Model Forum / General / Models / November 2009

I picked up a resin conversion set 1:35 Legend IDF Centurion 1982
Conversion Set (TAM/ACA kits) #1065 at a swap meet.  Its the first
time I am working on a resin kit and I am surprised at myself that its
not as formidable as I had feared.  It also helps that I have a garage
full of tools including a bench sander to take off resin material on a
fairly large parts' flat surface (exhaust mufflers) and to sand down
evenly the rear lower edge of the plastic Tamiya Centurion hull to
accommodate the sh'ot resin hull extension.  Its less risky to remove
plastic than to remove resin.  It also helps that the bargain resin
kit gave me the courage to saw away and file down parts that didn't
fit sungly or didn't seem to belong (as in large pour channel
structures.)   If I really screwed up I am not out by much.  To
prevent breaking resin parts with complex pour patterns (eg. the gun
barrel) I snipped off pour material  a decent distance away from the
resin part with a sharp electronics surface snip then saw and file
down to the finished dimensions.  Turned out well.

That confidence led to my first mistake when I clamped a storage box
on a vise and sawed away.  It cut through like cheese but the cut
wavered and cut into the box itself.  I promptly epoxied this and I
think I'll come up alright as a box is only a rectangular piece and no
details will be lost.  The epoxy repair is also a good test on whether
it would adhere the resin effectively.  It did.  This is the dollar
store expoxy that comes in a double barreled syringe and can dispense
an equal proportion of Part A and Part B to be stir-mixed before
application.  The cure time is quite fast (10 minutes) as the excess
glue had hardeded and formed a skin withing that time to make it
unuseable.  A buck is also cheap enough to buy a fresh batch to work
with.  I had lots of grief with old epoxy that I felt reluctant to use
on account of their old high price and inevitable wastage when mixing
a batch for a small glueing job.

Now the real question to this group.  The sh'ot has a number of add-on
wedge shaped parts around the mantlet on the turret and on the hull.
I presume these are space armor.  In the model they are solid wedges.
On the actual tank I presume they are just armor plate cut and welded
into "wedges."  Is this the correct intepretation?  How thick  is the
plate?  My interest is because I have two of the 1/25 "giant" Tamiya
Centurion kits I want to convert to the sh'ot.  The 1/35 resin kit
finally gave me the visual example to interpret the drawings and
pictures I have been collecting to do the conversion.  Thanks.