Syrian T-72AV work in progress - making ERA bricks

Hello,

I started this project few months ago, but I planned this more than one and the half year. It took me so long to start becuase it's very complicated conversion, and there is no kit of that particular version on the market. Inspiration for this project came from fantastic ANNA news combat videos of T-72AV in suburbs of Damascus. I done a lot of research about Syrian T-72AV, and concluded there is two basic types: Standard A version upgraded to AV, and upgraded A version(with added on 16mm plate on front glacis), also later upgraded to AV. I'll be doing second version.
I'll be using Tamiya T-72M1 as a start kit for conversion. Other aftermarket stuff includes:

Voyager PE35353 T-72M1 basic set PE
Voyager PEA205 Kontakt-3 type ERA bricks
Voyager PEA201 T-72 side skirts
Panzer art T-72 wheels late type
Miniarm T-72A/AV resin turret
Trumpeter rmsh type tracks

And some scratch building.


In this step I'll show making of photo etched ERA brick.



Instruction

There are two of this, in total 205 bricks to assemble.

In this step I need to make attach point for brick, from styrene, 0.5mm diameter

Now I need to add bolts which are fixing brick to the attach point(on the real vehicle)

And the first brick is finished. Only 204 more :P

So far I made about 140 bricks, but I won't make all 205 brick, because tank will missing some like real vehicle.

I'm realy impressed with Voyager ERA bricks, they are like real stuff, bending process is same. It takes some time to finish it, but result is fantastic!
In the next step I'll be doing photo etched parts on the hull and mounting era bricks on the glacis.


Thanks for visiting my blog!

Best regards,

Aleksa Elez - Aki