Tiger I Late production Dragon 6253 Chapter 5: Gun mantlet and metal barrel

Previous chapter 

 

The gun breech, mantlet, and barrel assembly are instructed to be constructed first. The mantlet and muzzle brake options applicable to each variant are clearly pointed out. The ATAK Zimmerit kit includes two of these mantlet options in resin. The command variant option is the only one not included but as this variant option just deleted the MG, it is easy enough to cover the MG hole on either of the resin options. The ATAK parts are a perfect match to the plastic parts, so no extra work is required. You get both a plastic and turned metal barrel and these key in to either the earlier large, or final smaller type muzzle brakes. 

 

Tiger I Dragon 6253 Late production Chapter 4: Applying ATAK Zimmerit

Previous chapter  

Skipping ahead of fitting the few engine components, I mulled over how best to approach adding the hull zimmerit. The separately moulded side armour plates first require fixing to the hull tub sides. Spacing is dictated by some very chunky holes and they fit precisely, butting up perfectly to the rear plate. 

Test fitting the ATAK zimmerit sheets against these side plates found that they also attach to the side profile of the armoured front plate. This front plate is not added for a few more steps in the instructions and is first to be attached to the top plate moulding. I didn't really want to add too many smaller parts before having to handle the model, so, ideally I needed to add the armoured plate to the hull tub. Checking that fixing it to the hull tub instead would not disturb the build sequencing or impede any other parts placement, I found it is possible, but only if the lower glacis plate is fixed in place at the same time. Two glacis plate options are offered. One with moulded on front track guards and one without, so you can add PE track guards with the option of folding them back or adding damage etc.  

As I was going to represent a vehicle with zimmerit applied to the front armoured plate, glacis, and bow plate, I could now attach all these parts and the zimmerit sheets at the same time. The hull side zimmerit sheets have a myriad of small square witness holes to open up to fit around moulded on track guard mounting studs and cable fixings. Once these are opened up with a sharp blade the zimmerit fits really well. Likewise, both front and rear sheets also mated up nicely. There is the inevitable small amount of tidy up to do where the sheets meet, but overall I'm happy with the way it's looking.

Tiger I Dragon 6253 Late production Chapter 3: Construction

Previous chapter 

 

The first step before construction can commence is to decipher the infamous Dragon instructions. Credit is due to them as they clearly break down the various differences and options for each of the three variants at each build step, but I still double checked that these were correctly picked out and made additional notes from the David Byrden website. The instructions are as expected, ahem....extremely busy, but TBH, apart from very few dubious and ambiguous placement of parts the instructions are generaly pretty good. Having the three variant options on many of the steps makes it look far worse than it actually is. I simply highlighted the parts required wherever a choice appeared to keep me on track. There are a few parts mis-labelled, but these are mainly on mirrored parts and are easy to spot.

The first few steps build up the running gear. The lower hull tub is a one-piece affair to which you first add the front tow hook extensions, torsion bars, wheels, and rear plate. To take advantage of the adjustable torsion bar engineering you simply guide them through the hull and fix them into the curved grooved slots in small fixings added to the opposite side. This system allows the torsion bar axle ends to then compress and rebound as they would do on the real vehicle. 

Kit constuction curtailed

05 June 2024

Over the last 12months or so I seemed to have slowly been developing a very worrying and most annoying allergy. I'm branding it GluFlu! 

 

Sadly, it appears that the cumulative effect of continuous exposure has now meant I literally cannot currently spend any time in the vicinity of an open pot of adhesive, even with a mask on, without succumbing 12hrs later to one or even two days of really bad flu-like symptoms!   So, I’m having to take a step back from any type of construction work!  Hopefully not indefinitely! 

 

This all started after switching to both white and green top Tamiya adhesives a couple of years ago. I think the catalyst might have been due to one spillage in particular and even though the mancave was thoroughly aired out and the cutting mat replaced, my nasal mucus membranes must have taken a huge hit, and I think subsequent and regular exposure has triggered progressively worse nasty flu like episodes. 

 

Thankfully I can still airbrush (always with a mask), brush paint with acrylics, weather with enamels etc, without issue, so, it’s just painting, weathering and finishing projects for me for the foreseeable future. I'm really fortunate that I'm such a glacially slow project finisher and still have way too many queens of the shelf 🥴

 

Tiger I Dragon 6253 Late production Chapter 2: Choosing a vehicle to build

Previous chapter

Knowing very little about the production history of these big cats I’ve turned to the David Byrden website. As mentioned above, for this kit David adds a few pointers on how to solve a few instruction discrepancies, some recommendations to modify a few small parts,  and advice on how to add some small missing features. Apart from adding the zimmerit, its pretty much all that is required.