Dragon Tiger I Initial Version (2007)

[Bill Plunk]

Build log for Dragon kit #6252 Tiger I Initial Production 3-in-1 done OOB.

[Bill Plunk]

Even though my usual practice is to just have one kit in progress at a time, I needed something I could work on while in front of the TV as opposed to needing the full court press of tools at the workbench since the Gepard project has entered that stage. The DML Tiger I Initial has been waiting in the wings for a while, so I decided to work on it on the side. Since I'm going to do this one OOB, I'll keep the log as a Step by Step at least for the construction phase.

Step 1: This step deals head on with the 2nd biggest task of the entire build, the roadwheels! The interleaved wheel design means there's a ton of roadwheels to be removed and cleaned up. Each wheel is attached with 4 sprue points but no mold seams on the wheel surfaces, so it's a fair trade off. This step also instructs you to glue the drive sprockets onto the hubs but that won't be done in this case in order to facilitate painting and track assembly later on. After a couple of hours of careful trimming, this step is complete.



Step 2 is the first step with an optional choice on whether to build the torsion bars and suspension to be static or workable. The torsion bars need to be installed only if you want it to be workable and in addition to this, the pins for each suspension arm need to be removed. I chose the static option as I have no need for a workable suspension, so left the torsion bars on the sprues and glued each arm in place. The arms are very nicely detailed and need to be assembled rear to front to allow them to install smoothly.

This step also calls for the idler mounts to be glued in place, but I've left them off for the same reason as not glueing the sprockets on. The idler mounts and the hull socket that takes them have matching notches allowing the mount arm to be "tensionable" a nice touch if adding aftermarket tracks or needing to adjust the kit supplied "magic" links when that time comes.

[Bill Plunk]

Monday Night Football makes for great entertainment and background noise, so Steps 3 and 4 got some time today.

Step 3 is fairly straightforward, calling for the installation of the track pin nudge plates over the rear idler and the front hull drive sprocket detail bolt plates along with most of the roadwheels. Some trusty blue tack did the trick so I could simulate their installation, they'll be removed for painting later on before being secured in their final place. As typical with Tiger roadwheels, the fit has to be just right all along the line and Step 3 has you install the inner sets next to the hull first with the outer wheels added in Step 4. I did both at the same time since I'm not glueing them just yet, but it's something to be mindful off that both steps should be done simultaneously to insure a good fit and level set for all the wheels when that time comes.



Step 4, in addition to calling for the remainder of the wheels to be installed, also has you install the rear hull plate at this time. The first time I dryfit it I thought I'd made a mistake as there are two prominent gaps on either side of the lower hull surfaces but these are supposed to be there to take the rear towing bars that are separate pieces. The plate matches up beautifully with the tub with only some very minor attention needed along the lower join with a touch of liquid glue to get a good seamless join along the molded in weld line.

[Bill Plunk]

Worked on Step 5 this evening. This step deals primarily with adding details to the rear hull plate in the form of the tow pintles, exhausts, and other details.

The exhausts are the main part of this step, consisting of 5 parts each including the armored bracket/shields. These go together very smoothly with the join between the upper and lower portions of the exhaust stack hidden by the brackets themselves once installed. The exhaust top also includes a separate flapper valve piece that can be installed in either the open or closed position. I chose the closed since this is a static build and not in a dio or on a base. Another very nice detail are separately molded retaining wedges/pins for the shrouds, these are tiny but very well executed vs. a molded on or absent altogether detail IMHO.

Another nice feature/option in this step is the choice between cast metal tow hooks (two different types) or the kit molded plastic items. The metal hooks also come with metal pins that are a tight friction fit in the hooks so no glue is required unless desired. The plastic pintle holes were just a bit too small on mine and needed to be opened up slightly with a few twists of the knife point to get the pins to fit properly. The mounts themselves fit into pre-molded slots that are also a tight fit, almost snap-in, with just a touch of glue on the interior side to keep them in place permanently.

I did encounter some difficulty with installing part G22, as the instructions are vague on just how it should go and I actually installed it upside down before figuring out my error and resetting it properly. The lower hull tow point, made up of 2 parts B7 and B8 also proved to be slightly smaller than the provided for opening and will require some putty to fill the gap that resulted.

[Bill Plunk]

Step 6 continues the efforts on the rear hull plate. An option is presented to use either the included PE parts to construct the rear mud flaps or the one-piece styrene kit parts. Personally I think the styrene parts present a better level of detail vs. the PE, but others will prefer to use the metal, particularly if looking to damage or bang them up a bit. The blackout convoy light is also installed on the left side, although I'll admit since the kit instructions show the hull inverted I got turned around and mistakenly installed it initally on the right side as you can see by the remaining glue mark which will be cleaned up once the glue has dried.

This step also calls for the construction of the jack which consists of no less than 7 separate pieces to acheive a high level of detail as well as the option to show the jack extended or not. Since this one will be stored on the vehicle, it's not extended. Another option is also presented to use kit supplied PE to construct the mounting brackets or styrene parts. The PE parts are very small and intricate and include small wing nuts for the clamps but curiouly no PE is provided for the handle clamp. Rather than have a mix of PE and the molded handle clamp, I went with the full styrene assembly even though it lacks the full clamp arrangement.

Last but not least, the jack block is also installed. No PE options are included with this, just the block with the molded on brackets and simplified latch mechanism. My normal practice used to be to install all pioneer tools after painting but since the block will be easily accessible for detail painting, it's installed. The jack itself will be left in the same overall vehicle finish as I think this is more realistic based on various reference photos of different vehicles vs. the popular trend to paint them in black or gunmetal finish.

[Bill Plunk]

After a long break, picked this one back up today.

Step 7 deals with a variety of things for the interior and exterior. Fuel tanks, radiators, and fans are provided as a basic interior below the engine deck vent screens and these were assembled and installed without any major problems, at least at this step. More on that later.



This step also calls for the installation of the glacis plate, with two options available. One option, P8, doesn't have fenders while G19 does. I chose G19 for my installation but only dryfit the part instead of glueing it down as the instructions call for. I looked ahead at Step 11 and the installation of the hull front plate and upper deck and didn't like the looks of how it was to go together...and I was glad I did as it became apparent when I got to that point that there's no way you could do the installation the way the instructions tell you to if followed to the letter in Step 7.



Next up are the hull side plates that are installed using pins on the inner sides of the plates and matching holes in the hull tub sides. These are a tight fit in terms of the pins, but even when in all the way, the fit match to the rear hull plate left a small gap on either side. This will require some putty to fill as no amount of pressure would get the faces to meet at this plate although they did at the front. I will do that later after the hull is all assembled so it's stable.



The spare track holders on the front plate are also called for at this point and a nice little extra is in the form of part G10, which serves as a guide to position the lower holder in the right spot without resorting to locating holes on the front hull. I only installed the lower as I will paint the spare track run off the vehicle and install at a later stage. The upper holder depends on the tracks being in place for it to be positioned properly, so it too will wait.





Step 8 involves the assembly of the beautifully detailed hull MG along with the kugelblende mount and details for the visor. Even though I won't be keeping the gunner's or driver's hatches open, I went ahead and built this detail to see how it went together since I have another of this kit in the stash. The driver's visor can be positioned open or closed and a clear insert is provided for the armored glass, which I painted with a light coat of Tamiya acrylic Clear Green to simulate. As a side note, the hull MG is only partially visible once the upper deck is installed and the kit doesn't provide any more interior detail for this position, which influenced my decision to close the hatches on both sides.



The open visor is a one part affair, if choosing to model the visor closed, that requires an assembly of 4 different parts, which the instructions indicate can be left workable if the glueing directions are followed carefully. I didn't attempt this on this time around, but might next time just to see if it indeed can be done.

This step also provides for options on the rear engine deck hatch depending on whether you are building the snorkel option or not. I'm not so the standard parts were used.



Step 9 is simple, calling for the installation of the engine hatch and the hull front plate along with the front hatches, with options to display open or closed. I secured the hatches in place with blue tac so I can install the periscopes later on and detail them since they are provided as clear parts and it will be easier to do that way vs. trying to mask them off inside their frames.



Step 10 deals with a lot of the upper hull details including the tools and various other pieces. I'd dryfit the upper hull plate fit to the hull tub and knew that I was going to have to use "traction" to get everything to fit properly, so instead of installing all these details, I went ahead and did the join of the upper hull to the tub first. In order for the upper deck to fit properly, the tops of the radiator fans needed to be shaved down about 0.5 mm or so on both sides, an easy enough fix since I'm not showing those hatches open either.

Quite a few rubber bands were needed to secure the hull pieces together with a tight join and this would've proved very difficult if the wheels had been glued down instead of just held in place with blue tac as you can see in this pic. On a side note, the instructions in this step never tell you to remove the cross brace inside the turret ring but it's a fairly obvious thing to remove...but not if you are strictly following the instructions.



I combined the details in Step 10 and 11 together once the hull was released from traction. I chose to install the two Bosch lights although an option is provided to just install the bases and these optional parts are very nicely detailed inside the base plate instead of just a blank "pit" where the light stands connect. I did not install the two clear part inserts as they don't make any difference IMHO and used the pre-formed wire and PE brackets for the wiring provided in the kit. I also chose the option of only 2 cleaning rods on the left side as sources at Missing Lynx indicate that's the right option for these Initials with the 3 rods coming on both sides on later variants. Also as a side note, parts J19 for the rear deck hatches are molded with small half-round tabs on the base that have to be removed for them to fit in their designated spot. I'm not sure why these are molded this way since part J10 is almost identical and does not have these tabs. The instructions don't direct for their removal on the J19 parts but it has to be done to get them to fit. Of course, the installation of J10 isn't perfect either as the instructions are confusing since the picture shows it being installed backwards, so take care with it on this step.

[Bill Plunk]

No better way to celebrate the New Year than with time at the bench! Work continued today with Step 12 which presents you with a basic question....what type of tread pattern do you want on your front fenders? Three different styles are presented and I picked the larger diamond pattern for no real reason...just had to choose, so they got the nod. Also installed the front tow hooks which probably could be installed earlier in the build more easily than at this step, something to remember for the future. The front holes were the right diameter, I didn't encounter the size issue like I did with the rear hooks, so that helped.



Step 13 and 14 deal with the construction of the main gun and mantlet. I didn't realize until after I'd completed it all that Step 14 was a separate step, so these were done together with no intervening step picture taken. Three options are presented in this step in terms of using the supplied metal barrel, using a multipiece styrene barrel, or the older two-halves type of barrel. Only the metal and multipiece options allow for the spring/recoil feature to be used, something I wasn't interested in personally, but I did opt for the metal barrel along with the mantlet with the rain deflector over the gunner's sight since that's appropriate for #100 that I'm building. When assembling the breech and recoil mechanisms, Part A9 is meant to be involved in the recoil function in some way...I couldn't make it work and left it off with no affect whatsoever on the ability to install the gun. Also of note in this step is the fact that the coaxial MG is provided as a one piece part but the muzzle, unlike the hull MG, is molded solid, requiring some attention with the pin vise to drill out.



One neat little extra in the kit is some casting numbers supplied on the back of one of the sprues and the instructions tell you to use these to create a 2 digit casting number on the mantlet. They suggest 20 but in checking the Initial Tiger Production book that I have (text is all in Russian but the pictures have English captions), it has line drawings for #100 showing a casting number of 58...so that's what I used. I practiced with a razor blade on several of the numbers before I felt comfortable going after the ones I needed, 2 full sets of numbers are provided so lots of chances to get it right. The shaved off numbers were applied with some liquid glue and once set up later on, were sanded down to a more scale appearance.



The trickiest part of this whole assembly to me was the muzzle brake. It's slide molded with a separate end-cap piece and to make it look like it's all one piece, some careful sanding and use of liquid glue was necessary but it works out well with a little patience and care.



One final note on the gun assembly, the details are rather basic and no breech block is included for the gun breech, I presume on the theory that it's not visible anyhow unless you leave the roof detachable. It's the only detail provided for the interior of the turret aside from the pistol ports.

On to Step 15! This step begins to deal with the turret and calls for the installation of the commander and gunner's seats, I skipped this due to a decision to close up all the hatches. The turret interior is too sparse and I'm not planning figures, so buttoned up it will be. This also meant it wasn't necessary to install the details for the commander's cupola and I've saved those for the spares bin. The cupola is slide molded as one piece although there's another complete cupola on the sprues from the Tiger (P) sprue which also includes the turret roof. Hatch was installed in the closed position along with the support/latch stand without issues.



Step 16 pulls all the turret parts together including the pistol ports and installs the cupola onto the turret roof along with its four part hinge assembly. The tolerances for the installation of the hinge mounts, E9, is very tight due to the location of the catch stand, C4, installed in the previous step and makes the job harder although not impossible. The turret roof is a snug fit with just a little bit of liquid glue run around the seam edge necessary to produce a good join.



Step 17 installs more of the turret roof details. A choice is provided between a simple style extractor exhaust or a more complex one, I chose the simple one as it matches the pics of #100 as near as I can tell. The supplied pre-formed brass smoke dischargers are also assembled in this step and installed. The kit provides the same parts in styrene if desired, although the brass ones are superior IMHO especially since they are provided pre-bent. I purposely left the holders empty as the kit parts didn't quite fit without some work and were just blank cylinders with no detail anyhow.



Step 18 is skipped because it's the tracks...and they will be dealt with later.

Step 19 is very straightforward for the option I chose for #100. It's the construction and installation of the side bins. I shaved off the molded on position brackets and sanded it down for a smooth surface. Also, for some reason, there are molded on pins on the bottom part of each bin but there aren't any corresponding locator holes and these, if left in place, interfere with the ability of the bins to sit properly, so they were also removed.



Step 20 is the obligatory "install the turret" step...and it's a good thing I left the gun elevation function intact as a test fit showed that if I'd done my usual practice of fixing it in place due to the metal barrel, it wouldn't have been able to clear the Bosch lights on the front of the hull! After painting I will put some glue in the hinge points and install carefully but for now it droops due to the barrel weight. Also installed the "lucky horsehoe" provided as a PE or styrene item, I chose the PE.



That's all the construction that will take place pre-paint, so I also put in some work on the putty/filling required on the rear hull and forward areas as well and will let it sit up until next weekend.

[Bill Plunk]

Made some paint progress with this build today due to the weather gods smiling a little. Decent weather outside for a couple of hours meaning I could stand to have my hands exposed to paint in the garage allowed for the primer coat of Flat Black to be laid down followed by mist coats of Rust to simulate the Red Oxide primer before putting down the Panzer Schwarzgrau. I might get to that tomorrow, again weather permitting. Of note, the road wheels also got some attention but only those that actually will be visible once the tracks are installed had their rubber rims retained in Flat Black. The others were left secured in place with blue tack and painted along with the rest of the hull so they don't look funny once in the display case and the off chance that one could be seen peeking through in the future. The Tiger family has a huge amount of road wheels to deal with, but no need to fully detail all of them unless showing one with the tracks off IMHO.

[Bill Plunk]

Gorgeous weather today made it tough...forcing a choice between painting and football...and painting won out!

Laid down the panzer schwarzgrau coat over the Rust from yesterday by means of multiple thin coat passes at high pressure with the AB to get a nice even coverage.



I let that set up for a couple of hours to insure it wouldn't lift up before going on to the next stage of preparing the masking to take the whitewash camo pattern. I've seen pics posted up over at Missing Lynx from an e-bay auction that depicted #100 in a similar scheme to that on #121 and used that as a guide with some creative imagination thrown in as well to carve up the hull into alternating gray and white areas. I used poster blue tack to mask as it's low-tack in the sense that it won't pull up paint, although it can lift PE that isn't securely glued if not careful. The real trick in this exercise was to retain a mental picture of what was going to be gray and what white while laying out the lines, had to lift up and redo a couple here and there before I settled on the desired pattern.



Then it was off to the garage for some paintwork. I used Testor's Flat White at low pressure with a fine nozzle for close in application, especially since I didn't want it to be too even vs. the regular vehicle finish. After about an hour of effort, it reached this point:



I did have to deal with some overspray in the tighter areas and this was touched up with the panzer gray through the same nozzle, and then the blue tack was removed. It was only then that I discovered that some more overspray had happened, particularly on the turret, but that can be easily dealt with either by overpainting/drybrushing or perhaps even incorporation into the weathering, will have to experiment with what works best a bit.



Next up will likely be the installation of the tracks and roadwheels and then on to the details before sealing up and working on the markings and finish.

[Bill Plunk]

Absolutely gorgeous weather, high in the 60's of all things, made it possible to do some more work on the Tiger today. Over the course of the week I'd thought about several different approaches to the weathering and decided on a two-pronged approach using the AB and lightened shades of the panzer gray basecoat along with drybrushing to get the variation I wanted between the whitewash and the hull colors.

I started first with a 70-30 mix of Panzerschwarzgrau-Light Gray and used this to lighten the original panzer gray and also overspray into the whitewash to provide some contrast. This was followed with a middle shade of 80-20 schwarzgrau-Light Gray to get to this point.





Next up was a 2-step process of drybrushing. First pass of drybrushing was with the original panzer schwarzgrau to add more transparency to the white wash and simulate wear, scratching, etc. as well. To blend it back in, the second pass of drybrushing was with the original Flat White and it will be allowed to cure up overnight before it gets sealed. More weathering will follow in the form of washes and the usual treatment to the wheels/tracks/lower hull in the future.



Now that all the AB work is out of the way, I turned back to the roadwheels and tracks. I spent a good 2-3 hours cleaning up the two sets of indy track links as each one had 2 raised ejector marks that needed to be shaved down. Since it was a repetitive and simple enough task, I did this while watching the NFL playoffs and then moved onto removing all the roadwheels, cleaning up their blue tack and then glueing them in place.



Both the sprockets and the idlers are not glued to their mounts, just placed dry-fit for now. Not sure if I'm going to try to use the little jig pieces provided to form the sprocket and idler sections of track or not...might just be simpler to do it my usual way of single top and bottom runs for painting and finishing, have to think on that a bit before tackling tomorrow.