Anyone out there thats built the new range of armour kits from Dragon and Trumpeter.
At the moment I have nearly finished the Trumpeter Elephant, and i might say that i am very pleased. Photo-etch, Link tracks, great detail, i am a happy man.
However the same can’t be said for the Dragon kits, i built the Panther G and was pretty happy with it, but the metal hull is a total pain, it basically makes any type of scratchbuilding impossible. Hatches cant be opened and converting the panther to a different model is very difficult. Why is the hull metal? Any thoughts ideas or opinions on the new range of kits would be greatly appreciated.
I have the Trumpeter Elefant but have not built it yet. Trumpeter also did four modern trucks, all basically the same kit but with either a cargo bed or fuel tank and either a Soviet ZiL-157 cab or Chinese CA-30 cab. So far the Trumpeter kits look great.
As far as Dragon kits go, I have quite a few of them. The Panther G early was a bear to build: tracks too tight, diecast upper and lower hull did not mate well.
The Dragon Elefant was tricky too, tracks way too loose and the instructions were vague as well.
I build the Sturmtiger, and other than the odd diecast upper hull, it was a fine build. Tracks a little tight though.
I am currently working on the Challenger II and USMC AAV7A1. No problems with the Challenger so far, the AAV7A1 has a diecast hull that needs to have the entire hull seam puttied over.
Other Dragon kits I have, but have not gotten around to building are the late Tiger, Bergetiger, Bradley, retooled Elefant pro (with PE and single tracks), M1A1s with/without plow and M1A2.
Not happy with the look of the M1A1/A2. You can tell these were based off of the R/C models with a bulged hull to accommodate a motor, hole in the turret, bustle rack molded solid, and a few other problems.
Thanks Rob
That gives me an idea of what to buy in the future. I was actually pretty keen on the Abram with the mine plow and the Bradley.
I recently purchased a number of the re-issued Hasegawa kits, and noticed that a number of the parts were large for the scale, so now I basically need to find a couple of weeks off to fix the fit and parts and do a whole lot of scratchbuilding. Im off to buy some putty.
Hey paster, how are the tracks for that Elefant? Someone posted here a few months ago that he was very disapppointed with them and that they put him off the kit completely.
Last summer I built Dragon’s Tiger with molded Zimmerit and was generally pleased with it. The detail was quite good, even to the point of providing wire for the tow cables and the zimmerit was excellent. Amazingly, their decals conformed quite nicely over the zimmerit, no silvering at all. Their rubber tracks were nicely molded. My biggest complaint was the wheels, specifcally the idler which required a lot of surgery to get it to fit the track’s guide horns.
I recently built Dragon’s M2A2 ODS, and was generally satisfied with it. There were a few minor fit problems with the armor plates on the turret, but overall it went together well. For the scale it seems fairly well detailed, has good decals, and very nice rubber tracks.
I just finished their M1A1, 3rd ID/Iraq 2003, and was not nearly as pleased with it. I found the detail to be lacking, and the parts cleanup for the machine guns and mounts (only slightly better than shapeless blobs), was tedious. One of the middle suspension arms is molded below the line of the remainder, so one needs to do some surgery or have the tank rock instead of sitting flat. Another irration for me is that I prefer to assemble the wheels and tracks after the hull has been assembled and painted, but this is not feasible because the side skirts are molded on. Like the Bradley, its rubber tracks are excellent. Unlike the Bradley, the decals were more of a pain and silvered a bit.
I have a couple of their Pathers under construction (Late G and Jagd) and agree that metal hulls are a pain in the neck with no obvious advantages. At least they are well detailed, much more so than the photo’s of Tamiya’s 1/48 Sherman’s lower hull.
I have the Trump El and it looks like it will be a nice kit.
I have Dragon’s Bergetiger, and it looks good too, molded zim, PE and cable. It even has a neat overlapping roadwheel design that will make building a pleasure.
I also have a few of the new Dragon kits with the diecast hull, my advice is to steer clear. There’s nothing you can do to it, seamwise or to add damage or anything really. I’m planning on saving it for my sons to build once they aadvance past the snap together stage.
I’d rather build the 1/144 Dragons than the die cast stuff.
The tracks for the Elephant are molded in a soft black plastic, they go together easy with superglue but liquid cement may dry and incrust the connection between them. Watch out, use tiny amounts of superglue, and Im talking tiny (I used a sharp needle to apply the glue).
Hey Rob
I’m nearly finished with my Dragon 1/72 Panther, and have found the tracks to be too tight as well, almost to the point that I wondered if I’d somehow screwed up placement of the wheels which seems impossible. How did you recitify this situation, and were you able to induce the proper sag in the track? Appreciate your help.
Yukon
Yukon,
I built the Dragon Panther aswell and found that the tracks were very tight, they go one pretty hard, like placing a rubber band around the wheels i say.
There so tight that they bend around the very rear wheel . I tried to fix this by placing a very thin pice of styrene on the wheel about as wide as the front one, this fixed the bending , but looks very unrealistic, so I ended up not using that method.
If your using the sideskirts you could try not gluing the tracks together at all and simply gluing the two ends on top of the wheels. The gap will not be seen because of the sideskirts. Actually I might try that aswell!!
I hide this error behind the side skirts. It was the second Dragon kit I built, the first being the Elefant. That kit had tracks that were way too loose. With the diecast hull, you couldn’t even relocate the idler or sprocket mount to give some slack.
I found that to be a problem on my DML Elefant, too. Doesn’t sound like they are fixing the problem! I wound up shaving 2 or so links in half from each end of the track, then cutting off the excess so they would fit together. Not fun and not pretty, but it worked. The ones that are too tight don’t lend themselves to an easy fix, needless to say.
I am building the bradley from Dragon. Love it. It has great detail and all the hatches can open. I am planning of scratch building the inteior so the back door has something to show inside.
dragon has some really nice 1/72 kits. The newer one, starting from about last summer. their Tiger was fantastic in my opinion. they have just released a Jagdpanther which I would love to try out. A jagdtiger is also been released. These new kits should be better, and I am pretty sure they dont have those metal hulls. The tiger includes some PE and wire and very good decals. They will be releasing a t-34/76 in February, it has metal tow cables, PE and some other extras. But I dont like the tracks dragon makes, the paint just doesnt stick to em.
Paster / Robin
Thanks for your insight on the too-tight panther tracks. Looks like I’ll be scratchbuilding some sideskirts. It seemed a trivial thing at first. I wonder if I could stretch the tracks somehow, maybe hang them with a weight on one end for a week or something. Or…are their aftermarket tracks I could buy?
Aftermarket would be hard Yukon. I have tried looking here in Australia but thus far have had no success, maybe you will have better luck with Rommel in the desert[:D]
Stretching the tracks sounds a bit risky, there always a good chance they might snap. The Dragon ones seem a bit brittle and elastic for stretching.
I would recommend the method me and Rob mentioned, not gluing them at all together, and simply hiding the gap behing the sideskirts. Unfortunately Yukon your troubles dont just end there. The dragon Panther tracks just dont take paint. However i only found this out when i applied them to the wheels (before a fixed the stretch problem). The tense tracks made the paint chip away from them, however now i think that the paint no longer will, because the tracks are no longer tense.
Rob, how did you end up painting the tracks?
Rob, did the paint stick allright?. I’ve been using enamels and have had no luck at all.
I actually tried the hair dryer, but it does’nt really give you extra length. Warm water probably wouldnt do a thing. I dont know, warming the tracks sounds risky, even the weight method sounds risky, they are pretty brittle and crack under tension. The thing is even if you do manage to stretch them, you’ll only get about 1-3mm out of it. And even if you get the few millimetres the side of the tracks starts to warp in a bit.
I’ve built the M1A1. I didn’t like how the kit went together in terms of details. I did like how the kit turned out. The cart-o-graf decals made the model a keeper for me.
On the plus side the more 1/72 scale kits the better. On the negative side, I think that Dragon is putting them on the market too quickly to keep a high level of quality.