ICM T-28 WIP ENDED 04-01-07

Modeling Subjects Armor
1

Since the Char has entered the “hurry up and wait” stage in painting/finishing, I decided to start work on ICM’s T-28 multi-turret kit. Smaller brother to the “land battleship” T-35, its got that massive appeal to it and I’d picked this kit up dirt cheap at my LHS during a clearance sale and thought its time had come. I will be building this one up with the short barreled main gun and markings for one of the Moscow parades with the frame antenna using the kit supplied markings.

Upon opening up the kit however, it became readily apparent to me that some “pre-build” steps had to be done first. The sprues were liberally coated with greasy mold-release agent so a bath was in order. Filled up a sink full of warm water with dish washing soap and allowed it soak for about 30 minutes.

Then pulled out all the sprues and laid them out on paper towels to dry overnight.

Close examination revealed that my kit shared a common problem that I’ve heard about with both this and the T-35 kit, the lower hull plate was warped, so I drafted one of my wife’s salad bowls that was large enough to take it and filled it with hot tap water and submerged it with two thinner cans to get it to, hopefully, straighten out. It may take a couple of treatments to rectify though as it was pretty badly warped.

Actual build will begin in the morning once everything is squeaky clean. [;)]

2

ah nice one Bill this was suprisingly a fun build for me i just did the oob though so it will be nice to see the extra’s you have lined out for it, i had to bath mine also twice [(-D] and ditto on the warped hull i was able to construct the tub and glue one end down then work my way up the hull it ended up ok, another great subject to follow funny you mentioned it but i have been contemplating building the T35 lately myself now my bench is completely clear, still undecided though i may need a break from russian green.

3

Cough, cough, another build from Bill. Just kidding. [:D] I love your build/tutorials. I need the name of your LHS, mine doesn’t have a clue what a sale is. Some kits are yellowing, which means they have been on the shelf for eons.

My friend was thinking of building this, so we’ll watch with interest. If there was ever an ugly tank, this is it. Of course, MHO.

4

Ron,

I ordered both of the JR barrels, the long and the short since I hadn’t made up my mind on which version to build, but am only going to use the short. If you (or tigerman’s friend for that matter) want the long barrel it’s yours. Just send me a PM and I’ll send it your way. The T-35 is truly monstrous, would love to see what you’d do with it. [:D] The lower hull is tenacious…the hot water bath didn’t do much for it, but it seems to be responding to the hair-dryer treatment. Since the hull is constructed from multiple panels, I’m probably going to end up doing a similar approach from what you had to do in terms of glueing. The other panels seem to be fine, no warping, so can be used to help brace/pull the warp out.

Tigerman,

Got to keep at least one on the assembly line these days, it helps me not “rush” the paint/finish when one gets to that stage and also staves off the “starting something new” impulse. [;)]

5

i have the t-35 ,and 2 t-28 in my stash

if any of you people are thing of getting them

www.alanger.us he very often sells them for under 10 bucks

6

just went to his sight the sale ends monday

but he has both for 9-11 right now and for the same money he has the alanger t-28 and the t-29 bridgelayer i have that one too it is a big kit

prices are right

7

Thanks for the heads-up DURR. As a side note, I should mention that the Eduard PE set is designed for the AER kit, so some surgery may be necssary for me to get it to work…it was the only PE set I could lay hands on for the T-28, and since the molds are copyrighted as 1997 that’s a little surprising to me, but then I guess it’s not that popular of a subject?

8

Oh yes, I am going to really enjoy this one. These land battleships really are something special. I got the T-35 and the IT-28 bridgelayer in the stash. Watching this one will be a joy.

9

I just started the ICM T-35 like a week ago. Not used to the clean up, since ive been spoiled by Tamiyas and DMLs, but its a really nice kit. TONS of wheels though. And like 300 individual try links… AHHHH!!! cant wait to see yours painted, maybe ill get some ideas.

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Zoran, Ian, thanks for the comments. Here’s today’s update:

As promised, construction work began on this beast today. I was pleasantly surprised to see just how much of an interior, particularly in relation to the engine bay, that the kit has included.

Step 1 deals with the engine assembly and has an entire sprue dedicated for this purpose. The assembly is pretty straightforward although there aren’t any locating pins/holes on any of the parts, so it’s necessary to have a good tight fit before glueing. The instructions are a little bit vague, showing the engine partially assembled with some parts called out for on the assembled side with arrows while the other side shows it disassembled in an exploded diagram. Everything generally fit well, although some minor sanding/trimming was necessary on the mount supports to get them to fit properly up against the engine block, it was easily taken care of with a squre tip needle file after some fiddling. The engine is fairly well detailed given the age of the kit (sprue molded copyright says 1997), and the assembly for this step consists of 18 separate parts, providing a nice representation if you decide to leave the engine deck hatches open later in the build. I’m not intending to do that, but went ahead and built it up since it will be useful in helping with the floor plate alignment later on.

Step 2 deals with the driver’s compartment and this area is far more basic in detail vs. the engine. The floor plate has a suggestion of a diamond pattern that’s not very well executed and the compartment consists mainly of a driver’s chair, the two stools for the MG turret crew, a gearshift, and two traverse handles and that’s about it. Strangely enough, the arm rests of the chair do have very nice hinge/bolt detail but it’s lost to view once installed.

Step 3 continues work on the engine interior, dealing with the assembly of the transmission housing. The housing is two parts, again without any locator pins, and the alignment needs to be just right along all sides. The installation of the housing on the front end is a little tricky, the wheel portion has a very shallow connection point to the housing and the part that goes on the end of it, D9, needs to be aligned up properly with the piston arm like part D12 on the top for it all to fit well. I ended up trimming the pin on D12 down considerably to get it all to fit right, but it worked out in the end.

Step 4 is where some of the fun begins, it deals with the construction of the two MG turrets and first directs you to install the MGs along with their ball mounts into the turret front plates. The assembly includes a ring, part C11, that is designed to trap the ball mount and leave it positionable, but it doesn’t quite work as the ring is too small to fit over the ball and sit flush with the turret plate, so I just glued the ball mount into a fixed position with some liquid glue and did away with the ring entirely. I also drilled out, very carefully since there’s not a whole lot of surface to work with, the muzzles of the MGs with a #80 microdrill. The guns themselves are rudimentary in detail but provide something there if you decide to open the turret hatches. The guns themselves are extremely fragile and easy to break, I had one snap off cleanly right at the join plate into the ball mount and had to be creative with the glue to get it back in one piece. [:)]

Once that was drying, I worked on the turret construction. The turrets are each 2 halves that have very large sprue attachment points in awkward positions that require some very careful cleanup, particularly the point that attaches where the front plate needs to join. There are also very large ejector pin marks on the inner surfaces of each half, so if you do display it open, those will have to be dealt with. No locator pins or holes are provided, but the fit was very good front to back on both turrets, I used regular glue for the joins and then followed it up with some liquid glue to make sure the seal was nice and tight.

Once that was set up, I installed the roof and front plates. These also had a very good fit but even with the use of liquid glue a slight lip/gap still resulted at the join lines that needed to be dealt with. Checking the references on T-35 turrets (same turret as the T-28 ), shows that these turrets were all smooth cast single-piece so I sanded down the lip as much as possible and followed it up with some putty to fill in the remaining gap and still retain the curvature of the turret.

Both turrets were given the same treatment and their hatches and lifting eyes installed. The hatches have some nice exterior detail but are totally blank on the inside and also have a sink mark to boot, so I elected to close up both turrets and leave it at that.

Overall I’ve been pleasantly surprised so far with this kit, there’s been very little flash and the mold lines, when present, have been small and easy to deal with. Too early to tell if this carries over across the rest of the kit, but so far, so good.

11

Managed to squeeze in a little bit of time today dealing with Step 5, although I didn’t complete the whole step, just the first sub-assembly. This step has 3 parts to it, the first of which deals with the main turret roof and its details. This is also the first area where the PE set begins to come into play, so some extra time was required for that as well.

First up the turret roof is a single piece with some of the detail already molded on. There’s a ventilator cover that’s solid and needs to be removed to take the PE replacement part that’s open. Some quick work with the sprue cutters and it was gone.

Both the commander’s and loader’s hatches are also fitted in this step and the square loader’s hatch turns out to be a bit larger than the cutout provided. I used a sqaure needle file to sand down the edges on the cutout instead of trying to sand the hatch itself and after some back and forth, was able to get it to fit in the designated space with a tight fit. The commander’s hatch consists of two parts, one of which is a ring that fits around the molded on based very tightly, almost a snap fit, so careful placement initially is key as there’s not much to grip onto to adjust it. Fortunately I’d placed it more or less in the right alignment and only had to adjust it slightly. The second piece is the hatch cover itself, this also had a nice tight fit with only a slight adjustment to the base of the MG support required to get it to fit.

I decided to use the Eduard PE parts for the MG mount and the multi-part arrangement required some care to get all the parts to fit together properly. The end result is a little shorter than the kit supplied parts, causing the shoulder rest of the MG to sit on top of the hatch instead of the ring like it should, but I’m not too worried about that considering the mount was designed for a different kit and still provides better detail than the kit supplied items. I also added some of the PE details to the MG itself and drilled the barrel out with a #80 microdrill bit. The mount to the commander’s ring needed to be cut down and sanded smooth to accept the PE mount, but other than that it wasn’t too complex of a switch out.

This is all the work I’ll get done on this for this week since I’m travelling again and will be away from the bench. [:(]

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Can’t wait to see how you will finish this one Bill!

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hey bill [:D]— looks to be a very interesting build-- I am very impressed with the detail on the BD-2 deisel engine!-- a shame to cover it up!---- drilling out the mg barrel in 1/35 scale must have been a pain in the butt! lol-- I drilled mine out on also, but in 1/16 had to be easier!! – I am sure the finish product will be sensational— tread[:D][:P]

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Thanks GT!

Tread,

Drilling out these suckers is a real ordeal in patience…there are 5 of them after all, and the muzzle flare at the front is just big enough to work with to drill out, but the flare is only about 0.25 mm deep to begin with, so not a whole lot of tolerance in that regard. [:D] I’m sure in 1/16 it’s much easier to deal with. [;)]

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It’s coming along nicely Bill. I built this one myself a while back and remember a ton of mold release on it, but I guess my hull bottom was OK cause I don’t recall having any issues. I do remember being pleasantly surprised by how well the kits indie tracks went together conidering its Eastern European origins.

16

I guess you could call this beast a tri-turrent-tops…LOL

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pmm,

I’m going to replace the kit tracks out of personal preference more than anything else, but the kit supplied items look decent enough.

Redd,

Nice pun, although it should be tri-turret tops, no? [:D]

18

DOH! What a dummy. Never culd spelt nothin wright!

19

I neglected to post the updates from last weekend, so I apologize for the fact that I’m posting three WIP updates in a single day. [:D]

I finished up Step 5 by assembling the turret. Once again, it’s in two halves with no locating pins, and the roof as a separate drop-in insert. I decided, for convenience sake, not to assemble the turret floor and ready rounds just because the hatches are closed and the assembly instructions are somewhat vague on the exact methods required…so rather than bother with it, I just left it off.

Step 6 deals with the 76.2mm main gun assembly and I elected to go with the long barrel version since I have both JR barrels, the short barrel might come in handy on a future T-35 build. This meant making the right selection of mantlet and face plates for the turret to fit the correct gun based on the instruction call outs of course. The barrel had a tight fit due to the weight ring at the end of the muzzle and the opening on the kit part had to be widened just slightly to take it but it fit snugly at the breech. I left off the interior breech details since all the hatches were closed, the detail isn’t that great and is essentially just there to give the impression of a breech should you choose to open the hatches and nothing more. The exterior plate shows some stress marks, this is due to the extremely tight fit over the mantlet and recoil housings, it had to be coaxed into position carefully not to snap the thin sides but a little back and forth using a blunted toothpick eventually got it into position.

Step 7 completes the turret assembly with the installation of the main gun and both the front and rear MG mounts. The fit on these is only average, both required some putty work and finesse with liquid glue to get them installed. The rear MG mount also needed some sanding on the interior edges of the turret to get it to fit properly. The main gun mount was a little better, only requiring some additional finger pressure and strategic use of liquid glue to get it into place. I drilled out the MGs using a #80 micro drill and fixed the mounts in position since I couldn’t keep them for settling at crazy angles if left positionable. [:)]

Next up will be the hull construction and dealing with the warped floor plate. The turret has molded in location points for the feet of the antenna support arms. I still haven’t decided if I should go ahead and install that or leave it off…seems that there are examples of both cases, but both options have challenges…if I install it, the challenge of the antenna feet being square vs. a rounded surface will have to be dealt with…if left off, then the mount points on the turret will need to be puttied and sanded. Decisions, decisions! [:)]

20

Picking up from yesterday’s efforts, I focused in on the lower hull and dealing with the warped lower plate. Step 8 provides the first means of addressing the warp in the form of the engine mount and transmission. The transmisison links up with the engine, and while the transmission is raised on two support posts, the engine mounts directly to the floor, providing a central point to “lift” the sides somewhat. Since all the hatches will be closed up, I was more concerned with using this leverage to get the hull to be square than with neat assembly, so a liberal dose of liquid glue was used along with finger clamp pressure to get it all set in place.

This only partially solved the warp though. Next step in Step 9 involved building up the hull sides and sponsons. I started by glueing the front and back but leaving the longitudinal areas that mated with the floor unglued. Once those had set up, I worked my way down the hull using liquid glue and finger pressure until it was all glued down and allowed to set up. As a last step, the interior square firewall panel was inserted and glued down. It wasn’t molded perfectly square and I had to remove part of the front of the engie for it to fit properly, but it served its purpose as a stiffener for the hull sides.

Once that was taken care of, the sponson sides were installed on both sides and again each one was carefully secured with liquid glue to further remove the warp and keep the whole construction as square as possible.

While the interior bulkhead bows slightly at the top, a test fit with the hull top shows it won’t interfere with the final assembly when that time comes.
Step 10 begins the next nightmare…and it’s made even worse by how deceptively simple it looks at first glance. [:)] This step deals with the installation of the suspension and running gear and I confess that I didn’t get all the way through it tonight. I started with the actual suspension itself, this consists of 6 posts per side to hold 4 wheels each. The posts are designed to sit inside a socket with a semi-circular support that’s very shallow, allowing some play to the final position. I placed them all in position, tweaking their alignment until satisfied, then flooded the posts and mount holes with liquid glue and then up-ended it so it would rest evenly with the hull and let it set up.

While that was going on, I started in on the no less than 48 roadwheels required for this vehicle. These have a nice level of detail but each has a rubber rim…so a quick test fit showed I could install them and still get sufficient clearance to use a circle template later on, so I will install them in place. Before that could happen though, each one needed to have its hub cleaned up to be accurate and remove a sink hole as well as have the seam removed. After 2 hours, I’d had enough and left the actual installation for another day. [:)]