T54 On Parade

Tan tank at Lenin's Tomb.

Brown tank at Lenin's Tomb.

Olive tank at Lenin's Tomb.

Tan and green tank at Lenin's Tomb.

Camouflage green tank at Lenin's Tomb.

Unpainted tank at Lenin's Tomb.

The line up.

As i wait for a few more tanks to arrive in the mail, and cobble together bits from the spares box, the unpainted ones will not be painted until the final paint run.  Probably be a few weeks before that happens.  But all the tanks in the inventory are repaired, had touch up paint done, and are ready to go to miniature war.  Only about 20 or so unpainted tanks are waiting for completion.
 

Painting Turrets

I am painting these on cardboard sheets.

I use this awl to poke a hole in the cardboard.

Like this arrow.

Then I can insert the tank pin into the hole.

And the turret can sit flat on the cardboard.

It makes it easier to paint when it does not move around.

Turret with tank hull.

This shows some of the paint build up on the nozzle.

I wipe it off every few sprays.

The build up will clog the nozzle if you don't wipe it off.
 

Mostly All Better

This Roco T54 tank looks pretty good.  Except for the massive mold flaw in the port side upper rear hull.

You can see it here.

So far I have not used this hull, but harvested the parts for other vehicles and the hull is in the parts bin.

So far I have used four cans of this paint.

I use a bit of paper towel to wipe the paint nozzle after about 5 sprays.  

It really helps the nozzle stay clean and not clog.

The X can is the short number version, which seems to be a little greener than the other.

I have been using the long number version for this project.

Mostly because I don't want two different paints on the same model.
 

Roco T54 Tank Problems and Fixes

Roco T54 has two holes in the upper hull.  The forward hole is for the T54, the rear hole is for the T44 turret.  Note the right side hull is blocked.  Many of these holes are very tight and often so tight that the turret pin will shear off when the turret is turned.  Look at the boxes on the upper left side of the hull.  On the left tank the space between the box and hull is full, on the right side hull the gap is open as it should be.

This hull has two boxes on the left side of the photo, there is no space between the box and the upper hull.

You can see how the space between the box and the upper hull seems to have been filled in with plastic.  The mold has worn out and now plastic is injected into that space.  A razor saw could fix this but it's not worth the trouble to do it for me.

Track on the left is a full track, the one on the right has been cast without enough pressure and so the mold has not been filled.  Indicated by the ragged edge of the track.

You can see it is pretty obvious.  It seem that about 4% of the T54 in my collection have this problem.  I have no way to fix this problem.

Roco T54 turrets often get the little wings spread apart over time and so the guns flop down.

I glue a bit of plastic on either side of the turret wings where the dimple is on this photo.

Nearly all of the guns have this flash on the turret end of the cannon.

Droopy barrel prior to being fixed.