Hello everybody!
TOPAS is a variant of the Russian BTR-50 developed in Czechoslovakia by adding a turbocharged engine and side doors of the troop compartment, among others. There are many external differences. Polish army further modified the vehicle, by adding an anti-aircraft MG in a turret. This specific variant is called TOPAS-2AP. That's what I'm going to model. The whole thing started, when I got 50% discount on a resin kit by a company called ARMO. The kit laid on the shelf too long and was getting pretty shaken up, having survived about two moves of the store and was handled by the undecided customers for too many times. Because of that many parts were in a sad shape.
![1:72 TOPAS 2AP ARMO kit](http://www.vietnam.net.pl/TOPAS/boxtop1.jpg)
The tracks were worst:
![1:72 TOPAS 2AP by Paweł Mroczkowski](http://www.vietnam.net.pl/TOPAS/track00.jpg)
NormallyI don't have problems with resin tracks - I even like 'em. But those were getting "extra crunchy" so I started thinking about a replacement. That's how I found a plastic kit of the BTR-50, by a Belarussian company called PST:
![1:72 BTR-50 PST kit](http://www.vietnam.net.pl/TOPAS/boxtop2.jpg)
Now maybe they don't have democracy there, but they poduce decent plastic models. The tracks may not be the prettiest thing I've seen, but at least something's there:
![1:72 TOPAS 2AP by Paweł Mroczkowski](http://www.vietnam.net.pl/TOPAS/track01.jpg)
And the other side - the worse:
![1:72 TOPAS 2AP by Paweł Mroczkowski](http://www.vietnam.net.pl/TOPAS/track02.jpg)
Additional surprise - they included markings for the polish vehicle, wich I'm going to use - there are no decals in the ARMO kit, and the Polish markings arenot mentioned in the PST instructions:
![1:72 TOPAS 2AP by Paweł Mroczkowski](http://www.vietnam.net.pl/TOPAS/decals00.jpg)
The styrene road wheels are also better than the resin ones:
![1:72 TOPAS 2AP by Paweł Mroczkowski](http://www.vietnam.net.pl/TOPAS/wheels00.jpg)
The resin hull also took some damage due to excesive handling:
![1:72 TOPAS 2AP by Paweł Mroczkowski](http://www.vietnam.net.pl/TOPAS/hull00.jpg)
Now if you compare the detail on the injection molded and the resin hulls - on the bottom side:
The very nice injection-molded underside gave me the idea of "transplanting" it on the resin hul top, which sports a lot of features unique to this characteristic Polish variant. To do that I had to cut off a large chunk of the resin hull. Lot of work, and it had to be done "wet", so as not to release lots of harmful resin dust. After that I puttied and sanded the hull. For puttying I took a two-component epoxy called "Poxipol":
![1:72 TOPAS 2AP by Paweł Mroczkowski](http://www.vietnam.net.pl/TOPAS/hull02.jpg)
So that's what I have for now. I'd be grateful for advice and comments. Thanks for reading, and have a nice day
Paweł