Tiger 1 Initial production, s.Pz.Abt.502, Dragon #6600

Bugger that, I am going to use the fixed position and get moving

Svenne

The fun beggins with the torsion bars and the road wheel arms...18 of in total.
From memory I think this is supposed to be a workable undercarriage but in my mind this SmartKit just hit its first big minus (-).
There is a fixed position for the road wheel arm identified by a small pin in the side wall, but you are instructed to shave that pin off.
If you do follow the instruction here you will land up with a road wheel arm that somehow needs to be glued to the torsion bar without spilling over glue to the side wall, if you are not carefuld the result is a fixed arm in the wrong position.
If you are bold enough to try you have 60 degrees play in the joint between the torsion bar and the road wheel arm.
Simply because the size of the parts do not allow for a more precise fit.
That is going to be interesting when alligning the road wheels

Svenne

Given the complexity, or lack thereof, of the side skirts, wouldn't simple sheet metal suffice? 

SuppressionFire,
Got it, will do!

Dre,
My sample does not have that particular problem but then again I am not going 100% with the instructions, build sequence is different.
 
 I am going to nick the side plates from Dragon # 6383, that kit comes with a Zimmed side plate and omits the blank ones.

Which leaves me with an after market requirement;
Side skirts, what would be your best recommendation?

Svenne

Can't type or spell well,lol, but it works ; )

AHAAA! You believed the instructions! Best method I've found for the driver palte is to place in on the hull, not the deck, then rotate the tansmission/fender piece in from the front, it fits very well. Once in position use a chart pen or fine brush and glue the areas they touch with liquid glue. The upper deck's two front flats will slide down the groves formed by the assembly and the rear be at the right distants from the rear plate. Took me several Dragon Tiger 1's to figure this one out, now they just about fall togather.

Moral, always test fit before using a hammer, took awhile . Now if I can figure out how to get Dragons sping wire tow cables to actually bend and keep their shape while fitting :O tried heasting them red hot and cooling slow, still springy.

For those that have this and are getting ready to build it- here's some things that I found along the way as I built one of mine this past weekend:

the driver's front plate...  I had a ^%^%$W# time getting that to fit in just right.  I wound up removing the lip on the bottom of the plate (it looks like it should interlock with the glacis plate, but the tolerance is way off) and sanding it down to a bevel.  With heavy duty C-clamps and patience it finally went in as needed.  Once installed, I had to use some putty to clean up any remaining gaps.

the hull top plate left a wide, nasty gap where it met the rear plate.  I'm talking about a 1/8" gap... which I fixed with strip styrene and sanded flush with the top of the rear plate.  While I think that there ought to be a small gap where these two items meet, it shouldn't be that big.

The torsion bars are a two-piece affair- first the torsion bars that fit inside the hull and then the suspension arms.  The torsion bars must be installed first and then the arms and while there is an alignment slot, it has a lot of play.  I glued everything down and level, so careful gluing could leave the suspension as movable.  I don't really see the movability as too practical since the contact patch between the two pieces is very small and looks pronce to breakage.

The good news is that otherwise, the kit is a dream to build with minimal cleanup and filling.

I plan on finishing this one off as #3 in a whitewash over panzergrey somethime later this week (I hope).

There are 2 kitty's boxed up in my stash 3000 miles away. 1 vintage Tamiya kit, and a DML 3 in 1 'Micheal Wittman' The first has a Lion Roar extensive PE set to help it along. Probably will get some AM tracks as well, the DS ones are showing their age. 

Get the bucket account & post some WIPs!