Tamiya T62. Yep, that one.
Wow, how to start?
I finished assembly of the Leo last night and was still awake and in the model room. That's a problem. So I went digging through the stash, and pulled out all the T62 stuff I had been accumulating since the Trump T62 kits came out. Why? Well, all the AM stuff for the Tamiya kits got real cheap then, and some of the AM stuff is pretty good. So what I have here is almost two whole T62 kits, a large Verlinden set which includes a drop-in engine and turret, both resin, lots of etch and some more resin bits. I also have at least two Eduard etch sets, one really old and one pretty new, several gun tubes from different makers and a resin mantlet cover. I think I have about $30 worth of stuff here, by weight about the same price as a T-bone.
So since the worst and most visibly bad part of the Tamiya kit is probably the turret, I thought I'd see how the kit and resin turrets compared. Soo-prize, soo-prize, they're virtually the same. Just grand. Also noted was the serious shrinkage at the base of the resin turret, making it concave, with the "ring" about 3mm smaller in diameter than the hole in the hull top. Hmmmm.......
In a frenzy (it's getting late now) I clip off the edges of one of the kit turret lower halves and slide it onto the base of the resin turret, and by gosh if it doesn't go right on, giving me a good flat surface, the correct ring to match to the hull, and most assuredly best, raising the resin turret by about 1.5mm, making it look more like it should. So after about 20 minutes with some Aves 2-part putty, here I am:
Still to do is contour the bottom of the added putty to look like the bottom of the turret and match textures, but this might look a whole lot better.
Scuze me while I trim on this sow's ear over here.....