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Modeller Build Logs
Building the Dragon 1/72 Sd.Kfz. 164 Nashorn |
| By Christopher Wilson | | Started: | Oct 20, 2005 | | Updated: | Dec 26, 2005 |
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Recently Dragon has done a brilliant job in expanding their line of 1/72 armor and giving braille scale fans some of what they want, a range of interesting subjects with increasingly impressive detail at a very reasonable price.
However, some of this comes at a cost. We still have vague instructions and one piece tracks when most braille scale modelers will tell you straight away what we want is link and length tracks.
I've watched Dragon's new kits steadily increase in quality from the coldly received Model 1940 T-34 through the Late model StuG IV.
This is my first look at Dragon's Nashorn. I've seen some controversy online in various forums as to the accuracy and buildability of the this kit.
The purpose of this blog will be to build the Dragon Nashorn as close to OOB as possible while pointing out any errors I find along the way. These include error in instructions and accuracy of the kit as well as fit of parts.
I plan to concentrate most on the buildability and what's in the box. There may be some accuracy issues that get overlooked and please feel free to point them out to me, I am no expert on the Nashorn and will not pretend to be. I will use my references to the best of my ability and point out what I find as I go through the steps of building this kit.
So let's build a 1/72 Nashorn.
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| Chapter 6 - The Gun Part 1 | Nov 15, 2005 |
Today I started with step 3 and mainly the subset that makes up the rear main assembly of the gun. This consists of 13 parts, most of which have seams to clean up. When finished these areas will be quite visible on the model.
In my kit parts F4 and F5 were warped, but a little hot water fixed that problem. I also found during this process that several clamps were essential in getting things together carefully. I use flat copper clips for this purpose.
There is a lot of cleanup on the smaller parts due to the very large sprue attachement points. The parts themselves are molded fine, it just means you won't be putting this one together in a weekend and it will take a bit of care to get things together. So put those modeling skills to use!
The other thing I noticed were the large amount of injector pin release marks on these small parts. At this stage it is hard to tell what will be seen and what will not so I broke out the Waldron punch set and punched discs the size of the pin marks and glued them in place. IMO this is the easiest and best way to fill hard to get to, shallow release marks.
F31, F22, F13, and F14 make up the cradle assembly and looking at things it really would have been nice for Dragon to mold F13/14 as one piece and definitely F31/22. Perhaps limitations in molding prevent this, but it means a lot of delicate work and much Mr. Surfacer is needed to make all the seams go away.
You will note in my picture of the assembly that the front portion of the cradle where F31/22 are together still requires some seam filling. This should appear as one piece when done.
The instructions were pretty good for the gun assembly thus far, but I stopped at this point to study pictures and try to figure out the assembly steps I'll use next.
Last thing to note, part F23 can be left out for now if you want to show the breech open. I checked and it simply slides into place. I've closed mine, but it was just a personal choice. The part is well detailed and fits quite nice in the finished breech assembly.
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