Hobbyboss T-26 - Construction

Concetricity of the Drive wheels is a bit of a concern.. Used a few track links to ensure parallel and square to its axis.... The kit has individual spokes to bond between each half... I drilled out the spoke locations and replaced them with some 1mm styrene rod...  

Big injector pin marks on the rear of the sprockets... Not too sure if they're seen but filled with CA and CA powder... The styrene rods were passed thru the holes i drilled previously and bonded to the face side sprocket half... 

Using sfyrene rod is neater than what I could've done than with the box provided parts.. Although this couldve been 0.8 or 0.6mm diameter but i only had 1mm and wasn't too far off the kit parts... 

Return roller are shocking... What little keying is provided still requires you to ensure the pair is parallel to one another... Using a 1mm Drillbit helps maintain axial alignment... 

Roadwheels again are a bit poo... But with the use of a 1mm drill bit they were easily bonded axially aligned and parallel to each other as there's more purchase between each wheel as opposed to the return rollers... 

Gotta say this was a bit tedious... But they're together... Suspension rocker arms are made up 9 parts whoch is all pinned together... Its a very delicate and fragile assembly holding the tank up... 

Completed rocker assembly...21 parts in total for each of these... Bit over the top but doable...I'll bonded it all together when it's on a flat surface to maintain all the angles... It'd be quite tricky to pose this suspension given its fragility... 

Mock up of the drive train parts...Too bad I've got the drive wheels and idlers back to front... 

Going to take a bit of time to keep the suspension, sprockets and idlers all aligned... There's no real positive keying between hull and suspension rockers... In fact there's about 20 degrees of axial play when you plug them into the hull and no real way of holding perpendicular... 

Went back and checked the box this thing came from... I did order a tank didn't I...?? Tiny..! 

 

Hull coming together... Odd choice in the way hobbyboss opted to setup the upper most superstructure... All long edge mitres... Don't follow the instructions as you'll end up with gaps here and there... 

Bucket style hull with a few panels make up the entire upper and lower hull section... No problems putting this together and the fit is pretty good... 

Drilled thru the bottom of the hull and bonded an M5 nut internally with 5 minute epoxy so I can attach it to my paint stand... 

Super soft details on the turret... 

Turret together... Few flaws with the fit but we shall prevail... 

Turret has some really mushy and soft details on it... 

Texture added to the mantlet prior to closing the turret halves... 

Filing off the soft mushy detail...  

Created a groove along the top edge for welding detail... The joint between the side of the turret and its roof is a mitre so quite easy to produce this groove prior to bonding... 

The mushy detail removed... 

Ready for texturing... 

Light rolled steel texture applied to the turret and selected panels... 

Time to reinstate those mushy details... 

0.25mm styrene strips and rectangles made up to reinstate the lost details... Still gotta replace the rivet heads... And epoxy putty weld seam to the roof Junction... 

Tiny little welds... Not too good but tricky at this size... 

No joy keeping the bogeys loose... Really loose fit on all the running gear components... Had to bite the bullet as it would make fitting the tracks even more of a chore.... 

 

Time for the fun bit... Tracks... 

Hobbyboss wants you to pin these tracks together... Not bloody likely... I tried this out initially and it took 30mins to pin 4 links together and 8 more pins than required to do so using their useless supplied jig... The plastic is a little on the brittle side, so the connection between links ends up cracking... Furthermore the pins don't engage and need precise glueing to keep them in place and keep the track workable... Stoopid...! 

226 links are required for both runs of track... Each link has a pitch of about 2.5 to 3mm... There's 53 links set up in my PE Bender which is about 140mm long... 25.5mm per 10 links... 

First lot of tracks on... Being so small these didn't take long to tack up... About 2mins after hitting them with Mr Cement S they were move to the chassis and shaped around the sprocket, idler and return rollers...They couldve used a couple extra minutes of curing though... 

Another run of tracks on... There's no mention of which direction these tracks face in the instructions so you may wanna find a good reference pic... 

Well we have 1 side of tracks completed... Tedious and fragile but got there... 

And the second track is together... Pheeeww...! 

Teeeèeedious little links... Couldn't imagine trying to do it the way Hobbyboss wants you to do it...  

Side skirts on as well as the Air Intake Cover... 

One of these side skirts was buckled outta the box... Minor straightening required.... Be mindful though as the PE Fender braces need to match the height between the top of the hull and the height of the side skirts in future steps... 

Bit of PE to the Air intakes...  

Starting to look like something now... 

The drivers hatch is a bit funny... No real position is given other than the hinges... If you line the hinges up then the hatch doesn't sit terribly well...  

Bit of PE to the exhaust... Its a little on the thicker side but I much prefer that than super fine and easily damaged whilst working away... Plus it's still in scale... 

Soldering the fenders braces together... Unfortunately the joint is visible so opted for solder so i could blend the joint in together... 

PE Fender braces going on... Note these sit vertically and not perpendicular to the side skirts... 

PE supplied in the kit is quite good... A little stiff in places but it has been easy to work with and accurate so far... 

Bit of Brass Bling... 

Getting there... Little bit of PE and then the small pieces will finish off the hull... 

Toolboxes on...What was a little tricky is the spare roadwheel and strapping the bugger down with an annealed PE part...  

Last of the small parts...The light on the hull is held by 2 small PE Angle brackets... Surprisingly this wasn't too difficult but hold your tongue right and you'll get there... 

Replaced the kit supplied handles with copper...This is a little simplified but they won't break... 

That's the hull done...! Gotta say I wasn't expecting this kit to look so good... 

There an issue with the one and only large piece of PE to the turret... It's the wrong shape... This peice sits under the mantlet for what i can only guess is additional chin armour... Thing is the turret holds its conical shape in this area so the PE shouldn't be a simple long parallel strip, instead should be curved top and bottom... Doesn't sit right at all so will make up this detail with paper thin styrene...