Building a 1/35 Egyptian T-34-100 using the DML kit
and SK Conversion Set
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History:
 The Russian
firm SK brand offers a conversion set to turn either the Maquette, DML
or Italeri/Zvezda kits of the T-34-85 into an Egyptian T-34-100. You get
a resin turret and white metal parts in this set to do this.
The white metal parts will needed a little cleanup of mold seams, but
nothing that emery paper and a sharp X-Acto knife blade didn't eliminate.
I started with the DML Dragon kit of the T-34/85. It was built, according
to the plans, with all the parts for the hull except for the ice cleats.
No ice or snow in the desert... and hey, this was to be an Egyptian T-100
with a massive turret and a long 100mm gun.
The Conversion
I had to drill a hole in the front of the resin turret to insert the
white metal gun barrel into it. I also added a plastic shelf inside the
hollow molded turret to support the gun sight that pertrudes through the
hole in the roof. The two gun trunnion pistons, that are seen protruding
through the forward part of the turret roof, had to be shortened as they
were way too long. They are both white metal. I cut off the bottoms of
them at an angle, because they are supposed to be positioned leaning towards
the rear.
Kleenex tissue was stuffed around the base of the gun to simulate the
canvas dust cover that was present on the actual tank. I did not put the
long grab handles on the sides of the hull, but moved them up onto the
turret. This involved redoing the location holes that were molded into
the turret...as some were too close together and others too far apart
for the plastic grab handles to mate up. The turret top and bottom, and
the main gun were all glued together with 5-minute epoxy glue. I found
that the turret ring on the bottom of the turret was smaller than the
hole in the top of the hull. So, I centered the turret into the hole and
applied a very heavy coating of 5-minute epoxy all the way around propped
things up good till it dried. The gun barrel is heavy and wanted to tip
things over otherwise.
The vehicle was first sprayed overall with a dark brown basecoat of
acrylic paint. Then a overspray of desert yellow and a dark forest green
cammo was added. I bought a pen at the Michael's Craft store that held
dark brown paint in it and had a very fine point. This was used to outline
hatches etc.
The individual tracks were assembled into long and short runs. The
long run for the bottom and the shorter one for the top of the road wheels.
I then did a couple of curved assemblies of them forming these around
the drive wheels at each end. These were set aside and given a coat of
the dark brown basecoat too. I then dry brushed a lighter brown onto these
after the dark brown had dried. Again, I let things dry and then added
rust color to the treads. Silver Rub N Buff brand was rubbed onto the
high points and teeth of the tread links with my fingers. This treatment
was also given to the spare links on the glacis plate in front. I added
a retaining bar over the spare links from my spares box. All these paint
colors were acrylic.
As a final step, I dusted the tank with some sand colored pastel chalks
and used some black colored chalk for the muzzle brake and around the
exhausts. The tow cable was painted with rust and rubbed with a little
Rub N Buff to bring out the detail of it and then it was super-glued into
place. The blade on the two-handed saw, mounted on the left side, was
also treated with Rub-N-Buff.
After I got done I thought that the Rub N Buff looked a little TOO
BRIGHT... so I went over it a bit with some steel colored paint that was
the only enamel paint I used.
I got an image of an Egyptian battle flag off the internet and printed
it twice on my computer. I super-glued a needle onto the antenna base
that came in the kit and then used Elmer's white glue and some super-glue
to attach the two sides of this flag to the antenna. The flag was bent
between my fingers into a waving position. The clear headlight lens, provided
in DML's kit was added last, after painting the inside of the housing
with Rub N Buff and the lens glued in with Kristal Kleer glue.
The final step was adding three Arabic black numerals to the side of
the turret. These are Archer brand dry transfers.
Conclusion
I am very pleased with the final result and this kit is traveling to
the next contest I go to. I am also going to add a little sand to a wood
base to set it on.
I want to thank Vyacheslav Ryzhenkov, manager of TankMaster
for this conversion kit sample.
The site can be viewed in both the Russian and English language and
the firm ships world wide. Purchases of over $150.00 get free postage.
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