T-80U RUSSIAN MAIN BATTLE TANK Xact 1/35

It is Xact T-80U. I bought it several years ago, it’s really good looks. I was hoping to release various items to Xact, but I wonder they had exhausted with the first few items? Unfortunately, I have not seen signs of activity for the last few years.

When I start to assemble, the hardness of the plastic is my own preference.

It’s regrettable that a caterpillar was twisted in a box. I fixed it by pressing with a finger, but is this the limit? There are many tracks hidden by the side armor, so if a flat surface down, there is no problem. Even so, the Caterpillar is the life of a tank, I wanted Xact to be put more care. I also had a Trumpeter kit, I wonder I have both a belt and a link tracks in that kit, but there’s not such a nice story.

Very light thick wire rope of vinyl material is attached. It is a material I have never encountered before. It is a kind of material used for Christmas trees or Christmas leases. I stuck them with instant adhesive for the time being.

A fine marking mold can be seen on the reserve fuel tank.
(06-December-2017)

Behind the AFV body, various parts are pretty complicated and it is more difficult to assemble than it looks. It might have been better to install the wire rope a bit later. But at the very end, I can not install it messed up. Well, it may be fine if parts are misaligned but firmly glued.

The caterpillar has a moderate tension and was naturally flattened even though it did not adhere to the road wheels. This caterpillar was glued with instantaneous adhesive. I think that the adhesive for ordinary plastic could also be used. I definitely have a memory of the belt is connected with the plastic adhesive. I did not remember much though I worked a few days ago.

Unfortunately, it was impossible to move up and down as the barrel was fixed. Horizontal shooting position is a good-looking appearance. There is another option to put a plastic board at the root, and was a little more upswing is better, maybe.

I postponed the most unwilling work. It is a work to make a fender cover by creating delicate curves of parts of a single piece of brass plate. I softly bent it with a round metal bar on the eraser or bent it little by little pliers and it went well.

There is no simplicity like the KV tank or T-34 in the WWII, both turret and body have many parts. Especially, the turret is about half of all the assembling process and it is an unexpectedly hard task. The parts are small and hard, but it seems a good sense of precision.

I finally bought Fire HD 10 at the Amazon sale. I’m afraid that it seems to be all my life tied up with Amazon, such as video contents and music.
(10-Dec-2017)

The gun barrel is very long and it seems to be powerful anyhow, seems to be a strong tank. After completing the assembly, you can use the belt caterpillar as long as the mold is good, I think it’s no need to change to connected plastic tracks.

Basically, I am planning to paint camouflage after coating with a black and white gradation. There were a lot of complicated parts, so I blew black painting completely for prevention of missed spots.

It’s getting colder so I will hesitate to airbrush paint by opening the window.

It is in the middle of two color camouflage painting. The painting instruction is the color mixture of Tamiya acrylic paint. Because I’m Creos paint user, I choose Mr. Color #321 light brown and #303 Green FS34102. There is a gradation of light and shadow, it does not have to be chosen so nervously.

The decals included in the kit are quite simple and have only numbers. Since there is no particular explanation as to where the number to paste, let’s arrange it by myself referring to real AFV photographs.
(13-December-2017)

Fujimi’s new year lucky bag, a special IJN 10000 yen set arrived. Ya! lucky! I want to say so, but I am very sorry for the items, personally. Battleship Yamato’s pre-commissioning maintenance Diorama set, battleship Hiei, aircraft carrier Taiho, heavy cruiser Chokai only 4 boxes only. Hmmm, maybe I thought that I was mistakenly sent as a set of 5000 yen, so I checked the slip but it’s right. Apparently, Yamato Diorama is a problem that the price is 21,000 yen. Really? This kit includes Yamato at the time of commissioning and aircraft carrier Hosho. Even if diorama’s bonus parts are attached, 20,000 yen is too high. I did not have much experience of ship models, I was planning to make Yamato after raising my skill, but I guess that the kit will come in such an unexpected way. Should I buy an optional photo-etched parts and make it with equipment in 1939, or should I make a diorama with reference to kit box photo? I don’t know how many people are saying it is a lucky rare item, but I guess it was pressed as inventory disposal. If there are about 8 boxes of ordinary kits and one set of photo-etched parts, then a calendar. Is it too greedy? I think that there were many customers who anticipate about these contents from the past trends. It was grumbling on a Fujimi’s lucky bag that has bingo and trash. Pennywise and pound foolish.
(16-December-2017)

The T-80 tank was officially deployed in 1976. T-80U was developed in the 1980’s. The high-performance gas turbine engine is equipped. The first installed engine was output 1,000 hp, it was changed to a higher performance engine of 1,250 hp in the 1990s.

Although the engine power is higher, the fuel consumption of the gas turbine engine is large and the fuel consumption is very poor. The price of the fuel was also expensive. At that time the political turmoil caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union prevented the Russian troops from finely carrying out tank maintenance. The gas turbine engines would have been even more difficult due to their short lifespan.

It is equipped with night vision equipment and composite armor, and additionally, it corresponds to NBC battle (nuclear, biological weapons, chemical weapons). It is also operated in Pakistan, Cyprus, Egypt, and Yemen in addition to the country that was formerly the Soviet Union.

Does it express with a decal that the fact of a machine inside of the periscope is barely visible? Oh, it is a new approach, pretty interesting attempt. Because the decal sheet has no national mark, From the surplus decals in the past, perhaps Soviet troops’ guards? I attached the mark as the photo.

I’ve heard that the gas turbine engine can be downsized with the same power, I wonder it is one of the reasons of the very small turret. By the way, the crew is three inside. The AFV height is quite low and it is cool.

It is a very good mechanism that the hatch becomes movable without additional processing. However, since the root of the small hatch became cracked, I bonded it to the turret.

Bonding panels and equipment parts just below the hatch. It looks real when painted.

The tank really suits weathering. In my case, it is not so heavy weathering.

It is a spare fuel tank and a log for escape when stacking.

I tried focusing on the muzzle and took a picture. As expected the focus is blurred in the back. Tanks with too long barrels are hard to shoot. By the way, the main gun is 51 caliber 125 mm smoothbore and the number of rounds equipped with 45 shots.

Xact’s plastic tank model, for the first time making it, the mold is fine and it is a good impression. Moreover, the hardness of the plastic is exactly good and the parts fitting was very nice. I would definitely make it if various releases had been done. When checking the Xact manufacture it is almost not released except T-80. I thought it was a pretty skillful brand, but so sorry. It becomes a legendary kit.

As other impressions, Xact’s T-80 is much easier to build than a Skif kit. Oh, but Skif was required just a hard work to assemble the attached etched parts, it might be easy without it. There are lots of parts and hard, but pretty cool tank after completing. In short, every manufacturer T-80 series, the complex turret assembly will not change. I can choose various painting patterns, I want to try again if I have another opportunity.
(19-December-2017)