Italeri Zvezda 1/35 T-34/85 (rebuild?)

Modeling Subjects Armor
1

I found this forgotten kit very deep in my stash. It is a partially assembled, partially painted T-34/85. It is The Italeri boxing of Zvezda’s T-34/85. It depicts a late '44 or '45 Zavod 183 tank with dished wheels and solid tyres. Pics of the as it started:

As you can see, it is partially painted, with Humbrol 30… Maybe too dark, but I like that shade anyway so I’ll use it for the rest of the painting process. I managed to remove the rear plate, I’ll blank off the sponsons with plastic card and do some extra detailing here and there. The left idler wheel axle broke due to the vinyl tracks too tight so I’ll only use this aftermarket item:

I already try these tracks on the Zvezda sprockets, they have a good fit. All the other modifications will be handmade, only plastic card stock, copper wire, epoxy putty, cyanoacrilate and lots of patience. No PE parts, not even for the engine deck grill, I don’t want to spend more money on this project. Here are the first steps of the detailing:

This is the removed plate:

This kit has a very bad fit. The reason? The rear plate is too narrow at top, less than 0.5 mm. I’ve compared it to AFV Club T-34/76 piece, so there are these gaps:

This was already fixed using plastic strips, I’ll replace those lines (I think they’re for the smoke canisters) with copper wire and remove all moulded bolt heads, I’ll replace them using Plastruct hex rod. There are four bolt heads at each side, but the pattern is incorrect, it is like:[O___O___O___O], it must be like [O__O_____O__O], well, that’s for a T-34/76, for a T-34/85 there must be five bolt heads, one more in the middle of them: [O__O__O__O__O]. I’ll fit an extra plastic card plate for best support of the back plate:

Al last, I was able to remove the periscope covers, they were originally glued shut:

I couldn’t separate the upper hull from the lower hull, it is very well glued. It is very easy to blank off the sponsons, though… I’ll tell the reason later. Hope you like this WIP. Thanks for looking.

José.

2

Sounds like you’ve found a “hidden treasure” to revive and work some magic on. Look forward to seeing what you make of it. [Y]

3

Oh, yes… I have a special affection towards this kit, this is the very very first tank given to me… At that time, I painted with a brush… In fact, I still paint with brush, but that doesn’t matter now. All was going well until the time for fitting the tracks finally came. It was very good at the right side, but for some reason, the tracks were to tight at the left side, and I mean too tight, the left idler wheel axle broke due to the tension. I tried to fix it, but didn’t like the result (as seen on pic #8 from the top), so I abandoned the project and send it to my stash. It was a pity, it was my first tank and I was doing some detailing: Cast numbers on the turret, weld lines on it, a handle added to the rear plate. Now, I purchased the AFV Club T-34/76 model 1942, Factory 112 and ordered it with AFV Club 500 mm tracks set, but I didn’t ordered them for the AFV Club T-34, but specially for this Zvezda kit. Now, I’ll make an “overhauling”. Oh, yes, I forget to tell you, there is one missing modification I didn’t told you: I noticed that the idler wheels position is incorrect, too low and too close to the first road wheel. I tried to correct this, positioning the idler wheel a little lower and a little higher… Mayber that’s why the tracks were too tight. More updates coming. Best regards.

José.

4

A nice start you have there. That is a good representation of a Russian weld line. BIG and clunky! How are the AFV tracks to work with? I sent you a PM.

Cheers

Dave

5

Thanks for looking Dave! (and thanks a lot for the T-34 piece). Here’s an update. I managed to blank off the sponsons:

After putty and sanding, a lot of gray dust… I’ll clean it later before a layer of paint. I made a new plate, under the kit’s rear plate, for a best support, specially at the top:

Well, after fitting the kit’s plate in place there are new ditches:

I’m not talking about the side ditches, but the marked within red elypses… I think the fenders are too long, and the mudguards are attached to the fenders… I’ll remove the fenders, cut off the fenders a little and then re-attach the mudguards, maybe new scratchbuild mudguard(s)… That’s all for now. Thanks for looking.

José.

6

Jose,

Nicely done of filling the sponsons. That has to be one of my least favorite tasks with modeling. I’d rather hand paint the road wheels on a Pz IV or a Char Bis than that task. You weren’t kidding about the “ditches”. Your work is cut out for you there. IMHO, I’s scratch build the mud guards with foil, or thin annealed brass sheet, as they got the heck knocked out of them and, nothing replicates bent metal like bent metal.

Cheers

Dave

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I’ve noticed something about the blanked sponsons… Almost fell off the chair… I’ll try to explain it… Look at this drawing I made:

Left scheme show the hull (black), moulded fenders (red) and the plastic card I added for blanking the sponsons (dark green). All T-34 kits out there have the moulded fenders aligned with the sponsons (the exceptions are the AFV Club Offerings), but this is incorrect for some tanks (if not all)… Acordding to the info I gathered here, the fenders must be like the scheme at the right side, slightly above the sponsons, so I must add a new plate (blue)… so simple… I wasted time cutting and dry-fitting, then applying putty and sanding just for nothing… Oh, yes… A missing detail:

It’s a pin wiper… They appeared in 1942 with the 500 mm cast links and were bolted, but then welded when the 500 mm tracks became a standart in 1943. Only AFV Club recent offerings and old Maquette T-34s (maybe you can find one of these on eBay) have these moulded, you must make it for Zvezda and DML kits. It started like this:

The I cut it in three pieces (two pin wipers, one spare). This is the result:

As you can see, the sponson fix is finished as well, with weld lines included… It can’t be seen (sorry for the blurry picture), but that wiper has weld lines in three out of four sides, it hasn’t has a weld line at the top. Well, it is a good time to test the track fit onto Zvezda sprockets:

BTW, It has a very good fit, but they’re a little long:

AFV Club track run is almost 6.6 mm longer than Zvezda track run (maybe I’m modifying the idler wheel mount, they look a little loose. I’ll start the rear modifications shortly. Best regards.

José.

8

Jose, Thank you for the heads up on the sponsons. I’ll make sure to correct this on mg T34s when I build them Cheers Save

9

Looks great so far. Can’t wait to see it finished.

10

Boy that rear-plate is as bad as I’ve ever seen. Yuck. [+o(]

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A minor update. I cut the mudguards off:

An overall view:

On the real thing, the mudguards are bolted in two metal strips each (two at each side, 4 in total), those strips are welded: one on each fender and two at each side of the hull. I’m thinking about placing only one mudguard, a little “bruised” and leave the other out, but making those strips with the corresponding holes for the bolts. In pic 2, I had to do some “sculpting” for marking where the fender’s edge is. In pics 2 and 3 you can see the rear plate already “widen” using plastic strips… Thanks for looking. Best regards.

José.

12

Sorry… I’ve been busy with some commision builds, but now I’m back in action. After four tries, I was able to catch a good, albeit not perfect, shape for the rear left fender. Here are the pics:

Some tabs were added for supporting the mudguards:

Here’s a close up of the right side, I’'ll leave that mudguard off, so I made the holes for the missing bolts:

Now, with the weld lines added:

Left mudguard in place (bolt heads still missing):

An overview:

I’ve noticed that the rear angle of the engine hatch is wrong:

It is too “squared”, it must be more “rounded”:

I received a spare part from a Dragon T-34 (Thanks a lot to Dave and Steve for that!) so I already worked on it. The Dragon part is narrower, taller and longer than Zvezda’s, so some plasticard and sanding is required to make it fit properly:

Albeit Dragon engine hatch has the correct shape, it lacks some details: Weld lines. The Zvezda part has an incorrect shape, actually, it is based on a restored vehicle, but it HAS all the welds lines and a better shaped grill with thicker bars. Well, I decided to leave Dragon’s grill as it is, no PE grill or wire mesh will be added, but I added some of the weld lines, made out with stretched sprue and enlarged the right squared notch a little, otherwise, the piping wouldn’t fit:

Can you see the weld lines? They’re very thin so they’re not so visible. Some work still needed on the back plate before glueing this part in place. I’ve noticed something weird about the hull’s profile:

This is the idler wheel axle that got broken due to the tight tracks… I broke off the other one to make the idler mount modifications… More on this in another update [H] Thanks for looking and feel free to comment. Best regards.

José.