That's big! The barrel of the Italeri SU-100 assault gun that is! I would not have wanted to be at the wrong end of that back in WW2.
As you can no doubt tell from the photo above there has been some rapid progress on this kit which is most unlike me! I think there are about 30 parts left to fit. Mainly hatch covers, grab handles and similar as well as the tracks which are the rubber band type.
What I did find surprising is the amount of flash on some parts such as these auxiliary fuel tanks.
However despite the flash the way the kit designers have moulded these parts is brilliant. The two main parts fit together and then the ends are like a cap including the strap which means the whole issue of getting rid of the seam line is so simple. Nice!
The gun barrel is also a surprise in this kit. I would normally have expected two halves to be glued together with an end cap. Although the kit had an end cap the barrel itself is a one piece moulding. It had a very slight mould line that was quickly smoothed off . I also drilled out the end of the barrel as far as I thought safe just to make it look as though it was a tube. The photo is not great but it just about shows what I did. The end cap went at the end of this so it does look better in real life - honest!
I did mention that the kit came with a metal barrel but this unfortunately is for a SU-85 which was the next generation of this vehicle. The metal barrel is significantly shorter and smaller than the plastic one so I have put the metal one aside for another time!
Strangely enough I did build the Tamiya SU-85 kit some ten years or so ago and There are some photos at the end of this post. In the meantime the SU-100 kit is looking like this.
Now for that Tamiya SU85. You can see that basically the gun is the only difference but it is a big difference. I have also found out that there are two more SU type vehicles - the ISU-122 and the SU-122 which may be two kits I need to build to complete the collection! However that is something for the future and if Mrs. Woody asks I blame it on Mr. Beecham for giving me this kit for Christmas!
