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Milicast
1/76 Russian T-60 Light Tank |
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Reviewed By Glen Broman, #32541 |
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The Milicast kit comes in a clear blister pack on a sturdy cardboard mounting. My review kit came to me from the United Kingdom via Ohio through the US postal system, not always known for its kind and gentle treatment of mail. Despite the distance and potential for damage, all parts arrived intact. The kit is cleanly molded in fourteen resin parts. The kit is nicely molded with good detail throughout. The tracks and suspension are molded as single pieces for each side and have nice detail. The barrel is exceptionally well molded and very petite. It pays to be careful when handling, but I found out that it will take a certain amount of rugged handling, but my advice is not to push your luck. The instructions are a Xerox copied sheet which makes them a little hard to read. The instructions consist of a brief recommendation on how to remove the excess resin left and clean the parts. This is especially welcome for modelers building their first resin kit. There are five pictures of the completed model with arrows pointing out the parts location on the model. The pictures are dark and not very clear due to the reproduction process, but they are adequate for the job at hand. The first thing I did was to parts down with alcohol on a cotton Q-Tip to clean them up. I repeated that step before painting as well. I cleaned up the suspension parts while still on the molding frame; it makes the job much easier. There is a small quantity of resin flash on some of the parts, but it cleans up very easily and there is far less flash on this kit than on than on most of the other resin kits I've built. The biggest part of the clean up process before assembly started was the pouring plug on the bottom of the hull. I used a razor saw and had it cleanly off with just a few minutes work. I finished up with a little work with a 240 and 400 grit sanding block and I was ready to start assembling the kit. As a general note, I use an Aerosafety respirator when cutting and sanding resin. I started by fitting the suspension to the hull. There are positive locators on the hull for the tracks and they fit in between them. The fit was very good. The upper hull was next and again, all parts fit with just a minimal bit of cleaning up. The smaller parts are very delicate and are molded on a common resin sprue. Careful cutting of the parts is recommended. The two tow hooks proved to be just a bit too delicate for my ham fisted trimming, so I raided my spares box. The actual assembly of the kit was very easy, full marks to Milicast for that. I used extra thick superglue and accelerator throughout the building process. Pay attention to where the exhaust goes, if the pictures in the instructions are a bit dark, you should have no problem finding references, there were several books on my shelf that had clear pictures of the back deck. I glued the turret hatch in the open position and intend to find a nice Russian tank commander in the future to put there, for now, it's empty. Once I had the kit together and cleaned, I painted it dark green. There are no decals included in the kit, so I used some from my collection. A little bit of a wash and some light weathering to taste and I was done. I really enjoyed building this kit and it looks very nice when finished, especially when placed next to KV-I to give an idea if just how small it is. Milicast kits are available from the manufacturer at milicastmodels@hotmail.com. They have an excellent web page which lists all of their products at www.milicast.com. Thanks to Milicast for the review sample. |
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