I have been a member on here for a while now, and have picked up a lot of hints and tips along the way. Having mainly built Tamiya and the odd Academy and Revell kit I decided to pop my Dragon cherry with their SdKfz 234/4 Panzerjager.
I was very nervous to say the least, in part due to the part count but mainly the reputation of Dragon’s instructions. Many of the threads and reviews concerning Dragon kits say that the instructions are vague or mis-leading, why is this? So far I have had no problems with my 234/4, but I know not all Dragon kits are as nice as this to put together.
Why are some Dragon instructions worse than others? And who makes the best instruction sheet?
I must have 10 maybe more dragon kits, and ironically I have only had a probelm with the instructions in one of those. I think Tamiya probably makes the best intruction sheets IMO.
I think Dragon kits are just full of so many parts and they try and use the smallest amount of paper possible for their instructions, their 3-in-1 tiger kit was crammed full of information and the color coding was helpful but the fact that you were trying to stick with one of 3 options throughout the build made it dificult. They dont really have clear “this first, then this” steps, its kinda a free for all. However I also built a Heshnel KT from Dragon, and it was very much step by step and in real color which also helped with painting along the way, it was very nice.
I would agree, on average, I enjoy Tamiya makes the simplest kits with very easy to follow, step by step instructions.
I think it’s generally true that, the more parts in a kit, the more complex the instructions - although if I thought about it long enough, I’m sure I could find exceptions. It also seems to be true that kit instructions are not written/ drawn by people who have actually built the kit - though, again, there are exceptions, of which Accurate Miniatures is the best example. The worst example of this is probably the Heller 1/100 HMS Victory. With over 2000 parts, they also seem to have been written by someone who has no understanding at all of how a square-rigged ship’s rigging operates to hold the masts, yards, sails and indeed the ship together, and for it to capture the wind to push it along.
In the case of Dragon, however, both complexity and bad organization are often combined. It may be that this is one area where they choose to economise. I might also suggest that their home market is not particulalry important to them, and given Dragon’s heavy production schedule - half-a dozen new moulds or siginifcant modifications of an existing mould per month is not unusual - that getting someone in their major markets - North America and Europe - to do the instructions in a style which potenital customesrs would find easier to understand, is not a reaslistic option.
Therefore, I find it best to approach Dragon instructions in the same way that I approach a game of chess.
Have a clear idea of where you want to end up and how you want to get there.
Think at least a couple of stages ahead.
Do not automatically assume that the construction sequence suggested in the instructions is necessarily the best.
If the kit has more than one version, make sure which sub-assemblies are relevant to your intended version. This is by no measn always obvious - sometimes it can only be seen by referring to the painting drawings.
Finally, as you assemble each stage and sub-assembly, mark off the parts, sub-assemblies and stages off on the instructions. That way, if you lose your way, it’s not too hard to find it again.
Even this won’t solve all the problems, but experience of building several Dragon superkits suggests that this approach does mimimise the difficulties.
The best remedy for this is to print the reviews of the kit—they usually mention the landmines to watch out for—I just did this on the Dragon 150mm field piece…
Anyone besides me miss the old days where the parts had NAMES along with numbers? I mean, half of what I learned about cars, tanks, & planes came from stuff like parts that were labled on the sheet, “37-intake manifold”, “33-headlight bezel”, “65-differential”, and “23- Glacis Plate”, “44-Gun Mantlet”, “11-bustle-rack”, “21-interplane strut”, “44-propeller boss”, 2-throttle quadrant"? Not to mention the sheets that had a decent history of the kit as well… I did like Tamiya’s attempt at acommodation in the 70s & 80s with multi lingual sheets and especially their attempts at TO&Es and abbreviated Orders of Battle for the armor kits, but that went the way of the dodo too…
I realize that the international aspect of the hobby forced it, but I sure do miss those sheets…
I can offer that, because of long times between the design of the kit, and the actual printing of the directions, plus for the lag time for the release and all, I wonder if changes and alternate parts get put into the mix that never get corrected on the directions?
I’ve yet to complete a single DML kit that didn’t have at least 1 error in the instructions somewhere…They know they have a problem with this and choose, for whatever reason, not to do anything about it. The worst kit by far in terms of quality of instructions was the Luftwaffe version of the Sdkfz 251/17…there were literally errors in every single step and some steps had multiples. Just serves to keep things interesting I guess…and why we are called model builders and not just model assemblers. [;)]
I don’t know about the new kits from dragon but I have just finished their 1999 release of the 1/9th scale kettenkrad and that build took me forever, and thats one of the reasons why i waited for 10 years to finish it, the instructions were a disaster!!! to say the least. Just an exploded view of the parts, no parts numbers on the parts and so on, it came out ok but was a real headache to put together…
I just think they made them as simple as possible, knowing that the modeler could figure it out. They are not for the faint of heart or the beginner unless you’re up for the challenge.
I like wbill76’s statement “and why we are called model builders and not just model assmeblers.”. Makes sense i guess if this hobby was a no brainer and you could finish a kit in a day or so it wouldn’t be that much fun having little to no challenges anyway. Keeps the hobby fun when you can finish a hard to build kit, you have a better sense of accomplishment!
I visit the Perth Military Modelling site everytime I’m planning a new purchase and search for any threads on here and other sites[:-^]. I do have 2 other Dragon kits in my mini stash, 251/22 and my nemisis, the 88 with crew!!. I do have the doog’s recent 251 build bookmarked for reference, so maybe if I get through the 251/22 in one piece, I might do a WIP for the “88”.