Dragon Models Tiger II - Part I

After all the frustrations of the last projects, I needed a change of theme. I then remembered that the title of this blog does actually also mention armor and it's been a while since I've built anything from that genre.

Selection of this particular model was completely random, although I have to admit that it was something of an internal joke for me; the topic is in my opinion slightly overdone and usually I can't help but smile sardonically when I see all these German big cats in magazines and at C4 Open. Personally I never built a  Tiger or a Panther in my life, so that would be a new experience.

Another first consisted of the fact that this particular model comes from Dragon. In my teens, tanks have actually been the main output of my modelling, but they all came from Airfix, Hasegawa, Revell, ESCI... All nice models, but the their quality cannot be compared with this one. Zimmerit out of the box, photo-etched parts... stuff like that was simply unheard of in this scale some 20 years ago.

My positive first impression quickly turned into frustration as I proceeded into the build. The first negative surprise appeared when I discovered that the mud guards were at least a centimeter too long for the undercarriage of the tank. It seemed that a mistake has been made during packaging of the kit and a sprue intended for Jagdtiger II was put into the box by mistake. I resolved the issue in simplest possible way, albeit not the most 'historically correct' one - I cut away the bits that stuck out.

The next mishap was self-created. The wheels of this kit present the main challenge - there is over 50 of them. I dutifully primed them, sprayed them with dunkelgelb and finally in a painstakingly slow process painted the rubber rims without removing them from the sprue. Next I removed them from the sprue and had to correct all the damage to the paint job. Then, by pure coincidence, I found out that Tiger II had steel wheels without any rubber rims. Another correction. And finally, as I put the wheels together, it turned out that the fit between the parts was so tight that some of the paint had to be removed for a good fit... yet another corrective paint session was required after that. In total I believe that I spent some fourteen hours on the wheels of this tank. The kicker consists of the fact that they can without any problems be installed on the chassi and painted afterward - perhaps three hours job in total!

Oh well, yet another 'learning experience'! Anyway, that's where I am in the project at the moment. Once the wheels are installed, it's time for some fun time with the airbrush!

Impressive detail of main components.

Those pesky wheels.

Excellent detail  and photo-etched parts do impress.

Wheels finally painted and put together. Turret assembled.
Tracks sprayed with flat black and then painted with a thick wash of
Humbrol Dark Earth require more work for 'natural' look.

By mistake, I fitted the rear end plate without zimmerit-coat to the chassi.
Once I discovered my mistake, it was too late to rectify it.

Close-up of turret.