Tamiya T-55 Enigma - Done & on the base 8/6

Good to see you back in action Marc.No sense forcing it when life catches up to you,it's a hobby,it should be relaxing,no pressure.looking forward to following your progress,

Hi Marc...     I knew ( or at least an over powering feeling ) you were gonna do this  :  )      .......

I could tell by the way you answered Manny's post about the ENIGMA...cool beans man !

tread

Off to a good start Marc! Nice to see you back building armor again...looks like this one will be worth following along with.

Hell yeah it is great having you back!!!  Good start... looking forward to follow your whole build.  I smell a lot of PE work coming up?  Never forget your Marder...

i will be following this build with some interest.....i never heard of the Enigma until i saw yamiyas ad in FSM. pretty interseting vehicle. im thinking about adding this kit to the stash. looking forward to seeing it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQKKj_qeOBQ

Thanks guys.  Good to be back.  I'll try to keep the updates regular .  Just gotta be careful "it" doesn't start to take over again,  sneaky little bugger "it" is.

Hey Marc: Good to see you got started on this one!    Can you please clarify "crapped up the welds"...?  I assume you just empasized what was there versus ADDed welding...correct?  I need to add some weld seams on my Tiger and I've found some techniques but I like that tool you have in that photo looks like a nice way to divot softened plastic.  Can you give me a bit more info?, thanks.

Take your time Marc...I know what you mean how this/these hobbies can be an obsession.

SMJ - CAN be an obsession? Apparently you haven't been to my house lately...

Wingy - looking forward to this one! I've got a couple of "regular" T-55s with aftermarket Enigma conversions waiting in the wings that could use some helpful tips.

Steve, in this case yes, by crappying up all I did was emphasized he weld that goes around the top of the turret.  The molded detail is noting more than some barely perceptible striations.   I know Russians "...can't take a dump without a plan...” but they sure made some nasty looking welds.  The seam from front to back was made with a thin strip glued with Testor's liquid glue, from the pink bottle, and allowed to soften then worked with the tools I made.  The tools BTW way were made after reading this feature on Armorama.  Some great info in there.

A hobby you say, I thought a lot of you people see it as a way of life.

The Wingman is back

Tony lee

wing_nut

The seam from front to back was made with a thin strip glued with Testor's liquid glue, from the pink bottle, and allowed to soften then worked with the tools I made.  

Marc: I did the exact same thing on my Tiger last night...decent results...thanks for the info and the link!

BTW:  You didn't give us much of a pre-build appetizer...you know, AM goodies, cool paint schemes, etc.  Do the instructions show anything more than sand color?

SMJmodeler

BTW:  You didn't give us much of a pre-build appetizer ...you know, AM goodies, cool paint schemes, etc.  Do the instructions show anything more than sand color?

Sorry my friend... out of practice. Color scheme is easy... only 1... Sand.   Markings even easier... none.  I have some MK track ordered but in the mean time I found a set of Friuls I had bought when I got me 2nd T-55A kit.  Looking forward to trying the MK's though. PMMS puts them at the top of the list for being best outline and the different pins used makes them “handed’ as they should be.  

My LHS did not have the ABER PE set I want and can't get since the distributors 'round here stopped carry ABER.  Is there a distribution issue that came up in my absence?  Weather will be somewhat light (I know... you must hate to hear that) since these guys did not get much use.

The armor up stuff in the kit is all too neat and even.  I think the bulk of the time will be sent on adding welds all over the place.  All of the armor blocks are molded on in sections that I am going to cut into individual pieces so they will hang better.  And it will make crapping up  the welds easier.  I will likely scratch new mounting brackets of the armor too.

SMJmodeler

 

wing_nut:

 

 

The seam from front to back was made with a thin strip glued with Testor's liquid glue, from the pink bottle, and allowed to soften then worked with the tools I made.  

 

 

 

Nice job on the crapping up! 

    I do that the very same way quite often.

Nice to see ya back at it You haven't lost your touch, great work so far.  This will be fun to watch come to life!

Thanks PW

Uh? DM?  The same as me?  or the bear

I am doing things out of order while I wait for the PE set that I ordered from japan to be shipped from Poland

The plan from the beginning was to cut the armor blocks apart to be able to CU the welds at each edge... really bad, the Iraqis were way worse than the Russians...12 of 'em on each block.  I didn't want the hollow side so I filled that piece with resin, glued on the back and cut them with a razor saw.  The kerf was the perfect size.

Added a few more bits and bobs to the turret.  Scartched off and rpelaced to support rods for the gun sand cover.  Added a couple of electrical conduits and a hand rail .  The one in the front is .08mm brass tube since it wall have wires coming out of the open end for the search light..  The other end was bent wih a piece of wire inside to keep it from creasing.

looks great so far Marc.Glad to see ya back.Are you gonna make some meetings too? May is two of a kind different scales.I have two Dragon Japanese type 2 amph. tanks done for that one in 1/72cd and 1 in 1/35th scale..

John

Thanks John.  Dunno about the meetings yet.. Baby steps. I may come to sell off some stuff as part of the scale back.

Marc:  Great idea with the resin and nice touches on the turret!...what are those little thing-a-ma-bobs on the canvas at the base of the barrel?...DANG they're small!...did you scratch those?!

Thanks Steve.  Those things are to help hold the shape of the canvas... I assume to keep it from getting caught up in the barrel when it's raised and lowered.  I did that with wire and lead flil.  But I need to get it even smaller.

Pic courtesy of Prime Portal

Nice work in the detail department Marc, this one's rolling along at a good clip!

Yay. Good seeing you back where you belong.

I can't recall the other T-55 you did, so this should be a treat.

Marc,like I said before I wouldn't mind first dibs lol

John

Thanks Bill, Eric.

Eric, here is a lnk to my Afghan T-55A and nope... it's not a what if

John, I'll try to get a list worked over the weekend and send it to ya.

Thanks Marc

John

I'm checkin this out. Texture and detail progress looking good. It's just a crazy looking tank

  Great going Marc!

Spent some time CU the welds on the added armor.  Got one side got into indy pieces and was experimenting with different methods of roughing up the edges and then coat with liquid glue to soften the look.  Using a medium metal file seemed to be the best way to go making the work go a little quicker.  But tedious none the less.  Lots of edges.  I’ll take a pic or 2 when I do the other side.

The edges of the washer that are welded to the front armor were done with a micro chisel then a 0.7mm resin nut was added.

I like it and i want to see more .

Question , i thought that guy in the 1st post would have been yelling "where's the women ?"..........(think recent events in Columbia )......