Wasn't a good holiday with the wife getting out of the hospital on the day before Thanksgiving then returning to the hospital two days later. I didn't get as much done as I wanted to, but I did get a little bit completed.
One thing I noticed as I started working is that the Dragon instructions have you building a few parts out of a hand full of smaller parts that they don't tell you where it goes later on, or it doesn't go on the kit at all. I'll have to look at more resources and determine if the parts are actually used and if so, which version of the tank they were used on.
Another thing I noticed, that I don't recall from the previous Dragon builds are missing "optional" signs for parts. Perfect example in this build is the optical cover on the driver side.
Part C13 almost seems optional. Looking at a handful of resource image, the larger cover C36 is flush with the hull it's connected to. The part does fit into the pre-drilled holes, however, the cover doesn't fit over the C13 part as they are the same thickness and width. If they are glued together, then the cover doesn't sit over the optical lens under it and leaves a major gap that doesn't exist on the real tanks I saw in resource images.
As you can see from this angle, the cover is flush. I also blue tacked the driver figure into place to see how the door will fit. There's very little room by default to open it more the way the hinges are designed.
The other thing that struck me as od, but again, i'm still new to building armor, was the inclusion of the internal fans.
Granted the way it was designed, the frame boxes are what the rear of the hull connected to, but when the rest of the kit is built, you have no way of seeing these. So my thought of having two different fan units based of resource images really don't matter at this point.
With the read of the hull glued into place, I noticed a nick that will need to have some putty work done to it before paint.
If it's not confusing enough, for me at least, with all the different versions, it's that each version seems to have it's own modifications. For example, a few image photos as well as some diagrams show two different versions of the Late G exhausts. One has just an exhaust cover the other the fire traps.
Based on this diagram, the fire traps were the final model specs. The kit only included the the fire traps. However, it did include two separate muffler designs. One is a cast muffler the other is the welded muffler. I opted for the welded design, since that is what I see in most photos. Same with the fire traps, that's what I see most in all the resource images.
The other thing that kind of bugs me about the kit, and I will get over it, is the inclusion of some extra parts that aren't used like the massive rear hull door. But lack of extra parts like having four opened vent covers instead of just two.
When looking at both actual tank images as well as diagrams, the four vent covers are all opened. However, the kit only included two open vent covers and two closed. So now I need to decide which vents to use them on and if I want to use just the PE screen or go with closed vents on the other two.
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| The hatch door came in a set of two, but only one is needed. There are no mold changes between the two. |
If I had a 3D printer, I would probably just printout two more open covers. Also, as mentioned earlier, once you get the hull into place with all the parts, you can't see the internal fans.
