Dragon's New Tiger Kit (#6252)

Modeling Subjects Armor
1

Hi All,

I’m very keen to purchase Dragon’s new Tiger kit (#6252) - the one with all the photo-etched parts, aluminium gun barrel etc.

I have a couple of questions:

  1. The kit comes without engine deck grills. What manufacturer would supply photo-etched grills for this model that would fit.

  2. I have never built a tank with PE parts or an aluminium gun barrel. What is the procedure when glueing them to the injection molded parts?
    i. Do I have to spray primer on the PE parts, the aluminium barrel and
    the injection molded plastic, or just the plastic?
    ii: If I do have to spray primer at some point, do I use an aerosol can or can it
    be purchased in some form that I can spray it through an airbrush?
    iii: If I need primer, what is a good make and where would I be able to
    purchase it from (I’d need a shop name as I would have to import it as I
    live in South Africa)
    iv) Will regular modelling glue do the trick with the PE parts and aluminium
    barrel, or do I use Super Glue when attaching them to the injection
    molded parts?

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards

Dean[:)]

2

Hopefully I can give you a few answers:

  1. As far as I know, nobody makes the engine deck grills. The kit is still a new release so the aftermarket companies need some time to get stuff developed and on the market. Look for Eduard, Aber and Part. These are the companies that do the most p/e and in my opinion, the best p/e parts.

  2. You will need super glue for the p/e parts and the metal barrel. Regular model glue won’t work. I use Tamiya primer out of an aerosol can. Primer can be shot through an airbrush, I just happen to think Tamiya spray can is easier and it covers very well. I prime the entire model, not just the metal parts.

3

from my research on the early production Tigers, there were no engine griles. I can’t give you an exact quote, but if you look at www.achtungpanzer.com you should find everything you need about the Tiger tanks in all specs. some phot references I have seen didn’t show any grilles, so I don’t think they put them in, because the real one didn’t have them

4

Howdy,Kaleu is right on the super glue. I’ve found that the thick slow cure stuff with an accellerator works well. I use a coffee can lid and put some slow cure on it and with several PE pieces ready to go dip the PE in just enough glue, position and touch with accellerator. Just be care full not to glue the acc. applicator!!
I prime all my kits, PE or not. I some times use krylon or if I want to add some extra texture I use el-cheapo auto primer. It has a suble roughness that I like.I’ve heard wonders about MR.Surfacer and am Hoping to try that through an airbrush.

5

I’d be extremely surprised if you couldn’t use basic stock grills from another Dragon KT kit for this one – presumably lots of the other PE would be usable too.

So, in this kit, do they give you a plastic muzzle break that drop-fits onto the aluminum barrel? I don’t like the sound of the surgery that’s apparently necessary with some dragon kits that come with aluminum barrels. It’d be very easy to have one slip of the Xacto ruin the entire kit.

6

i think hes on about the Tiger 1 initial
i thought it was about the Kingtiger too untill i re read it[:)]

7

I figured that, that’s why I mentioned the lack of grilles for the Tiger I.

8

Dragon’s rationale for not including the photoetched engine grilles in the kit is as follows (copy and pasted from the Q/A section of their website):

“Why are there no engine deck mesh screens?
In actual fact, the mesh screens of the initial Tiger I have a slightly concave shape, rather than being just flat. Since we were not able to reproduce the curved nature of the mesh screens in photo-etched metal in present technology, we took the decision not to include them, simply because we did not wish to include just plain flat screens in our kit.”

So, the Initial Production Tiger I did have engine deck screens (I’ve seen photos)–Dragon just decided that if they couldn’t reproduce them accurately in 1/35 scale, they wouldn’t include them at all…but you can still purchase them from Aber, Eduard, or other such companies.

9

Here is a link for some more dragon stuff. I do not know if this has been posted before.
http://www.dragon-models.com/ShizuokaHobbyShow/index.htm
Some cool stuff coming soon.
mark956

10

I strongly suspect that you should be able to use, with perhaps minor surgical alteration, nearly any PE grilles for another Tiger I kit with the Dragon kit–I know I’m going to try to do so when I get my Tiger 3 in 1 Late Production. I could be wrong, but I think other grilles should work fine.