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

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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 the only difference is a MG delete, 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 version's smaller type muzzle brake. 

 

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

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Skipping ahead of fitting the few engine components, I mulled over how best to approach adding the hull zimmerit. The kit 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 first 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 the 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

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The first step before construction can commence is to decipher the infamous Dragon instructions. Credit is due on this occasion as they do 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 shown on many of the steps does make 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 into small fixings on the opposite side. This system allows the torsion bar axle ends to then compress and rebound as they would do on the real vehicle. 

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

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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.

Tiger I Late production (Dragon 6253 1/35) Chapter 1: Whats all the fuss about?

With the 80th D-Day anniversary just around the corner and just the one decade on since I purchased this, I have finaly got round to popping the lid!

What can I say about this kit? Well after 19 years since its release it still looks to be the gold standard for Tiger I kits. Tiger guru David Byrden had a hand with technical advice with this one and his website https://tiger1.info/ is invaluable to anybody who likes to model these big cats. He even has a page dedicated to pointing out both errors and fixes for pretty much every Tiger 1 released to date,

Scrolling down on his webpage to this particular Dragon kit 6253  there are still a few small issues to address. No real cause for concern, just a few little anamolies that David points out and advises how to solve. Looking at all the big box Takom builds on his site, I notice even these current releases still have there issues. Some of which were not present on this kit 19 years ago The one big bonus they have over this Dragon kit, and one that the current crop of Tiger I late kits over the last decade have adopted, is the inclusion of moulded on zimmerit. Although some folks still prefer to make there own or use resin sets, I think the majority of modellers welcome this.