After about 20 kits passing over my bench trying to decide what to build figured would give this one a try, Mirage T-26 / BT 2. These are by no means the best kits out there but it is an intresting subject. I have read many debates that this was not a real version of the T-26 but I have found some pictures in one of my reference books with some reading to go along with it and the kit looks to be this variant. The kit itself comes with 4 main sprues and a bag of 5 sprues of indie tracks. The parts have poor detail, sink marks, the bottom of the hull is badly warped and the kit needs many corrections. Here is the lay out of parts
Decided to start with the turret. Had fit problems which lead to filling with squadron putty. After sanding / smoothing out, all of the rivet heads had ben sanded off so went to work on new rivets. First put on the hole lay out, drilled holes then inserted .020 styrene rod and attached with CA. After dry cut of excess and sanded to shape.
Kit had two small hatches on the overhead, sanded those off and scibed in one large hatch on the right side. Then put on hinges and handle. After that built and installed the 37mm main gun and MG to the right of main gun.
With the turret done for now went to work on the hull. Once again there was quite a bit of sanding to do. There were some square things on the hull sides, they were right behide the fighting compartment. After they were removed and hull sanded, all of what little detail there was had been removed. Now begining work on rivets on the hull and replacing details.
Thats it for now, thanks for looking
Rob