What a great little kit. If this is
UM's first effort then I will definitely pick up their
T-70 and SU-76 kits. With one exception everything fit
like a glove, which is a bit bizarre really as you don't
see a lot of AFVs wearing gloves. Even the etched parts
fit as they should and I quite liked the fact that they
were thicker than most brass etched parts. They were a
bit harder to work with, especially getting the rounded
shape of the deck grill, but they were very robust and
stood up to my best accidental efforts to squash them.
The strengthening strips on the turret sides were too
prominent and didn't reach the top as they should. I sanded
them off and replaced them with strips of .005" sheet
after the turret roof was on. This also made it a lot
easier to fix the seam between the roof and sides.
The one exception to the excellent
fit was the tracks. They ended up being half a link too
big, even with a considerable amount (too much really)
of sag induced. Normally this wouldn't be much of a problem
as the last link could be cut down and hidden under a
fender, but there is far too much space between the tracks
and the fenders to get away with this on the BT-5. Add
to that the fact that the track links are quite large
and very simple and any attempts to shorten a link or
two will be very noticeable. After removing and regluing
the left hand tracks several times - and discovering new
and innovative swear words - I managed to hide the cut
down link under the rear road wheel. The right hand tracks
were much easier since I knew what to expect.
I figured that was the end of the story.
Oh well, they screwed up, it happens. However, I read
Matt Bittner's build
of this kit on Internet Modeler and he didn't seem to
have any problems at all with the tracks. In fact, he
didn't have to add excessive sag and they still fit! So
it would seem that somehow I have caused the problem,
although I can't for the life of me think how. There seems
to be little if any play in the set up of the wheels and
his don't seem to be spaced differently to mine so I have
no idea why his tracks fit and mine didn't.**
Oh well.
I tried something different when the
time came to paint. The few pictures I could find of camouflaged
BT tanks showed them to have hard edged colour demarcations.
I tried my usual thin strips of masking tape but there
were just too many lumps and bumps to mask over. I decided
to use Humbrol Maskol, a latex based liquid masking agent.
This worked very well, although I was still picking bits
of dried latex out of every nook and cranny days later
which was a bit of a pain. I sprayed a thinned down Dark
Earth colour over the lower hull and running gear and
the tracks were given washes of rust and black with the
hinges and teeth dry brushed in silver. Final weathering
was added with pastels.
Other than the tracks, this was a pretty standard and
very enjoyable build for me. Added MV lights and drilled
out guns and exhausts as usual. Kit decals were excellent,
although there should be a red square around the number
2 on the hull sides. This was printed far too large, so
I just cut out the numbers and used them by themselves.
**
Matt was kind enough to email me and let me know that
he did in fact have the same trouble with the tracks,
so this is obviously a fault with this kit and something
to keep in mind when building it.
Also note the exhausts should exit on the bottom of the
four pipes and not to the rear as I have modelled them.
Oops.
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