T-90 after a lot of paint, and some rather expensive figures
Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2018 12:09 am
overview
Well, I finally gathered enough courage to show-off a build ("build" is kind of a big word for my small adjustments and adaptations..
)It started with a box-stock Heng-Long T-90, cast metal gearboxes and all. They went out first. The following things are added/changed:
-battery box cut length-wise so as to make 2200mah zippy's fit.
-steel gears, all bearing supported
-Permax 480 17000rpm long-can motors without iron mantle.
-foam sound isolation pads around the gearbox ( old mouse-pad cut to size)
-Wecohe reinforcement plate under the gearboxes
-metal sprocket and idler
-metal 'HQ' tracks (Mato, I believe)
-IBU2Ultimate with T-72 soundset
-Visaton frs5 5w 4ohm speaker with "boom-box" made from a hard plastic box I found somewhere in a dust-bin. Fits exactly between IBU en battery-compartment.
-Micro servo for barrel elevation
-BB-unit removed and a 9000mcd LED in the barrel. Blinding!
You'll only look in the barrel once, and will never try that again.. 
-Brass insert for exhaust
-Heng Long smoker reservoir with fan and volt-up board.
-SOL modern Russian tank crew
-Vallejo modern russian paint-set
-Big can of Khaki-drab, found at the local Praxis builders' market.
-big can of Terracotta for the tracks
-Humbrol track-colour as a wash
-A lot of painting.
-A LOT of dry brushing to fake extra highlights.
-It's hard to see, but I stuck a bit of chromatic reflecting tape to the aiming thingy. In daylight, it gives an exellent iridescent effect.
I went for a very subtle bit of weathering. No more than a bit of dusting on the skirts, and a bit of dry-brushing with gun-metal here&there.
Now let's see if Photobucket lets me show stuff.. here goes
A Heng Long smoker @ 8.6v works pretty well..
wideview
The exellent SOL figures. My painting-skills kinda lets them down. Age, bad eyesight.. all conspiring..
The business-end.
Close-up of the turret.
Again, the amazingly well working Hl-Smoker-With-Fan-And-Volt-up. has run for about 2 hours now, and still goes.
It's a small thing, But I'm exceptionally proud of the exhaust-insert. The way the smoke came out at first ( especially because it's quite a lot with the volt-up board connected to the resistor wire) was kind of barmy.. a steady stream of narrowly focussed smoke. Looked quite peculiar. I experimented with stuffing foam, gauze and whatnot, in it, but it remained odd. Then I stumbled upon an detailed picture of the T-90's exhaust, and it struck me: A bit of folding and soldering of an 5mm wide strip of brass could make a great exaust disperser.
And whaddaya know. It actually worked and the smoke looks pretty realistic to me.
Edit:
Well, finally succeeded to make a video that wòuldn’t immediately use-up the mb’s allowed. Hope the link works:
https://vimeo.com/275316548
(Watch fullscreen if possible)
Recent addition : metal & rubber bb suported wheels, metal swingarms.
Running is less ‘clattery’ with the rubber covered road wheels. Nice.
Tank weighs-in at approx. 4kg by now. That really helps stability while driving. I noticed there was much less hopping&bopping while driving.
Things left to do:
-trying the other ‘momentum’ settings on the IBU2U
-setting barrel motor and turret rotation sound level to 50. They’re still too loud for me.
-make canvas mantle for main gun. The plastic bit looks just wrong
-make rear lights
