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.
 

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.
 

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.
 

Painting and Model Building Tools

The T54 project is requiring a lot of tools to do the job.  These little cheapo clamps are good at holding the upper and lower hull parts together.

These larger clamps are good for holding the upper and lower hull together if they need a little more force to hold the pieces together.

This is a cotton swab.  I use it to wipe off excess paint from the windshields of some of the Soviet trucks that I am also painting as part of this T54 project.  I also wipe off excess glue.  I put glue on the upper and lower hull halves and press them together and sometimes the glue will seep out.  A quick swipe from a swap can remove that excess glue before it has an opportunity to mar the surface.

Sometimes I need to do a tiny touch up of paint, and a swab can work for that.  I also have these little hobby brushes that can reach into little nooks and crannies and touch up paint.

The tank turrets sometimes need a little bit of plastic to fill a gap between the gun and the turret.  Filling that gap allows the gun to stay in the up position without having to hold the gun.  I made a bunch of these little pieces so they are ready when I need them.  Since I took this photo I used up all these pieces!

This little plastic cup, lined with paper towels is good for holding a jar of paint.  So it makes it harder for me to knock it over by accident.  Note the T54 tank turret with the white plastic replacement hatch on it.

Soda bottle caps.  I decant spray paint into small jars.  When it comes time to use the paint I use these lids for holding small amounts of paint that I am using for touch up paint.

These are some of the paints I am using on this project.  I take notes of the paints I use so that I can do touch up at the conclusion of the project.

My speaker stand is a wire cup and I store Dixie cups in it.  The Dixie cups get used for holding water for cleaning brushes.

Black paint for painting windows.  Note the silver circle on the cap.  That indicates to me the paint jar has been open.  My paints are stored in a drawer and so I view them from the top.  Lighter colors get a black circle.

Note the hole in the turret horn, it's a mold flaw.  I use Testors Clear Parts Cement and Window Maker to fill the hole.  It is gap filling and works very well to fill a small hole.

This is the same turret as the photo directly above.  Did you notice the hatch was installed upside down with the detail on the inside?
 

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.