Modellino SU-76i Conversion Kit Review & Build

[phyrephish]

Modellino SU-76i Conversion Kit Review & Build

It's April and in attempt to keep on schedule my SU-76i build needs to get underway so here goes. I assume that like most R/C tankers I own far too many German tanks. When it comes to a bit of IR battling it is usually 2 Panzers going against each other. The more Allied tanks out there the better. Despite being built on captured Panzer III chassis (and despite many being captured back again by the Germans) the SU-76i is a distinctive Soviet creation. Hence, the SU-76i would make a nice adversary for mid Stugs, Panzer IIIs & IVs.





Peter Svoboda aka Modellino produces a SU-76i conversion kit for the Heng Long Panzer III.
It can be bought directly from:
http://www.panzerparts.com/product_info ... -1-16.html
for 90 Euro plus postage. Postage to Australia for my kit was only $10 Euro and only took about a week to arrive.



The kit cotains resin and zinc alloy parts along with an aluminium gun tube. There are no instructions as such for assembly just a few pictures of the completed model and how to use the Heng Long elevation motor to elevate the SU-76i gun. Modellino also has available a version of the SU-76i with the Panzer III cuppola. There are a few other builds on the net notably by Marco on mmodell:
http://www.mmodell.de/forum/index.php?p ... hreadID=17
and Ex Pat Tanker:
http://dettankcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=491.0

Another factor going for a SU-76i build is that there are lots of good aftermarket Panzer III parts in particular Asiatam's metal Pz III lower hull. Combined with metal wheels this hull is one of my faves. I plan to use one of these hulls along with the cheapest Pz III top can find.

First Impressions:

My first impressions of the kit are quite favourable. The resin parts are of good quality on par with JUWA kits. Similarly, the metal parts are good on par (if not slightly better than) Imperial Modellbau. The big plus it seems with Modellino's kits is that a good deal of effort has been made to make parts operational. Pivot points for the main gun are included and the hinges for the hatches are meant to work Another big plus is the inclusion of a hollow metal main gun making things very easy for the inclusion of a muzzle flash. Whilst on the main gun, although the kit is designed to allow gun elevation there is no design for transverse movement. Ex Pat Tanker's build shows a modification to allow transverse movement of the gun. However, I'm not sure that I'll go down the traverse path. I prefer instead to have the main gun recoil and will probably settle for just elevation & recoil.

[phyrephish]

First up a HL Panzer III



All that will be used from this model is the top deck. I stupidly got this one off eBay before I found out that Asiatam do sell the top hulls only for like 6 Euro..... DOH!



Not even that much of the top deck is needed either...



That's the total amount of HL for this build. Everything else is aftermarket.

[phyrephish]

Ok the first challenge of the conversion is the front armour for the driver. The original HL drivers visor is too big and hence using the supplied replacement is necessary. No idea why it is supplied in two parts



The next challenge is mounting the gun. Fortunately, parts are supplied to allow the gun to elevate, the barrel is hollow and the gun mount is partly drilled out. It was a fairly easy job to drill through the rest of the gun block (8mm from the front & 9 mm from the back)



The bolt detail on the gun block had a fair number of flaws and hence were removed and replaced with brass ones.

The supplied instructions show how to mount the gun assembly. However, if mounted as shown the gun would be fixed and unable to be adjusted once the castle was secured. Thus, a removable gun mount was made. The gun mount assembly (shown above) screws in from below.

[phyrephish]

quick test fit and test to make sure that nothing is getting caught.



The front two brass conical rivets are only push-fit allowing them to be removed so that the gun shield can go into place.



Initially it was planned to have the castle removeable. However, the cast was just not an accurate enough fit. Still rather than just gluing it onto the hull some micro screws were added at each corner. The resin used for the castle is not only abrasive but also heavy so the screws will certainly help keep everything attached. To make sure there was plenty of material for the screws to go into some epoxy steel (from Bunnings) was added to each corner.



As you can see below the fit of the castle is quite good. There is a feature on the mould to replicate the 'flashing' circled in the pic below. However, it only replicates the top half. I decided that it would be easier to sand off this feature and make some new flashing from some 6mm wide brass strip.

[phyrephish]

Fill Then Fill Some More Then Fill Again...
One of the dreded things I've found with all resin conversion kits is that the large parts like the citadels don't align 100% where they are supposed to. As a result a lot of filling and sanding needs to be done. The Su-76i is no exception. I got one side to line up pretty good but the opposite side and the rear of the citadel both needed a bit if work. In both cases the resin part was depressed and needed filling. I used Milliput and Aves Sculpt first up as there was quite a bit of fill in places. To get the fill 'level' I rolled some brass tube along the top and bottom edges of the citadel forcing the putty to fill the depressions. Once the bulk fill was done the final fill was done with basic Tamiya Polyester Putty. This putty shrinks a huge amount when dry so it is necessary to over fill.

[phyrephish]

The Hatches
The kit comes with all metal hatches which for the majority are meant to be made functional. However, the alloy used is quite soft. While drilling out the hinges a number either broke or the metal became too thin. Of the 8 hinges that are used on the roof of the citadel 6 needed to be remade or repaired with brass. I'd suggest removing them all and making a complete set of new ones from brass. 0.8 mm brass rivets were used to help secure the hinges to the superstructure. Grab handles for the hatches were made from 0.8 mm diametre brass rod. As usual there are a number of conflicting pics as to the number of handles on the hatches. It is not just the number of handles that is variable but quite a few other features thatr appear on some Su-76i's and not others. Clearly, the Su-76i is a 'mix mash' and hence this model will not be of any specific unit but rather one upon which I will use some 'artistic licence'. (ie. put on all the bits that I think are cool).

[phyrephish]

The Build Continues.......

Pistol Port
Well I'm calling it a pistol port but I'm sure if I was in there I'd be sticking a sub-machine gun out the port.





Lower Hull Modifications

For this project I am using the Asiatam Pz III metal hull with metal wheelsets. There are just a few cosmetic things that need doing on the Asiatam hull.

1. Install Escape Hatches.

Most of the SU-76i pics I've seen show escape hatches on the lower hull. However, the Asiatam hull has these hatches missing. Commercially available hatches don't exist so I made up some resin casts from a Heng Long hull. If you are after such hatches they will soon be available for purchase at rctanksaustralia online shop.



One of the few things I'm not all that keen on is the metal front of the Asiatam hull. Below you can see that I've glued on a thin styrene sheet over the front. To do this I removed the screws that hold the front lip and super-epoxyied the lip back in place. Also constructed is a new bracket for the spare track links.

[phyrephish]

As requested here is some detail on the frontal armour.

The front spare track bracket is made from a 3mm wide strip of brass which is then 'laminated' with styrene strip. To make this bracket with brass alone the brass needs to be at least 0.8 mm thick but I didn't have any. I did have and can easily get thin 3mm brass strip from http://www.gwydirvalleymodels.com Actually I bought a heap of strip when they were here at the Brisbane Train Show earlier this month. So I made the bracket with the thin brass and then made it the correct thickness by laminating on a strip of styrene as shown below.



Note: In the pic above I have not yet added the two little bolts at the ends of the bracket. Using thin brass turned out to be fortuitous as the ends of the bracket can now be 'clamped' into place with the transmission covers.


The other issue with the frontal armour are the screws that hold what I'll call 'the lip' in place. If you remove the yucky plactic spare track it will expose these two screws. All I do is make up some super strong expoy (the 24 hour type) and really apply it onto and around the lip. When the epoxy is set I then remove the screws. Also the square holes in the front used for the attachment of the yucky plastic track are filled with putty.



Leaving the nuts in place means that in case your expoy fails you can replace the supplied screws with countersunk ones or even use grub screws (inserted from the INSIDE of the chassis).

[phyrephish]

End of May Update

Here is a short update on the progress so far.
The exhausts were drilled out so that smoke will now exist them correctly. The exhaust 'shield' was made to look a bit 'beaten up' by using a hobby knife to make a few small cuts (as shown) before applying a bit of heat from a heatgun. The original riviets and detail on the back armour plate were removed and new brass conical rivets are to be used. However, I have run out and will need to order some more.

I also plan to install a Schumo crank-start cover but I can't seem to find where I have put it and may need to order another of those as well



The protective screen underneath is made from flyscreen and styrene. I actually prefer the flyscreen to the commercial PE screen as the flyscreen bends and gives a better 'used' look.

[phyrephish]

Some pics of the servo setup for elevation and recoil of the cannon







Finally a little video of it all in action...