T-55

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I built the kit insub-assemblies prior to painting: the turret, the upper hull, andthe lower hull with wheels and tracks. Normally I wouldcompletely assemble the model before painting (except for thewheels and tracks), but because of the overhanging fenders, Ithought it would be easiest to build it this way instead. I knowthat many people completely build the wheels and tracks prior topainting, but I normally paint the tracks separate prior toassembly, which is what I also did here. Here was my assemblysequence: 1) turret, 2) upper hull, 3) lower hull, 4) wheels, 5)paint everything, 6) tracks (assemble, paint, weather etc.), 7)attach upper and lower hulls and clean up attachment points.

The turret was very easy and quickto assemble. The front IR floodlight mounting plate neededconsiderable cleanup. The small hatch cover (part #40) is shownin the instructions to be attached to the middle of the turretroof, but my reference drawings show it on the turret rear, whereI put it. The hand holds along the turret sides are to be made bythe modeler by bending wire into shape. I used copper wire,because it is soft enough to bend into smooth curves, yet alsostiff enough to retain its shape. Solder is too soft, and brassis too stiff. The open commander's hatch has some grab handlesand periscope details which I added on my own. There is nointerior detail included with the kit. The tip of the gun barrelneeds a little reshaping to match the adjacent scan. The barrelalso required quite a bit of effort to sand it into a round crosssection. Luckily, ARMO has just released a turned aluminum 100mmgun barrel, so I will use those replacement barrels for futureT-55's.

The upper hull was also very easyto build. The only problem I had was with the rear fender pieces.They were a little crude, and needed to be sanded and shaped alittle better. They also are not long enough to provide enoughoverhang for the attachment of the unditching log, which shouldbe on the rear of the tank. The front splash-guard needed to bethinned a bit with sandpaper. The modeler is required tofabricate the protective frame around the headlights, which was alittle complicated. I also added some plumbing to the spare fuelcells on the right fender. The two crescent-shaped parts whichfit below the turret need to have their bottoms sanded down alittle bit so that they don't sit up too high. Also, the locationmarks on the hull do not match what I have seen in my references.The drawings I have show these parts to be exactly opposite eachother, not offset like the instructions show. So I had to cut asmall notch in one of the fender braces, and glued the piecesinto the positions shown on the adjacent scan.

The lower hull requiredmuch filing and sanding, but no filler. Test fit ... test fit ...and test fit again. Yes, it takes time, but the end result isthat everything fit very well, once it was all carved down intoshape. Building the wheels was a little more difficult. The firststep was shaping all of the wheels. After carving off with aknife most of the heavy flash around each wheel, I had to sandthem into shape. For the inside wheels, the ones with the holeall the way through their centers, I was able to attach them tothe end of the motordrill, and turned them against a flat pieceof sandpaper on a block of wood. This sped up the sandingconsiderably, but I was unable to do the same for the outsidewheels, and had to sand them all by hand.

I opened up the largelightening holes between the spokes, using a router on mymotordrill. I then started to also open up the smaller holes onthe tops of the spokes, but then I saw some photographs showingthese holes to be very small. After further research, I foundother photos of wheels with larger holes, about the size whichcomes molded onto the kit parts, so there were apparently acouple of versions of this wheel style. Don't open up the holesany larger, because they are just on the edge of being too largeas is.

I then sanded the backsides of the wheels smooth to have a good mating surface betweenthe inner and outer wheels. I also tried to sand the rear edges,to make all the wheels an even thickness, but that wasn'tpossible. It's not too important, since once the tracks areattached, you can't see the wheels clearly enough to judge theirthickness. I glued each pair of wheels together, not bothering toline up the center holes, because that would be difficult.Rather, I got each pair of wheels to match each other indiameter, and then carved open the holes large enough toaccomodate the axles with a little wiggle room for adjustingwheel location.

Attaching the wheels to the hullwas also a little tricky. The primary consideration is that youmust get the centerlines of each pair of wheels in alignment withthe centerline on the idler and sprocket wheels, so that thetrack guide teeth don't get hung up (see adjacent scan). I firstattached the sprocket and idler axles to the hull, and thenattached the wheels onto their respective axles, and ensured thatthey were in alignment. Then I started work on the road wheels:beginning with the four corner wheels, so that the tank sits flaton the ground. Begin with the wheel nearest the rear sprocketwheel, keeping in mind that it should be VERY close to thesprocket - almost so that the sprocket is overlapping the outsideof the tire, but not quite. On the left side of the tank, I hadto relocate the axle about 1mm forward to clear the sprocketwheel (a better alternative would have been to move the sprocketwheel back 1mm). Keep in mind that the wheels are on individualtorsion bars, and do not share axles with the same wheel on theopposite side of the tank, so that the wheels on the right sideof the tank should be about 1mm further forward than the leftwheels.

After the rear cornerwheels are firmly set, attach the front corner wheels, again, sothat the vehicle sits flat, and with their center grooves alignedwith the rear wheels. After all four corner wheels are dry, goback and attach the middle wheels one at a time, letting them dryin position, sitting flat on the table. I did not glue the axlesto the hull, and then the wheels to the axles. Instead, I gluedthe wheels to the axles first. Open the holes in the hull verywide, and shape the nubs on the backs of the axles very small,which will allow a lot of room for movement while attaching themto the hull. This is critical, because you will need a lot ofworking room to get the wheels to fit without touching eachother. This makes for weak hull attachments, so I used superglue(after dryfitting!) to make sure that the wheels were firmly set.On my kit, the left side wheels are almost touching each other,and I think this is because the wheels are just a LITTLE bit toolarge in diameter. According to one of the sources I have, thewheels are about 0.5mm too large each, which results in adjacentwheels being 1mm closer to each other than they should be. Youcan sand the wheels down some more, but then you'll lose thedistinction between wheel rim and tire. Or you can do what I did,and just play a little bit with the location of each axle withinthe locating holes on the hull. Remember that all this while, youneed to make sure that each wheel sits out just as far as itsneighbor, so that both the center groove (for the track guideteeth) as well as the outer wheel faces are in alignment.

The wheels were by far the most difficultpart of the model, and once they were complete, the rest of themodel went very smooth. The tracks, however EASY they were toassemble, were very tedious. I needed fourteen individual linkson each side of the tank, but you may need one more or less,depending on how much track sag you want. After cutting them offthe sprue (with many extra - because I didn't know how many Iwould need), I spent a long time cleaning up each link withsandpaper (I got blisters on my fingers!!). This is verytime-consuming, but necessary. The individual links are a littlethicker than the lengths of track, so they need to be thinned abit with sandpaper. I improved the track lengths by doing twothings to them: first, using my motortool, I cut notches into thetrack edges between individual links (see scan). Second, on thelower track segments, and the short lengths, I scratched somelink detail onto the inner surfaces to differentiate betweenindividual links. It looks a little crude at first, but afterweathering, it's not too bad. After cleaning up all the trackparts, it was actually quite simple attaching them to the wheels.It takes awhile, with all the dry-fitting of each individuallink, but there were no fit problems: no "half-a-linkshort" problems here. There are no holes in the track linksfor the sprockets, so you need to clip off the sprocket teethwhere the tracks wrap around the sprocket wheels. Regarding tracksag: most of the photos I have seen show the top track run to beresting on the middle three wheels, and angling up to the idlerand sprocket wheels without touching the tops of the front andrear-most road wheels.

The front bow where theupper and lower hulls meet did not close cleanly. Some filler isneeded here to smooth off the lower front glacis plate. Also, Iextended the raised detail (mine plow attachments) to the edge ofthe upper glacis plate using styrene. If I had thought of itearlier, I should have added the very large bolts to these piecesof metal.

And that's it. Done. Thereare a few minor details I still need to complete, such as addingthe tow cables and fuel drums. The tow cable end loops areincluded in plastic, and clean up very well. The modeler is todrill a hole in the end, and attach to fabricated tow cable(twisted fine-gauge solder works very well). The two large fueldrums which ride on the brackets on the rear hull need work toclean them up before attaching them. I will likely do that later.

I painted the model inAeroMaster acrylic paints. The markings in the kit are very wellprinted, and from prior experience, are very good decals. But Iwanted to take this opportunity to review a second product at thesame time, so I chose to use some decalsfrom YnoT instead. The markings I used represent a Polish T-55 of anunknown unit in the mid-1970's. But I think I may have made amistake in my choice of markings. After completing the model,I've seen that Polish-built T-55's had a storage box on the leftfront face of the turret, with the vehicle number on top of thebox. I didn't take the time to replicate this box, and put thenumber right on the turret face, but I think that perhaps ALLPolish tanks had this box, so my markings may therefore be wrong.Additionally, I don't know if Polish T-55's had the snorkelstowed on the right side of the turret, so again, the inclusionof this part may be incorrect for a Polish tank. Regarding thescale of the kit, according to my references, it as exactly1/72nd.

The tank commander is aresin figure from Milicast, and is not included with the kit.

In conclusion, I have readsome bad press about this kit, and frankly, I don't understandthe criticism. Yes, it takes a bit of effort to build, but so doall limited-run kits. And compared to other companies' kits, thisone is very reasonably priced. I really enjoyed building it; itreally makes me feel like I've accomplished something. I canhighly recommend this kit to anyone willing to put a little bitof extra time and effort into building it.

A suggestion to ACE: Ithink that a small fret of photoetched parts would have been verybeneficial for this kit. Some specific parts which would havebeen better made in brass are: the splash guard on the fronthull, the IR searchlight mounting plate, the headlight guard,toolbox handles, mounting brackets, other searchlight details, aswell as some other smaller details. This should be considered forfuture versions of this tank.

Thank You ACE Models and Saul Garcia for providing the review kit.

References : Bronekollektsiya #3.2000, Soviet Armour,1945-1995 , by M. Baryatinski (in Russian),Tornado Armour Book: T-54/T-55 Part 1 (in Russian), Tornado Armour Book: T-54/T-55Part 2 (in Russian), TheGreenhill Armoured Fighting Vehicles Data Book ,by Ian Hogg, The Illustrated Directory ofTanks of the World , by David Miller, and Jane'sTanks and Combat Vehicles Recognition Guide ,by Chistopher Foss.