Hey everyone, here's an update on that little T-26T Artillery Tractor!
All the suspension has been assembled but not installed yet. The roadwheels were a bear to clean up - I couldn't hold them because of their size and convex shape. I finally decided to chuck the little guys in my Dremel to sand them down! I also assembled the lower hull.
The two halves of each bogie housing didn't match perfectly so I had to do some sanding and reshaping for a better fit. Then I heavily stippled on some Mr. Surfacer 500 to hide the imperfections and give them a cast texture, followed by some light sanding to smooth out the surface. The photos were taken before the sanding.
After trying to decipher the Polish written instructions I realized that I needed to remove some molded on items on the hull and rear engine panel. In the photo the front glacis and rear engine panel are just dry fitted on.
The instructions show that these will be installed over the removed grills on the engine plate.
Time to bust out the Dremel again! Unfortunately the Dremel can only be used to a certain point after which files, sanding sticks and the trusty X-Acto knife were used to clean up all the areas.
Here are the results. The engine panel is now ready for the new parts. I decided not to completely remove the front grill as the new cover almost entirely masks that area. I accidentally gouged up part of the plate with the Dremel and had to putty it. It pays to be careful and patient with power tools!! I also need to replace a couple of rivets that got taken out in the process!
I detailed the scoop that goes over the rear grill with some photoetched mesh and styrene strip. Looks much better now!
Removing the two plates on the sides of the hull left me with some problems...the two areas are now completely flat and rivets will have to be added. But another problem became evident when I realized that the panel lines above the fenders were RAISED instead of being scribed in and with the removal of the plates the panel lines stops in the middle of the hull side! I decided to fix this by removing all molded on rivets and raised panel lines in the area and rescribed new panel lines.
As for the missing rivets I found some Grandt Line rivets in my aftermarket box that are the perfect size, but I don't have enough. I couldn't find any suppliers for these rivets so I just Googled them and it turns out their shop is only 20 miles from my home in the Bay Area!! Woohoo!! I gave them a call yesterday, ordered a bunch of different size rivets and they'll arrive next week. In the meantime I'll keep plugging away at different sections of the kit.