extra details I've added are mainly rivets here and there (where the fuel tank brackets sit and some on the ERA tiles on the front of the turret plus headlight cables on the hull front).

Meng T-90 build complete...ish

I've finally got the thing built all bar a couple of pieces that need sticking on so here's a couple of pics to show the model before painting;

The crew figure is by TANK and although I wanted the three figures in the set on my model this one is the only one that would fit (it still needs some work to make it fit properly), the head of the driver got in the way of the turret traverse so I glued the hatch shut. Bugger!
Fitting the wheels is something you can leave until last except for the drive sprockets as the side skirts get in the way. I JUST managed to get them on but they will stay there during painting now;

The fit of the smoke discharger unit on the right side of the turret is not clear so here's a pic where they should go;

I replaced the styrene snorkel tube on the back of the turret stowage bin with 5mm brass tube and added a weld bead from stretched sprue. I also added weld beads around the stowage boxes as they are quite prominent in photo's of the actual vehicle;

The next step is to give it a REALLY good wash as it's been sat around on a shelf for months then a coat of primer then hopefully get it painted and finished this year :o)

Meng T-90 build update 12/5/14

I've stuck some more bits on the turret and again the fit of parts is good although as well as using liquid glue to fix things in place I backed it up with cyano to give some strength to the joins, particularly where the Shtora devices are fixed to the turret sides. Also you have to be careful to get them aligned as they can droop leaving a dinstinctly 'cock-eyed' look, fortunately they are square on my model;

 

  

With the Shtora boxes fitted this tank just reminds me of 'Johnny-Five' from the film 'Short Circuit' :o)

 The outer lenses were painted with Vallejo red and the smaller dot in the middle with a black/red mix, maybe I should have used an orange/red mix for the outer lenses....oh well. Before painting the lenses needed some filing as they are fractionally too big for where they fit also the boxes needed filing too as there was quite a noticable gap when fitting parts G7 to G12.
Part A31 needed some material removing from the inside lip on one side as it would'nt sit over the clear lens properly.
The smoke dischargers could do with replacing as I don't think they are particulary good also it's worth noting that after I cleaned up the stowage bin, after checking photographic reference from Prime Portal there are actual weld beads around the bin where the kit parts join together so I shall add these at some point.
The snorkel tube will probably be replaced with 5mm dia brass tube too.

That's all for now folks!

Meng T-90 Update 5/5/14

YAY! I've finally made a start on the turret and it almost feels it has the same amount of parts as the hull (i.e LOTS). Anyway it's going together well, the only thing extra thing I've done is for the co-axial MG as the fit is quite sloppy. I drilled a hole in one side of some scrap 20 thou styrene sheet big enough for the gun to poke through and using some copper wire wrapped around a 0.6mm drill bit made the rubber 'o' ring seal that goes around the barrel. Yeah I know you can hardly see it but I know it's there :o)

Most of the sensors will be buttoned up except for a couple just for added interest;

The barrel....be careful putting it together as the fit is sloppy where the two halves join in the middle and can result in a wonky barrel. I'm not sure about using the kit one or swapping it for a metal one but at the time of writing the RB Model item is out of stock everywhere and I can only get one from Hong Kong via Hobby Easy (Orange Hobby item number G35-121). I'll have to think about it.