T-80U Russian Main Battle Tank Xact 1/35

It is a Xact T-80U. I bought it several years ago. It’s excellent looks. Unfortunately, I have not seen signs of activity for the last few years. I hoped to release various items to Xact, but I wonder if they had exhausted the first few items.

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

Regrettably, a caterpillar was twisted in a box. I fixed it by pressing with a finger, but is this the limit? The side armor hides many tracks, so if a flat surface is 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 if I have both a belt and link tracks in that kit, but there’s not such a nice story.

A 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 challenging to assemble than it looks. Well, it may be acceptable if parts are misaligned but firmly glued. It might have been better to install the wire rope a bit later. But at the very end, I could not install it messed up.

The Caterpillar has 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 have a memory of the belt being connected to the plastic adhesive. I did not remember much though I worked a few days ago.

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

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

There is no simplicity like the KV tank or T-34 in WWII. Both turret and body have many parts. Especially the turret is about half of the assembling process, and it is an unexpectedly complex task. The parts are small and complicated, but it seems to have 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 content and music.
(10-Dec-2017)

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

After coating it with a black and white gradation, I plan to paint camouflage. There were a lot of complicated parts, so I blew the black painting completely to prevent missed spots.

It’s getting colder, so I will not airbrush paint by opening the window.

It is in the middle of the two-color camouflage painting. The painting instruction is the color mixture of Tamiya acrylic paint. Because I’m a 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 pretty 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 arrived with a special IJN 10000 yen set. Ya! lucky! I want to say so, but I am very sorry for the items. There are only four boxes of Battleship Yamato’s pre-commissioning maintenance Diorama set, battleship Hiei, aircraft carrier Taiho, and heavy cruiser Chokai. Maybe I thought I was mistakenly sent as a set of 5000 yen, so I checked the slip, but it’s right. Yamato Diorama is a problem in that the price is 21,000 yen. Really? This kit includes Yamato at the time of commissioning and aircraft carrier Hosho. Even if the diorama’s bonus parts are attached, 20,000 yen is too high. I did not have much experience with ship models, I was planning to make Yamato after raising my skill, but I guess that the kit would come unexpectedly. Should I buy optional photo-etched parts and make them with equipment in 1939, or should I make a diorama regarding kit box photos? I don’t know how many people say it is a lucky rare item, but I guess it was pressed for inventory disposal. If there are about eight boxes of standard kits and one set of photo-etched parts, then a calendar. Is it too greedy? I think that many customers anticipate these contents from past trends. It was grumbling on a Fujimi’s lucky bag with bingo and trash. Pennywise and pound are foolish.
(16-December-2017)

The high-performance gas turbine engine is equipped. The T-80 tank was officially deployed in 1976. T-80U was developed in the 1980s. The first installed engine output was 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 inferior. The price of fuel was also high. 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.

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

The AFV height is relatively low, and it is fantastic. I’ve heard that the gas turbine engine can be downsized with the same power; I wonder if it is one of the reasons for the tiny turret. By the way, the crew is three inside.

It is a perfect mechanism that the hatch becomes movable without additional processing. However, since the small hatch’s roots cracked, I bonded it to the turret.

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

The tank 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 calibers 125 mm smoothbore, and the number of rounds is equipped with 45 shots.

Xact’s plastic tank model, for the first time making it, the mold is exemplary, and it is a good impression. Moreover, the hardness of the plastic is exactly good, and the parts fitting was very lovely. I would make it if various releases were 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 with other impressions, Xact’s T-80 is much easier to build than a Skif kit. But Skif required hard work to assemble the attached etched parts. It might be accessible without it. After completion, there are many parts and a complex but a pretty cool tank. In short, for every manufacturer T-80 series, the complex turret assembly will not change. I can choose various painting patterns and want to try again if I have another opportunity.
(19-December-2017)