Trumpeter 1/35 KV-1 Model 1942 Lightweight Cast Turret

After a couple complex Panzer kits with lots of tires, I wanted to do something easier with no rubber wheels and less parts.. I chose the Trumpeter Kliment Voroshilov-1 Model 1942 Lightweight Cast turret from my stash. I added an Aber barrel & PE grilles plus San Xin metal tracks with pins.

Trumpeter's KV tooling is from 2005 and they produce quite a few variants. The selection and the inexpensive price of the kits persuaded me to try them. I was able to pickup this KV-1 and a KV-2 for less $$ than the latest Tamiya KV-1. There is no PE in either the Trumpeter or Tamiya KV, but Trumpeter includes copper wire rather than string from Tamiya. Flash & sink marks are heavy on some pieces, such as the sprockets. The link & length tracks have heavy sink marks! Two per link, making cleanup very tedious and probably just as much if not more work than some individual link tracks. No significant fit issues. But the fender support tabs required trimming so that they would touch the hull (they needed to shift inwards about 1-2mm).

The KV-1 was simple to assemble but I tried a few new things.. I added epoxy welds to the turret. I added cast texture to the turret & gun mantlet with acetone thinned putty. And I tried my hand at soldering the PE engine grilles. The soldering was by far the most challenging part of the build. The kit includes rubber band and link & length tracks. I had initially planned to go with the link & length tracks but I didn't feel like doing all that sink mark cleanup, so I ordered metal tracks. The San Xin metal tracks were so easy to assemble. No re-drilling any links and only half a dozen links required molding cleanup on their guide horns. The prefab brass track pins made assembly fast.. and it all burnished very well. The big, heavy links made the sag look great.

Finished in Tamiya acrylics (1:1 XF-4 Yellow Green, XF-58 Olive Green). I experimented with color modulation using oil dot technique. Oil pin wash & enamel weathering. The weathering is relatively light but looks more subdued in the photos than it really is. Completed in early March 2022.

I chose not to use any markings from the kit. Most of the reference photos of the 1942 lightweight cast turret I found had no markings.

6 additional images. Click to enlarge.