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A little bit more T55am2 action. Started to add the missing detail parts. Starting with the front extra armour. Fitted a working head light, headlight guards, anti splash board and the locks for the cleats on the front. Stripped the rest of the detail off the rear of the turret, looks like I have some scratch building to do! I've also repaired the rear external fuel tanks, barrel cleaning tube and AA machine gun (should save me a few quid with shapeways. Starting to take shape now.

Tom it's really looking excellent For reference have you seen the this interesting set of photos from the Littlefield collection?

http://svsm.org/gallery/T-55AM2/IMGP1082

Hey Carl, thank you! Both for the kind words and the excellent reference!

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tomhugill wrote:Hey Carl, thank you! Both for the kind words and the excellent reference!

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You're very welcome. I know you're a very talented builder so the praise is well deserved!

While looking up your particular tank the other day I came across this interesting set and they are incredibly detailed. I've been studying them and they really bring the tank to life

They will be fantastic for all the little details I hope to add

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Your T55 looks fantastic... what radio system do you use? And what color scheme do you plan?

Marc780 wrote:Your T55 looks fantastic... what radio system do you use? And what color scheme do you plan?

Hey Marc thanks, it uses a tk60 control board, turnigy 9xrpro radio. Colour scheme will probably be standard russian green unless I can find something more fun. Not sure weather to do it as a Russian, East German or polish yet.

Holy necro batman, but there is progress, stand by!

This builds been percolating for some time. I finally managed to get hold of a decent walkround of the real thing and realised there was a lot to put right with the dklm kit. I had looking on Ludwig's site at some of the pieces he's produced but never quite pulled the trigger, however with some other stuff being sent from Germany I decided to get it done.

When I received the parts some of the resin pieces had quality issues. To his absolute credit Christian replaced the parts free of charge, great customer service as always.

The resin bits did require a fair bit of clean up but nothing permagrit files couldn't make short work of. The fit to the turret was really good though.

Bits added were engine deck hatches, cheek armour, armoured hatches, high detail gunners hatch, rail loading chocks, various stowage bins, rear ir light, drivers hatch thickening.

I did make a rookie error on the drivers hatch thickening and put it on the wrong way, more on that later!

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The dklm upgrade seems to have been based on a t55 merida ams. The sapper version which has side skirts RTS and from fenders cut back to facilitate the mine plough. Most of the ones in private ownership seem to be this version, as well as a lot of the pictures you find.

For a long time I couldn't figure out where to go with this, the ams version was easiest but without the plough seemed a bit of the cop out.

My brain finally put together the thin foam material I bought for the chieftain barrel lagging with this. It not perfect but I was able to extend the skirt to make this into a proper gun tank. To do this I also had to extend the front fenders they have a curve in two dimensions so initially seems tricky to do but modelling clay to the rescue. I made an extension from strip styrene to make a base then put the clay onto this. Then the foam was attached.

I realised I'd fitted the hatch thickening the wrong way round, because I'd shaped the piece to fit the hatch I couldn't just turn it upside down, instead I cut a filet out, moved it to the other side and then used the clay to thin things out. Seems to have worked out ok!

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