Completed T72 by Petner Panzers

Right side view 1/87 scale Petner Panzer T73.

I did not glue on the smoke launchers, or the commander figure.

I have been primer painting these for the last month off and on but the weather is too humid or too hot or both!

But my plan is to get them painted by the end of the year.

It is an excellent model, I have a few of the Trident T72 in soft metal and these are better than the Trident, much lighter, and more durable.

Overall a good kit, and I will probably get just a few more....
 

Petner T72 Construction Part II

Turret construction plans.  The little hole for the spotlight is too small, and using my pin vice I opened it up a little and fits perfectly.  On some of these I have built I just cut the pin off and glued it on and that worked just fine also.

There is not much in the way of locating pins for the turret parts but it was not too hard to figure out where they go.  Once I did the first one, I just made sure all my others were the same!

Boxes and fuel tanks, and unditching beam fits under the rear fenders and should not touch the tracks.

These are the tools I used, Model Master Plastic Cement, X-Acto knife with #11 blade, tweezers, Tamiya sprue cutter, and a cutting mat to keep the desk from getting scratched up.

These are the smoke dischargers.  Some go on each side of the front of the turret.  There are no locating holes for them, you have to figure out where they go, drill holes in the turret and then insert them into the hole and glue.  Too much work for too little return for a wargaming model so I have never done them.  It would likely be fine to do if you are only building one of these as a display piece.

Overall an excellent model and it has lots of details.  A good value even after all these years.
 

T72 Construction Part I

The instructions are very simple and straightforward, I built the model mostly according to them.

I used a pin vise and drill to clean out the receptacles on the lower hull for the pins on the upper hull.  They are just a micro too small.  One of them is just a little too tall and I trimmed it down too.

This is the glue I used but any plastic model cement should be just fine.

The hole in upper hull for the turret pin is a tiny bit too small and it got cleaned up too.

Test fit of upper hull and tracks.

I got the main gun and turret ready at this point also, the pin on the turret goes though the upper hull, but it is rather short, so I put a collar on it from the underside.

I made the collar out of a bit of sheet plastic, drilled a hole in it and put the pin through the upper hull and collar.  Put a drop of glue on the collar right at the pin to keep glue off the upper hull.  Turret will spin but no come off.

More to come tomorrow.
 

Petner Parts Preview

The small parts sprue for the Petner Panzer T-72 tank.

The small pins on the upper left are the smoke dischargers.  There are no locating holes on the turret, so I always leave them off the model as I find them too hard to get the same on each tank.

The model is flash free, and includes a tank commander figure.

Compared to Roco Minitanks their only real competitor at the time this model was released, this one is very good.  It includes data about the real vehicle, wargame rules, decals and a crew figure.  Roco eventually stopped including vehicle data and never hand wargame rules and never gave you crew figures with the model, they were always purchased separately and often had to find.  While some late production Roco were pre-painted and decalled, that was many years after this model was released.  

I think this is an excellent kit, and I still buy them now and again even today.  You can't have too many Soviet tanks.