KV-1 for Christmas... and more

[ccarley]

Greetings all,

Hope everyone had a good holiday. I got Covid for Christmas, along with a KV-1. Unfortunately the rest of my family got the virus from me so this has been quite a different holiday this year but it was bound to happen sooner or later. Unable to go to work is giving us some time to spend together?

Anyway, my wife and daughter got the KV-1 for me this Christmas and I'll be practicing some weathering on it. I started with some brown wash on the bolt heads and some of the seams, and I'm thinking I'll be adding some silver "scratches" around the edges and maybe try my hand at some rust areas.



I'm starting slow and perhaps a bit too subtle but I think that is probably better than going too overboard to start. I'm still searching for the translation on the decals, it would be cool to know what it says. I did take it for a test drive this afternoon and the gun on this thing is somewhat impressive.

Not much else going on at the moment taking care of everyone. Thankfully my symptoms are not intense at all.

Clay

[Operator7G]

Sorry to hear one of your Christmas gifts was COVID. I hope your symptoms are minor. I used the Google Translate app on the turret text, and the it shows the front large word is "BAY" and the top word to the rear is "fascist". The bottom word doesn't translate probably because of the script. That's the best I can do for you. Perhaps someone who actually can read Russian will be able to weigh in. I've been eyeing the KV-1 to go with my T-34/85. I'll be interested to hear what you think about it.

[ccarley]

Operator7G, thanks. Honestly I am very surprised about my symptoms considering I have relatively severe asthma. No fever, the biggest issue for me has been a stuffy nose.

In the translations I've been able to do, the first word has been BAY like you say as well. The script is difficult for me to read for sure but that's interesting that the top word is Fascist. In one of my translations for the bottom word I came up with "Lady", I suppose that could make sense given that there were women supporting the military?

As far as my impressions with the tank, well with my first drive around the yard it's a nice unit. I actually had the T-34 on my Christmas list as well LOL! I do want to get the metal tracks on this tank, they seem to slip a touch to the side on the sprockets and even the plastic tracks make some noises, but they don't slip off. There seems to be a mix of battery connectors now, this one came with the XT60 connector. I haven't really checked the smoke unit but will probably modify as I've seen in the KV-2 thread so that it comes out the proper exhaust location, since it seems to be plumbed to the tail light location now.

We'll have an opportunity to do some IR battle soon, after we all recover. My daughter received quite the adversary for Christmas; the Tiger 1. Hopefully I'll have some time to finish up the Pershing as well 😉 I have ordered some additional LegoDEI receivers to hopefully make the battlefield a bit more equal.

Clay

[Operator7G]

Glad to hear your symptoms are limited to a stuffy nose. One thing you need to be careful about these tanks, though, is that they multiply like tribbles. We bought my son his first tank for Christmas last year -- a Sherman. He now has that, an Abrams, a Panther G, and a snow camo Tiger 1. It's all out war here! 😄 While the ability to shoot BBs is pretty cool, I think we probably have more fun when we throw the mushroom on top and engage in domestic IR warfare! We're thinking about giving up the BB capability and converting to in-barrel IR with retracting barrel and smoke effects.

[Delta_19]

found this image for common Russian slogans, pretty sure most of the kv-1 stuff is here

[ccarley]

Ah! Awesome, thank you Delta_19.

These decals that come with the KV-1 are totally what is shown for the 1941 KV-1, Crush the fascist vipers!

Clay

[Zippersnapper]

It's a shame Archer went out of business.

[tank_me]

It's a shame Archer went out of business.

Yeah, I went and bought a set of any of the decals I might have wanted while they were still really common.

[DavidN]

I have some Russian decals from Archer too. I don't understand them either.

[ccarley]

DavidN, seeing all these kind of makes me want to learn Russian! While watching "Tankers" I noticed that when one of the crew was putting a slogan on the side of the turret, it was translated in the subtitles which I thought was a very nice touch. I don't recall what it was at the moment though.

We've been doing some more paint detail on this KV-1, but it needs more. Little bit of shading, "rust" paint and silver for highlights.



I had the apple on to test out my work on the Pershing with the Clark board, and then the rain started coming down again outside. I do have some LegoDEI receivers on the way.