[Amccombs3]

The selection of this model was by popular acclaim that my next armor model should be selected from a nation other than German, Polish, or Russian. So, to begin, my initial impressions of the kit.

The model is printed on an unusual size of paper, 243mm x 345mm. There are two sheets before cutting, folded and stapled to make 6 printed and 2 unprinted pages. The outer sheet is of light, glossy paper printed on both sides. It comprises a front cover with suitably dramatic art; an inside front cover with most of the assembly diagrams; an inside back cover with the formers, tracks, some suspension parts, and the “szablony” (full size patterns for parts to be made of wire); and the back cover with the text instructions in Polish, four color photos of a completed example of the actual model, and a few more diagrams which look like they are probably wheel and/or suspension assemblies. The inner sheet is of fairly light card stock (bristol), is printed on one side only, and comprises two sheets with most of the parts. The dominant color is sand, a greenish yellow ocher with olive green “airbrushed” camo. Other colors include black (wheels), rust red (a cylinder at the right rear which is probably a muffler), a bit of gray and brown for the shovel, and a quite startling blue for the headlight lenses. Print quality and color registration is excellent throughout. However, the ocher is a little more yellow on one page, so the turret is not going to precisely match the hull. It was all one sheet when printed, so I can’t explain that.

I’ve started the prep work. I scanned all pages, just in case, and I printed a copy of the back cover since the text instructions are destroyed as soon as work begins on the formers. I glued most of the formers to a sheet of 1 mm card using spray adhesive. I prefer to give the spray adhesive some time to dry, so now I’m starting to score and cut out the first few numbered parts, starting with part 1. I’ll need to go shopping for a paint for edge coloring, as my closest existing match is much too golden.

It’s quite a small tank with four road wheels and three return rollers per side, band tracks, and not a lot of external details beyond the strange suspension. I have hopes that this project should move along more quickly than my last one.