Gamera, RBaer, Thanks for the comments 

Fine results, good saves all 'round!

Wow all of those turned out great! I really love the T-55C1 "Bublina" though- something about the cool white UN scheme.

Stik, Thanks for the comment. Yes, the mine plow version certainly exhibits more audacity than the other two 

Doog, thanks! All three together is a good idea 

Wow, what a cool trio of unusual variants! They look great! Good weathering, and it's cool how you varied the finishes so significantly on each one!

Only one thing is missing--a shot of the three of them together!

I like them!!! I will keep your heads up about the tracks in mind whenever I get around to the Skif T-55 in my stash. I kinda like the mine rake T-55 best myself...

I've (finished)  the three SKIF T-55s in this series. I thought it would be a simple and quick build up and blog because Ive never built a SKIF kit before these three kits. If I had known it would be sort of complicated like this, I would have made three different blog threads for each one. 

Comments and criticism are ok. A couple things I intended not to include from the start were the fender fuel tank lines and any AM products

 Thanks for looking

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SKIF, FAVORIT tank T-55C2, kit no. 231

Painted and marked as a Czech Driver Trainer tank

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SKIF, T-55C1 "Bublina" tank with mine sweeper KMT-6, kit no. 224

Painted and marked for UNMEE service

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SKIF, South Lebanon APC-55, kit no. 242

thanks again for looking. Now I can get on to other things ...

Yes that's true. I've done this for articulating the front wheels to look like they are turned or esp. when lowering suspension. 

Good point 

Sprue, if you have ever done car models, you know that that whole repositioning the wheel thing is par for the course with them. I've had to reposition probably 90% of the wheels on my muscle cars. Your tank looks good!

While I was fixing the tracks and had them off the model, I also repositioned the front road wheel, on the right side, a little further back from the idler because they were touching.

And so inappropriately  

I broke off the suspension arm, filed it down in certain places, and then repositioned a few mm's back to get proper spacing.

^ dotted line is where I shaved off some material for fit. The arrow points at the little piece of styrene shim for the new location to glue to

^ the blue dotted lines are where the stock assembly brought the parts to an uncomfortable position. The black lines are where they were repositioned straight back into an appropriate location

^ OK much better space as (arrowed). Also, space A and B are realistically appropriate

Thanks for looking...

Hi, Thanks for the comments

Rob, Yes, it's an enjoyable build of a sort of crude representation, for the experienced modeler 

Gamera, haha, yeah the material was very cooperative  

Gun Tech, yes I'm satisfied with the improved result  

Nice save on the tracks!!!!

Nice work, looks like you've got her under control there Sprue. At least the tracks were flexible, the stiff ones on the Trumpeter Type 59 (based off the T-55) drove me crazy.  

looking good, I built the regular gun tank when it came out sometime around 2002 or so. Rather crude in the details, but an enjoyable build.

I was doing other stuff for the past 4 1/2 months but I finally fixed the tracks yesterday.

I had to break off the drive sprockets and hubcaps of the idler wheels so I could slide the tracks off. The pictures will show how I did this for the left side but I fixed both sides the same way.

^ Broke the wheels off the model

^ cut just one link out

^ CA glue back together

^ Track installed but before sag was created

^ The sag was created by glueing around the contact area of the idler wheel and to the top of the center road wheel.

Thanks for looking 

There tracks are painted and weathered. Today I installed them and they are very cooperative. None of the paint flaked off and they are very soft, almost sag naturally into position.

I started glueing them to the drive sprockets and idler wheels when things got weird . . .  

  Heads up, if you're doing this model, cut out 1 or 2 links before glueing the ends together. The tracks are obviously a little too long.

Thanks Gamera

Looking better and better- really love those tracks!

Thanks for following, checking in and your comment. However, what appears to be determination is simply my slow model building pace . . .  

Been a following this fine piece of work for a while and I have to

   say this is a great lesson in determination and improvisation.

Tracks getting the grimy. Pastel ground down and mixed with hobby acrylics into a sloppy wash. The tracks were first painted flat black so I'll rub out some of the color off of the tops of the details tonight to reveal this black. Then dry brush with gun metal, lightly 

thanks for looking 

Thanks for the comment Doog. 

Started weathering with acrylic washes. Maybe a little too red-ish. Continuing today with some clean up of the 'water spots' and tone the grime color to a more dirty tan sand hue ?

thanks for looking...

An impressive amount of work here, SPrue!

Thank you and thanks for looking in and commenting. It's my first at SLA blue too. Just learning and having fun.

I'll start with some weathering this weekend if the weather gets weird. It's been so nice lately   

Very cool, I love how that blue is coming so far. Don't think I've ever painted an AFV that colour!

haha, thanks for looking in 

I'm going to pay close attention here, for a selfish reason: I've got a Tamiya T-55 in with some hanger queens that I need inspiration for....

I bought some excellent printed reference material for any clue of how to paint the SLA-APC  

This is where I'm at with the base color over all. I'm going 'old school' with the base color first then a loose pin wash then several layers of dry brushing. Each dry brushed color is subtly lightened with each pass.

Colors used so far:

Base color Tamiya XF-18 Medium Blue as a heavy wash over gray primer.

Loose pin wash with a mix of 50% Tamiya XF-50 Field Blue and 50% Tamiya XF-64 Red Brown.

The successive layers of dry brushing with Tamiya XF-18 Medium Blue lightened with Gunze H-311 Gray FS 36622.

These are paint I already have at the bench so looking at my Ref it's a close match.

Thank you !