Painting APCs and a Tank

Painting some Cold War Soviet armored personnel carriers.

BTR 50.

MTLB.

Some of these models are die cast, some are soft metal, some are resin.  Nearly all have been in my collection since the early 1980.

They have waited a long time for primer and paint.

My Chinese T54 upgrade.  See here the lower hull has been glued on and a bit of sheet plastic covers the gap between the front and rear lower hull parts.

I changed the pin on the bottom of the turret to fit a new tube on the upper hull.

If the outdoor lighting is not just right these sometimes look gray when they are dark green and vice versa.  I think the upper photo shows the tank in gray primer and the lower photo shows the tank in dark forest green.  Probably.
 

Chinese T54 Tank Modifications

Most of the parts from my new T54.  Turret and hull from a Chinese toy.  Engine deck from another Chinese toy, with an M60 style Continental AVDS-1790 engine deck.  Tracks are from a Roco M-60 tank and so is the main gun.

I trimmed down the front of the tracks.  I would be hidden by the upper hull.  The upper hull had a bulge where the tracks fit onto the hull sides.  Since the bulge was metal, it was easier to trim the track connectors and about 1mm of the plastic track then trim the metal bulge.

Trim from both track assemblies.

I had a Roco T54 lower hull that I was going to use instead of the original metal hull, since the original lower hull was too wide for the Roco M60 tracks to fit.  Note the T54 lower  hull has a gap in the middle.  The metal tank hull is about 3mm longer than the Roco T54 and so I had to cut the lower hull in half to make it fit to the ends of the metal upper hull.

Test fitting most of the parts.

I had an extra  T54 turret that had no gun barrel, and so I took the gun from the metal tank, cut down the fume extractor at the end of the barrel and inserted it into a mantlet of the Roco T54.  Not exactly like the original, but close enough.  Due to the weight of the metal barrel, I glued the mantlet inside the turret so the gun will not raise and lower.

Not perfect, but good enough.

The lower hull from the Chinese metal tank, the breech end of the metal gun, and the antenna mount with antenna and the rather weak M2 machine gun from the metal kit.  I will reuse the antenna and mount, but these other parts are surplus.
 

T54 Upgrade

The upper left corner is a Roco T54 and now I am working on a metal one.

I took tracks from M60 tank tracks and will replace the original rubber tracks and plastic wheels.

I took an engine deck from a M48 tank, a cheap dollar store one, and mounted it into this tank hull.

I removed the T54 gun and put in a Roco Minitank M60 tank cannon.

Inside view of the T54 tank gun replacement.

The metal tank will use the Roco T54 tank lower hull that was cut in half to fit.

Here are the parts before final assembly.
 

Rocket Testing

I took a cheap ink pen barrel and made some fins to fit the bottom.

I need a few long skinny missiles for the Soviet Union, WWII Germany, and the USA.

The pen was out of ink and rather than throw this away and so I think it can be a rocket.

I still need a warhead, or sensor package top, but on thing at a time.

Essentially I took a bit of 3x5 card and folded it, cut a couple slots and made it into the fins.  The final fins will be plastic when I return to this project.
 

More Lizards

Another four inch long group of lizards.

Another one with a nice pose, that I can't identify.

Blue lizard with a sort of Godzilla head.

No idea what kind of lizard this is...again.

This is a beautiful lizard with a big tail.

Looks like it should be aquatic, but I don't know.

At four inches long these would be good monsters for either 1/72nd scale or crocodile size creatures for 60mm troops.

A pack of lizards with a Sphinx.
 

Lizards

I got a set of lizards from Amazon recently.

They are about 4 inches long.  This is a horned toad.

All the lizards are essentially the same size.  Chameleon  with tongue.

IAt about 4 inches this one is about life size.

I am not sure what this one is, but it is a stereotype lizard I think.

I like the pose also.  I don't know what kind of lizard it is.

This one is kinda dinosaur looking.

That ridge down the back is cool.  Another one I can't identify.

Obviously I don't know much about lizards, this one is a green one.

 With black dots.  I don't know what this one is, if you know what any of these lizards are, let me know in the comments.

T54 Odd Things

For a very long time essentially all Roco military vehicles were the same black green color.

This Roco T44 tank has a black green hatch.

But the rest of the vehicle is the olive green that Roco changed to at some point, perhaps in the 1980s.  I like it a lot better, it's easier to paint over, not so glossy, and looks better for American tanks at least.

At about the same time, they started making other vehicles in other colors.  Yellow or gray for WWII German tanks for example.  This is a camouflaged T54 hull that was originally the standard black green.  Note the configuration of the large hull box on the fender.

Here is another one, note the serious mold error on the hull box.

As some of the molds got older more and more flaws began to show up.

This is the only one I have seen with this flaw, but the hole in the turret horn is common as is a mis-molded right side track.  Judging by my collection of about 190 T54 tanks this is the only one of this problem but the mis-molded right side track is about 3% of the models and the turret hole about the same.

Some of the T54 tanks have enough flash on the gun barrel, turret end, that the gun no longer fits properly.  A quick move with the X-Acto knife fixes this problem.