trumpeter 1:35 scale T-55 with BTU-55

[MarkVerploeg]

hi there
this will be my entry to this group build the kit i will be making is the T-55 with the BTU-55 dozer blade
this is a kit by trumpeter and it's from the year 2000
in my opinion its an ok kit since i have payed less then 20 euro's for it so you can't expect any thing extreme for that money
all the parts look nice there is very little flash (i found just a few spots with flash)
so here i have some pics of the kit and it's content and i'll be starting the build in the next couple of hours or days depents on my other activities


the kit decals are the ones on the left they are for a finnish version on the right i have some left overs from a zsu 23-4 shilka and i will be useing the east german ones from that sheet


the lower hull with some transport damage
















i want to asure everyone that this kit is unstarted and just the sprues are unpacked
also this will be my first T-55 so lets see what i can do with it
and it's the only T-55 in this gb i think (or i missed the other ones)
so i will be keeping you up to date on this build and until next time
Mark

[EasyEight96]

Nice choice of kit can't wait to see it done


Matt

[HWGuderian23]

Good choice mate ! I love russian armour!
Looking forward to see your progress ...
Good luck !

[fly1ngdutchm4n]

Awesome looking kit you have there Mark!
Great entry

[spruecutter]

Good choice, welcome to the GB

[Gav0909]

Nice to see another classic Soviet tank in this GB. I am looking forward to seeing this come together. For some reason I am not a fan of dozer blades on tanks, just looks all kinds of wrong! Haha, I am sure your model will turn out nicely though!

[schweinhund227]

I like calling them Obstacle blades...

looks odd in deed but serves a purpose ! push a car or debris off the road... but that's about it... any serious Earth moving would be done by
proper... Heavy equipment...

Older Trumpeter series... They should seriously ReTool this kit and give there latest touch to it... a proper T-55 series is needed
as they are still in use in some countries... i.e. Syria !

with all the Goodies they have added to them.. like laser range finder and all ! Newer Sprockets and T-72 Tracks...


Can't wait for your next update dude !
should be good !

[MarkVerploeg]

I like calling them Obstacle blades...

looks odd in deed but serves a purpose ! push a car or debris off the road... but that's about it... any serious Earth moving would be done by
proper... Heavy equipment...

Older Trumpeter series... They should seriously ReTool this kit and give there latest touch to it... a proper T-55 series is needed
as they are still in use in some countries... i.e. Syria !

with all the Goodies they have added to them.. like laser range finder and all ! Newer Sprockets and T-72 Tracks...


Can't wait for your next update dude !
should be good !

yep that would be nice but i don't think it would.be a cold war vehicle with all the goodies on it
but it is a tank that has many upgrades in a lot of countries and they do need them i think you cam see several things on the vehice that are present on late wwII soviet armour
but i'm not expecting anything awesome with this kit because its a older one and it cost me not even half the money i pay for most of my kits

[MarkVerploeg]

so work has finally started on the T-55
i haven't done that much so far as i only did some work on the upper and lower hull parts
and this is the progress so far



the lower hull there is not that much to it you have to add the swingarms and 4 pointy things (i have no idea what they are)

and the upper hull







the hull itself is easy and straight forward to build as are all the parts that are on it
the only problem i have is the bad fitting of the fueltanks because the pins and the holes don't line up atleast half of them
but that can be fixed with a knife so no worries
this is all i done so far since i spend most time on the panzer II and it was getting late but i will work on it as soon as possible
i do want to mention that it is a older and relatively cheap kit so expect some challenges with this one
also whatever you do when building this kit don't dry fit the upper and lower hull parts because the caps on the pins in the front part of the tank are harder to get loose then glue and the both halves fit just fine i did try and it was a hell of a job to get the halves seperated again
so this is all for now
so have good day and happy modelling

[JayCub]

looks like this is going to be another great build Mark, im enjoying watching this come together

[MarkVerploeg]

so more work has been done
but i still have some reservations on this kit i found out there is a gap on the back side of the upper hull
but the up side of this problem is that all the parts for the back fueltanks are present in the kit so i will build those two and place them to hide the gap
the turret has it own downsides such as a lack of positioning holes and some bad fitting on some parts
but with a little bit of patience it all will fit and looks pretty good
so this is what i got




the dozer blade so far i like the texture that it has and in my opinion it is the best part of the entire kit


the turret with all it's add-on parts the only bad thin here is that most parts are connected to the sprue in a unlogical way with most connections on the easyly visible side of the part


the rear of the tank with the fueltank fixtures and log
so that is all i have at the moment
and i'll see you next time

[Paul]

Nice work mark, looks like a nicely detailed kit, look forward to seeing more progress

[MarkVerploeg]

so back with another up-date
i had a lot of spare time so i went on with the T-55 build
the last time i just finished the hull and most of the turret
i started with the wheels this time (just to get it over with) and they had big ribs going over the tires now i don't know if the real ones have this feature but if the did these lines would wear out and dissapear over time
so i sanded the contact surface of the tires to a point most of the ribs or lines where gone and this is the before pic.

and after


then i went back to the dozerblade
in my last update most parts where on and i just needed to add the pivots on the hull and a box to front glacis


a round view of the complete tank minus wheels and tracks






after that was done i prepared all the prts for priming

and ofcourse then i primed it all



after i let the primer dry i painted the dozer blade in a coat of silver enamel paint as you can see in the previous photo
i did this because i wanted to use the hair spay method to scratch up this part
i will be using the AK heavy chipping for this since i i had good results in the past using this product
and thats where i'm at now
after i have painted and applied the decals it will give it a satin clear coat together with my panzer II and cargo barge
i want to do as many builds at once when it comes to clear coats since i have the feeling they are harder to get out of my airbrush after i used it
and to be honest i don't enjoy cleaning the airbrush its fidely

so that's alkl i have for now
see you next time

[Nige201980]

she looks a mean f****r great work so far mate

[MarkVerploeg]

so there has been a little bit of work on the T-55
it wasn't much tough
i painted the entire tank including all the parts that i left seperate for painting and painted all the details and all the other colors
at this point it is painted has it's decals and a coat of satin clear
and this is the result





so it's time for weathering and repainting the tracks
i thought that the primer was going to stick on the vinyl tracks but in all the nooks and crannies there was a fair share of left over mold release that i didn't see before or after for that matter but when i went to paint them the primer coat simply started to crack and peel off
so they had a nice warm bath they even bend back in the original form as they where bend in all kinds of shapes
so i will repaint them and show you next time
so untill that day comes bye

[fly1ngdutchm4n]

Wow... Great progress Mark!
Love it

[spruecutter]

Nice work, it's looking great.

[MarkVerploeg]

hi there
so it's back to modelling after a busy week
here is probably my last update before the final reveal
mainly because i only need to build a diorama of some sort for this tank and i don't have an idea what i will be doing for that
but i have done the weatering on the tank it self
and this is what i ended up with


i used the AK products for this step just to get rust and streaking effects
the stuff i used : dark green streaking (for green vehicles) and rust streaks


i used the rust streaks here aswell since you can simply paint it on and wipe i down after it is dry


as you can see in this picture the streaks and rust are dulled down with thinner
i also added some oil stains underneath the edges of the turret to simulate oil leakeing from the turret bearing
and i made some fuelstreaks on the back fueltanks

after this was dry (to the touch) i started to add some dust in this case i used brickdust since this color is much lighter than the tank and i dulls the main color



this is the result
and this is the hull with dust and oilstains you can see everything a bit to god since the insanely bright flash from my camera decided to work but it gives a good view on where i applied my weathering



also i did the tracks i painted them back and drybrushed them with Vallejo gun metal grey
after this was dry i dusted them using mig pigment
first a layer of Industrial city dirt and after that a layer of brick dust

so that is all i have i will be posting some photo's on the finished tank in daylight so my camera won't act up
so see you next time

[fly1ngdutchm4n]

Awesome progress
Really like the weathering you've done
kutgw!

[JayCub]

looking really good mark and i can't wait to see what kind of diorama you come up with.

[RobertA]

Looking very good so far.. just be aware of the fitting of the dozer blade! I either did mine wrong, or the instructions were wrong.. or both! Either way I had to re-fit the whole thing when I built mine, so just exercise some care during the assembly, when you do yours..

[MarkVerploeg]

yep i have noticed that problem but to get the blade in the transport position all fittings have to be attached but if you don't connect the weird u shaped part and don't glue in the hydrolic piston you can get it in the lowered position there is no other way to do that
so i went that way
but nice tank you have there is that out of the box and following the instructions?

[MarkVerploeg]

looking really good mark and i can't wait to see what kind of diorama you come up with.

small and simple
i have no figures for it and i won't be buying them either since i want to keep it a budget build
but i used brick dust pigments so i guess something with a small brick wall and this tank bashing trough that wall

[RobertA]

Yes, that is pretty much as per instructions.. apart from the dozer blade which didn't fit the way they told me to, whichever way I did it.. so I just moved the parts around until I was happy..

Still looks ok to me...

[UKscalemodeller]

I'll say it again, stunning work Rob.

[schweinhund227]

Awesome work my friend !

Love the Blade chipping .... and overall weathering ...

keep up the good work !

[MarkVerploeg]

so i got back to work on the T-55
or the dio at least,my plan was to make a wall and the tank bashing through that wall but after three failed attemps to make it look realalistic i tossed the whole idea in the bin
so a new plan was needed and that is what took me so long to come up with
and the new plan is to go with the box art where the tank is being used as a snow plough
unfortunetly i forgot to take photo's of the progress on the base construction but here is how i did it
first off i made a box with balsa wood and i made a slab from expanded styrene and some banks for the road with the same material
then i used a knife to form the these banks
after i used nails to secure these parts and made a mix with sand,white glue,sand colored paint and water
i applied this mix on the base and added some bushes and a pine tree
after this was dry i used sodium bicarbonate i got at the pharmacy this is used for stomach irritations i believe
and sprinkled it on the base and parts of the tank
and that is basicly all to make a simple diorama like this
i'll be posting the final result later today
cheers Mark

[schweinhund227]

Keep trying! You will get better!

Dio's are nice but.... take a lot of room!

Sometimes a generic base is a good idea
To take pictures...? And you can use it for more than one model!

Take and happy New Year

[RobertA]

Will keep an eye out..