As I have cleaned up my workbench after the last model show a bit, I have picked up few new projects as usual. One of these is Object 279, just because I haven’t built a lot of Russian modern armor lately…

Originally, when release of the model of this vehicle was announced by 3 different model companies, my first reaction was – Why? I had no clue what this machine is (well, I still don’t) and didn’t consider this vehicle interesting in any particular way.

Then I saw very original diorama using this kit (see my blog’s facebook page for pictures) and got hooked. This was underlined by quite nice model in the Abrams squad magazine.

So I picked up Panda’s kit of this vehicle as it was at the time the only of the three they had in the store. I think it is best of the three, but this is just my opinion.

The kit is very nice, not a lot of parts and it was actually my first kit from Panda models (well they don’t have that many of them so far). Details are nice, fit of the parts is mostly very good. I like the fact that the the join of the upper and lower hull is not along the edge of the hull, but at slightly lower, beneath the horizontal edge, so that it is hidden and you don’t need to clean the join line.

There is bit of flesh on the smaller parts and their level of detail could be better – I hope Panda’s guys will work on this more on any future kits. There are photoetch parts provided in the kit and they fit perfectly. Location pins and holes are not fitting well, I had to either drill through the locating holes or cut off the pins to make life easier. There are also some sink marks on visible places, that Panda should avoid in the future (such as on the periscope blocks – these are quite visible, so have to cleaned).

Tracks are going to be real fun with this as there are 4 of them, I guess it will take few evenings.

That’s it for now. Construction is almost done and I will be priming the model shortly.

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