T-14 Arctic Camo Build

All sprues including the Voyager Model aftermarket. 

The fictitious arctic splinter camo I am going to apply.
I just searched for some schemes on Google pictures as well as some blueprints or alike of the T-14. Then using Gimp2, I manually drew the splinter camo on the blueprint and afterwards experimented with a color platte that I like. For now I am satisfied with the idea. 

Parts for the underside of the chassis as well as the individual track links. Each track piece consists of the tracks themselves and the tooth, so 2 x 2 x 95 pieces to clean up... 

All track pieces cleaned up and assembled. 

Cleaned up the running gear too. 

I added the spring arms as well as the idler and driving socket. I did this so I can assemble the tracks in the final shape but without having to glue them yet. Not sure if it was I wise idea to glue them on now, but we'll see. 

I assembled the tracks in smaller segments. I have to say, for me the fit was not that good. 

Since the resulting tracks are a bit too uneven/irregular for my taste, I tried straightening them out with the help of some chop sticks and clamps. 

Assembled the upper (longer) and lower (shorter) track part. 

I temporarily fixed the running gear the and straight track pieces using some tape so I can assemble the circular parts of the tracks. 

Tracks assembled but not fully connected at both ends so I can take it off for painting and weathering. 

Detailing the rear armor plate. A lot of bending PE parts into shape. Also some scratch-building: using wire for the lugs(?) for the towing cables and a supplied plastic rod for a tool. I sanded the tip to be sharp. The instructions call for it to be shorter than it is here but I used reference pictures to make a longer one.
Also put in thin plastic rods in the holes of the backplate to depict bolts. 

A comparison of the raw kit part (top), some processing to remove areas and add some details (middle) and finally, the added armor plate alongside all other details finished for this area (bottom).
Plastic sheets were added on the areas at the rear where you would normally secure the kit-based plastic armor plate so that the PE one would sit at a similar distance.
I bent the mud flaps a bit to make them more realistic.
The small circular things at the sides are rear lights. I removed the plastic dome on them taht depicted the glass so I can replace it later with something actually transparent (probably UV glue).

Also added some cast iron texture to the circular things using Tamiya white putty (not sure what those are)., 

The entrenching gear also received some texture based on the video guide I am following. In addition, I added small handles using brass wire which I saw in some reference pictures.
The gear is glued on the model now. 

The tank is taking more and more shape. 

Detailing the engine and fuel tank area at the rear. The kit supplies engine meshes, but Voyager Model's rendition is much more detailed.
The detailing entails first removal of the tank straps and replacing them with photo etch as well as scratch building some fuel lines on top of the right tank (as well as other areas, depicted in red). Some covers and plates made out of plastic in the kit are also replaced by PE. 

I do not know what this pipe thingy is in the back but it was complicated to assemble. What was also weird whas that for those "fins" attached to the pipe/tube, Voyager Model only supplied 5 of them although theytell you to place 8... (at least I could not find the remaining 3 anywhere on the sheets).

During the assembly I also noticed that I had to remove more kit parts after I already placed some PE. Sadly, even though I tried to be careful, I accidentally damaged an engine mesh and created a small yet noticeable hole..
I just opted to buy a separate mesh set from Voyager Model and replace it. Now it is fixed. 

The exhausts with PE covers instead of plastic parts. The additional thing on the right side only has a PE replacement for the cover, so I carefully excised the remaining part from the kit part to combine with the photoetch.

Afterwards I already added the attachment arms for the slat armor and made sure they are aligned (also with the other side). Voyager Model tells you to add some chains made out of PE to them, but I could not find any on multiple reference pictures (also not on other Russian tanks). Not sure what those are but I decided not to add them as they seem to not exist in reality. 

The T-14 seems to have some anti-slip texture applied to the sloped front of the vehicle. The video guide I am following added it as Takom did not mold it into the plastic. As such, I also wanted to apply it. 

I ordered the Hull Tex Air product from VMS for that to create a fine texture.

The first part is putting the cement on the areas where the texture should be and let it dry for an hour or so (or longer if desired). It should be dry.
Then, spraying the pigment mix from the bottle in an airbrush with as wide of a nozzle as possible. I made it work with 0.4 mm and 50 PSI of pressure, but I noticed that it was occasionally clogging.
After drying overnight I cleaned up excess texture and sanded it, then finally washed everything with soapy water. Initially I could feel some texture but after clean-up I felt less of it.
Not sure how it will look like later when painted, guess we'll see. 

Not much in the middle of the vehicle. Replaced some parts with PE and also added some more fuel lines with some scratch-build detail. The periscopes for driver and commander will be added later. 

 

We now turn our attention to the side skirts. The connectors of the rubber parts are quite nice actually, but I believed the Voyager model PEs could to better alongside some other additions. 

So, the first step is to remove the detail. I also cut away plastic to create the gaps between the individual rubber pieces more, as in the real vehicle. Also, I tried bending them to make them look a bit more uneven as I also so on reference pictures. 

To make the assembly of the PE parts easier and more standardized, I created this custom template from plastic sheets and a brass tube (I think ~ 0.4 mm give or take if I remember correctly). This turned out to work very well. 

Afterwards, it is gluing on 10 * 2 * 2 = 40 of those pieces... took actually not that much time. 

Then cutting away ca. 5 mm in length of brass tube and bending it, then inserting into the connector pieces. And also cleaning up the glue. 

The last part was making and adding smaller pins helding the larger ones in place. I used 0.1 mm wire for that and bended it into place. Surprisingly not that difficult all in all, but still took some time. 

 

Another area of modification were the front lights. This required replacing the hood with PE by cutting and sanding away some plastic. I could not get a super consistent result between the two plastic pieces, but luckily the PE kind of hides that. There is another pair of PE pieces for the actual LEDs that needs to be inserted into the recess visible here, but I will do that later after the main painting and weathering process. 

I was initially skeptical of the result of addition of the anti-slip texture. To verify, I added some diluted black paint to better see. It turned out that I did not add that much texture and whatever was added was removed during clean-up. 

In addition, watching some videos on the Armata (here from Terra Incognita/Combat Approved, found on YouTube), I saw that there were more areas where anti-slip was added, not only in the very front. As such, I decided to not only redo the anti-slip on the area I applied it at first, but also add it on other areas. 

For that I sprayed the pigment part of the Hull Tex for a much longer time than recommended (~ 20 - 30 sec vs. 2 - 3 as recommended by VMS if I remember correctly). I am of course not sure know whether this is too much, but after some sanding/clean-up it is still visible (and one can definitely feel it), so I have a better feeling now than before. 

Hull almost complete (only slat armor missing). 

I am now going to the turret. I started at the lower part, where the most significant detail are the launch tubes belonging to the Afghanit active protection system (APS). The detail is technically sufficient on them, or so I thought. 

I generally searched around for more pictures of the turret. Most of them will show the tubes as seen in the top picture, which are also the ones molded by Takom (and I guess Zvezda and Panda/Zimi too).
However, I came across a few pictures like the one below which, as I understood, are from a new wave of trials for the T-14. There, you can clearly see the launch tubes look different: it looks like the solid cap has been replaced by one with a hole in it.
I am not sure if the previous tubes are simply a different version of the APS or if they were non-functioning all along and the lower picture shows the actual, functioning Afghanit. Regardless of the true answer, I thought the "new" version looked more interesting, so I chose that. 

First, cutting off the caps carefully and sanding the resulting two pieces a bit. 

Marking areas to replicate screws or something. 

Also adding the hole in the middle. Not super consistent sadly. 

The final detail was me trying to replicate the APS grenade (or whatever that is). I first added some thing plastic wire and then added UV glue in two layers to get something round. 

Not my best and most consistent result, but confident that it will still look good in the end. 

After the underside I decided to focus my attention on the seemingly most difficult part - the main barrel.
Part of the detailing process of the metal barrell by Voyager is to fold all of those tiny straps for gun shrouds or alike. 

After a total of several houes of tedious assembly and careful gluing the barrell is basically finished. To have a strong bond, I attached it to the plastic part via two-component super glue. 

The gun mantlet consists of two (or more?) angled solid pieces. While Takom's rendition also consists of an upper and lower part, it is not to replicate the real thing as I saw on reference pictures. So, I had to clean up the seamline after gluing the pieces together and then come in and scratch in the real panelline. 

the gunner's sight is molded sufficiently, it is not that detailed. However, I found it sad that there is no option in the kit to have it opened, as I think the added effect of a bunch of different sights would look quite cool and futuristic. 

There are almost no reference pictures showing what the gunner's sight looks like close-up for some strange reason, the best is from a video I got on the Ukraine War Awareness YouTube channel at the top (link: Youtube Video, at around 2:59). Other references add some more detail. It is not much, but that also makes scratch-building it easier. 

At first I had to carefully cut out the sight's cover panels and the resulting hole and enlarge it a bit. After what you see here I went and sanded out a bit more of the opening. 

Then I assembled optics housing with the glass frame (only the frame is based on references, I have no idea how the real sight system looks like, perhaps it's still classified even). Next to it you can see the 3 cameras as part of the optics system, or so I think. Not sure what each of them represents and if there are more, but it is enough since it will not be that visible anyway. 

Taking a "small" detour from the turret to finish the hull. My soldering iron arrived so I can finally start to make the slat armor - you can see here all the individual pieces.
I actually tried it before from some spare PE parts with another iron, but that one was too low quality and could not hold the temperature to reliably solder. 

This is my first time soldering, especially PE, hence I needed quite a lot of time to figure out a strategy to get reasonable results. The first piece here does not look perfect, but I got better at it with the subsequent steps. 

Right side completed and started left side. The back piece (upper right) was much easier to to than the front piece, as you can see with some imperfect results. 

Finished the soldering. It was a big PITA to do it and took a whole weekend to accomplish, but in the end it doesn't look too bad - for my first attempt at least.
I still need to sand away all the excess solder, and also somehow remove the super sticky flux I used.
On the left front piece one part was not properly soldered, but I might just end up gluing that in place after cleaning-up..