Hi all, I`m halfway through building the Trimaster/Dragon Me 262A1-a.
Its been in the bin twice, literally, but I keep trying to rescue what I think is an overated & overpriced badly fitting where it touches kit. I read somewhere that Dragon kits arnt to be built but just admired in the box. I mean the detail is fantastic, the egraving superb, the fit is abismal and all that detail disappears as you fill and sand.
Anyway in this reserrection I have decided to build it as an Me 262C-1, with a Walther rocket engine in the tail. The tails been chopped and I am now in the process of scratching the engine from brass rod, when my friend? tells me- quote “your gonna have to get some new tyres as those rubber ones rot”.
WHAT!..is he right? Ok so True details do some nice ones in resin and I think Ive got an old Mono 262 kit insulateing the loft, but Ive got FIVE more of these £*“”@# kits including the Mistel- thats seven sets of tyres an I just found out that the C-1 prototype that Im doing has an extra pair for takeoff thats EIGHT sets.
SO PLEASE HELP whats the bug with the Dragon tyres, do I really have to spend the cost of another model on tyres for the ones I already have?
For some reason, the rubber tires supplied in aircraft kits seem to deteriorate over time. The old AMT Tigercat was notorious for that problem. Often the tires were already melting in the box. I haven’t used any of the rubber tires provided in some Dragon & Hobbycraft kits, but to be safe I would replace them with resin or plastic.
Gary,
I’ve had this problem before…rubber (or a form of soft plastic) injection molded wheels cracking of deteriorating over time.
For armour, I always make an RTV mold of the tires in question and cast them in resin and then throw out the rubber ones. I never use the kit’s rubber tires. For Aircraft, I usually find that the rubber tires lack detail and always replace them with resin aftermarket sets.
Besides, the resin aftermarket ones almost always have better detail.
A win-win situation, really.
There’s an easy way round this problem. Line the wheel hubs with Bare Metal Foil. That way the vinyl and plastic won’t touch each other, and you won’t get the chemical reaction. In any event, I think this problem is overstated. I’ve a Dragon (actually Revell AG re-boxing) 1/48 Me.262 which I built almost ten years ago, and the tyres are fine.
Persevere with the Dragon 1/48. OK, there are fit issues, but in terms of accuracy and detail, it’s better than the Tamiya kit, and, in an Italeri or Revell AG box, barely a third of the price.