This is a real world build of the Thunder Models 1/35 Caterpillar Sixty. The Sixty was built under license in Russia as the Stalinets S-60 and also formed the basis for the Stalinets S-65.
The build wasn't bad at all, albeit long; you're basically building a big engine, with some bits added to make it move - almost as an afterthought. Parts fit well and the PE (and copper wire) were easy to deal with. The only issue I had was with the fuel tank - the ends had a seam that was difficult to remove, so I just replaced them with a styrene disk:
I thought about painting it yellow, but decided to go with the blue-gray on the boxtop (and on some Sixties I found online):
The tracks are some I'd put together for a Trumpeter S-65 and they fit perfectly. Notice that the embossed "Caterpillar" and "Sixty" are missing from the radiator. Since Thunder makes the Stalinets version, the names are provided in PE form. Ugh.
I managed to get the "Caterpillar" onto the radiator. It doesn't look great, but it's good enough:
Please don't look at the headlamps too closely because they're liable to fall of. I think they're held onto the arms with maybe two or three molecules of plastic.
Getting the "Sixty" onto the sides - correctly spaced - would have been a real job. This is what the PE fret looks like (after I painted it red):
After some pondering, I scanned the PE section above and deleted everything that wasn't a red letter. I ended up with "SIXTY", which I printed several times onto decal paper. Next, I carefully trimmed each letter from the PE fret and using some Gator Glue, I aligned each letter over the matching letter on the decal. The darker red shows one set of PE letters glued onto the decal:
I then cut and trimmed the decal to fit the radiator and applied it to the model. I think it looks OK - it was certainly easier than trying to apply the PE directly to the radiator part:
I gave the tractor a good coat of clear to make sure everything stayed down.
One thing that Thunder forgot to add to the tractor is the dirt shield on the running gear. Since I had a spare, built Trumpeter S-65, I sacrificed its dirt shields. They fit perfectly. In fact, the complete running gear from the Trumpeter kit fits onto the Sixty body with only minor coaxing. I built the Thunder parts because they're better detailed than the Trumpeter parts.
I also noticed that almost every picture of the Sixty I found online has the control arms facing out from the driver's seat. Thunder has you build them facing inwards towards the driver, so I fixed that as well:
Next is some weathering. Lots of it.
