Sometimes I have to remind myself that, yes, I really do live in a desert. Hurricane John hit the Pacific coast of Mexico and its remnants came through starting late Friday night and continuing through today. We’ve had 9" of rainfall officially since the end of June, that’s more than our standard annual rainfall in a “normal” year…so things are pretty green around here. Since the weather wouldn’t cooperate yesterday and again today preventing me from doing any paintwork on the Elefant, I figured I could sneak by with starting another project to insure the Labor Day weekend wasn’t a total loss in terms of bench time. So I cracked open the Trumpeter KV-1 Simplified Turret 1942 kit and decided to go after it as an OOB build (I have 5 others of the series in the stash, so if it turns out it needs AM help, I’ll know where [:)]. Worked on the lower hull and running gear today. Trumpeter designed the suspension in a pretty ingenious way, allowing the separate arms to be positioned in different settings for diorama purposes. Not a fully working suspension, it uses a hex shaped hole/nut on the hull/arm to allow for locking positioning but only in certain positions. It’s a compromise, but a neat one IMHO. I won’t make use of it this time around but future possibility exists. I was impressed with the quality of the moldings of the weld seams on the hull plates and also with the casting texture on the suspension arms. Of course, there was a large mold seam on each that required some delicate removal but nothing too tricky.
Here’s the progress after a good solid day at the bench.
You sly dog. Off on another are you? I got the Heavy-Cast one myself sitting patiently in the stash. It looks pretty sharp in the box too. Maybe next year. Anyway, as always, I look forward to your build. Hopefully your Elefant won’t be laid up as long as mine has.
Hi Bill.
Nice KV you got going. I really enjoy your clean build. Which brings me to a question. Can you please elaborate on your sanding process. For instance, on the top hull panels there are 3 or 4 moulding gates. I cant even see a trace of them on your model of any moulding stubs. How do you get rid of them so well while keeping everything straight.
Thanks
I don’t know if your like me, but I don’t believe in OOB anymore! There is always gonna’ be some aftermarket item on your list, to be used in the name of improvement!
Come on Bill, go ball’s out on this one, you know you wanna’! [:D]
Nice work,I’ll be watching your progress with interest as I have the Trumpeter KV-1 heavy cast turret in my stash and want to get building on it pretty soon.
I remove the parts from the sprue using a pair of Tamiya cutters but I don’t always remove it right up next to the part depending on where the sprue point is. Sometimes I’ll cut up above it to get it off the sprue, sometimes I’ll cut it flush, all depends. Then I use a sharp #11 blade to remove the stump, sometimes in multiple passes to avoid gouging. Finally, I’ll come along and sand it smooth if needed with a home-made sanding twig and dryfit to get the best possible fit, sanding a bit more if needed.
For the joins on the upper hull panels, I did the same above to cut them loose, then used a combination of the Testor’s “black bottle” glue and followed that up with some Testor’s liquid glue in the tighter spots, just used finger pressure for about 60 seconds or a bit longer depending until all the plates were joined properly. A little light sanding with the same twig and voila!
Fingers,
Oh I have some great AM stuff stocked up since I’ve got the whole series of KV-1 and KV-2s that have been released to date, but I wanted to see how the kit was all by itself before going all out. It will happen, just not with this kit. [:D]
Looking good Bill. I’ve got a KV-1 and a KV-2 in the stash, and I’m going to approach them much like you: one out of the box, and with a little extra. I won’t go all out, but I’ll definitely add some a/m touches to it. I just have to figure out which one will get which treatment.
looks like you put labor day to good use also my friend–[:D]–i will be following this build— please post lots of pics!-- best of luck,and it seems it has been raining here on the east coast all summer[:(]-- ah-- but more time to build!— tread
It’s still got some of the usual Trumpeter quirks…like making the track tensioning idler at the front with a movable arm…and then promply telling you to glue it in place so that the arm doesn’t move. [(-D] It’s designed more for those wanting to show a knocked out tank I think…along with the bolt holes for all the covers on the drive arms, return rollers, sprockets, etc. Was kind of funny though as I took great care not to glue the arm in an immobile position only to find that when placed on the vehicle in the normal place, it couldn’t move anyway.
I blame it all on Trumpeter!And GM…hard to go wrong at $18 a kit. [:D]
Made a little bit more progress over the course of the last couple of days, just working on it an hour or so at a time in front of the TV. One of the advantages of doing this as an OOB project is I don’t need the full array of the workbench right at my fingertips. Just glue, knife, sprue cutters, tweezers, and a sanding stick and that’s it.
Trumpeter did a good job on the details of the wheels as well as the rest of the suspension. The idlers (not pictured) even have cast texture molded into them! [:O]
Encountered my first “classic” Trumpeter moment with this build…the fender mounting brackets. They are about 1 mm too short to match up to the hull directly, so had to get a little creative with the putty to fill the gap. Other than that, it’s been a pretty straightforward build. Had a lot of fun getting it to this stage, now it’s ready for a date with the AB this weekend. [:)]
The KV-I is my favorite Russian tank and yours is making me want to start on mine. Bummer about the brackets, it at least looks like you were able to ad-lib it.
I vaguely recall reading about it in one of the reviews but didn’t realize it was quite that bad/uniform. It wasn’t tough to overcome and is one of the reasons why I did it OOB in the first place. Definitely would consider using PE to replace them on future builds with this kit though, just simpler to deal with than trying to ad hoc fix like I did here. [:)]
Looks great so far. These new Trumpeter kits are just fantastic, especially considering the price. Too bad I’ve got a Tamiya with a mountain of AM for it, otherwise I’d have to opt for two or three of these myself.
