Painting Soviet Vehicles

I am going through my Cold War Soviet Union collection, sorting, repairing, upgrading, and painting.

Many of my vehicles are die cast from China and from the former Warsaw Pact nations.

We have days here that have great weather, warm, but not hot, and low humidity, and reasonable wind speed.  So I am painting about 75 of these little truck and vehicles all at once.

For weeks now I have been repairing vehicles.  Then taping the windshields with masking tape.

So a few here and a few there that are getting primer paint.

Waiting for the perfect day to paint them the base color.

I lay down a mat in case I have to kneel down, kneeling on gravel is not comfy.

Here the gray primer vehicles are waiting for their new paint.
 

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.
 

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.
 

T34, T62, Boxes

I got some open boxes from Amazon.  Here is a Roco Minitanks T-34 tank converted into an armored recovery vehicle.

The cardboard box is very white and is helpful for taking quick photos.

I have a lot of WWII and a few post WWII T-34 ARVs in the collection.

This is the photo box.

It's about a foot square.

It is also a bit disconcerting on it's own.

Which box is the inside and which is the outside?

This is my next big Cold War Soviet Union project, upgrading my T62 forces.
 

Soviet Equipment

Work continues on the T54 tanks, nearly all Roco, but a few SDV, these are Roco in the photo.

I have been taking them apart, mostly, trimming off the flash, repairing problems and putting them together.  Not all of them have the little wheels and I am not replacing any that are missing.

Many of mine had two right side tracks!  That created a lot of problems later.

This is a conversion that I made using parts of three vehicles.

It is a chemical weapon decontamination vehicle.
 

Painting Stuff and Tips

For the last month or more I have been working on upgrading my Cold War Soviet / Warsaw Pact army.

These are all HO scale vehicles from a variety of companies.

There was a time when the Soviet Union was building an anti-aircraft gun system to replace or supplement the ZSU-23/4.

Similar to the West German Gepard system this was supposed to be a twin 30mm cannon with radar guidance. 

Usually I paint vehicles upside down first, with turrets off if they are easily removable.  Then I can flip them over when dry and paint the upper side.

I decant my spray paints into little jars using a funnel.  I label the paint with blue tape, and I always include the name of paint, the brand and the stock number.

It often does not last very long in these jars, sometimes a few days or few weeks.  I try and use it up quickly.  It is perfect for touch up where the spray paint missed or did not cover well.