OKB Grigorov

Soviet Light Tank T-50 Factory No.174 Leningrad

This is a review of OKB-Grigorov's 'Soviet Light Tank T-50 Factory No.174 Leningrad'. The model comes in the usual white cardboard box with a photo of the tank on the lid...

Inside the box there is: the instruction sheet, two zip-loc bags (one with the tracks and turned barrel and one with the various resin parts required for the model), the hull, the turret and two more zip-loc bags with both the photo-etch frets. The quality of the castings is excellent and they are virtually flash free, the photo-etch is well done and very fine.

The Instruction Sheet is nicely laid out and consists of CAD drawings that show the sequence of the build, these are clear and unambiguous ...

The Hull is extremely well cast with only a small line of flash from the casting block, which has been already removed...

The Turret is also extremely well cast and the only flash to remove is on the bottom of the turret plug...

The photo-etch is on two frets, one is very fine brass and has all the detail parts for the hull and turret, the other is of a copper compound and has the sprocket teeth and a few detail parts. Both frets are well laid out and are extremely well detailed...

The tracks are typical of the excellent resin tracks that OKB-Grigorov are producing at the moment; they are extremely well detailed and have hollow guide horns. This is amazing considering the small size of the tracks...

The barrel is a fine piece of turned metal, well detailed and nicely finished...

The running gear makes up the bulk of the resin parts and are very detailed. They are sharply cast and are simply some of the best road wheels and sprockets I have seen, certainly they are better than many injection moulded offerings...

Road-wheels...

Return rollers...

The Idlers...

The Sprockets...

The Axles...

Some of the very fine detail found on this model...

The Axle stops...

The instruction sheet shows that the photo-etch brackets fit over the little nuts moulded on the top of the stops...
This will require some skill to do and will probably require a good deal of patience...

The Sprocket and idler hubs...

These are the remaining blocks with all the sundry detail parts for the model, they are extremely well cast and look easy to remove...

The Tool Box is a finely detailed little piece and has detail all around...

The Mantlet has some nice detailing, including the sight and machine gun port...

Finally the lights and the base for the jack, again nicely detailed parts...

Well that is the model in all its component parts, having handled all these parts I can say, unreservedly, that they are some of the best castings I have handled. (I have done a lot of resin modelling so this is not hyperbole.) They look and have the feeling of quality, lots of little detail parts and fine photo-etch. This is not a model to be tackled by anyone who has little experience of this medium, but it will reward careful building and a really nice little model can be produced from the contents of the box. I have no qualms in recommending this model to you all.

Reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-50_tank

OKB-Grigorov website

OKB-Grigorov Facebook page

Finally a few photos of how good this model can look in the hands of a master builder. These are progress shots from the model constructed by Sergey Golikov...

I hope this review is of use to you all. I have no commercial or financial interest with OKB-Grigorov.

Preview sample supplied by OKB Grigorov.

Article Last Updated: 20 November 2014