Still too windy to paint, plus I'm into a rather slow recovery from back surgery, so I thought I'd build an "easy" kit. Wrong, horrible kit, one of HB's early efforts, nothing fits without a battle, lots of poorly made parts, tracks too short, even a few nasty errors and omissions in the reproduction of the real thing. I had a Tamiya -A5 kit handy, picked up at a show for six pack money (cheap beer too) so I'm scavenging it for parts where I can, like the entire running gear (odd, the best fitting parts on the whole thing were the Tamiya swing arms into the HB hull. Go figure.) tools, hatch covers and smoke dischargers. Since the skirts were such a poor fit, I'm modeling it without, based on a model magazine article using the Meng kit, which was what I should have used to begin with since I started out to model a Turkish tank anyway. Lessons learned, for sure. Anyway, so far here it is. If it's green, it's Tamiya. White is plastic stock (or putty):
IMG_2861 by Russel Baer, on Flickr
IMG_2862 by Russel Baer, on Flickr
Funny stuff here, the Tamiya swing arms in the HB hull, a perfect fit:
IMG_2854 by Russel Baer, on Flickr
If you see this kit for sale anywhere, run away.
IMG_2851 by Russel Baer, on Flickr
Here be dragons!