If there is one important tank, that I have never built, it is Tiger. Given that I have been building models for the past almost 15 years, it surprises me that I never got to finish a Tiger. I have tried and one of those attempts was sitting on my shelf for quite a few months (maybe years?) now. Recently it fell victim to my effort to reduce the number of shelf queens.
The model is from Dragon, or rather their cyber-hobby brand and depicts early version of the tank from the time of Battle of Kursk or shortly afterwards.
The quality is what one would expect from Dragon. Nice molding and very good level of detail, (with some exceptions) very good fit of the parts. In my effort to finish the model, I have decided to avoid going too much into photo etch aftermarket parts, but at the end some of them found their way on the model. AS with most of the Dragon’s models, the one challenging aspect of construction is trying to decipher the instructions. One particular part of the kit, where Dragon absolutely dropped the ball was the mounting of the idler wheels. As far as I found out, the parts for the mounts are completely incompatible with the lower hull tub. Simply there is nothing in the instructions and the parts are simply not fitting at all. At the end, I have been able to mount the idler wheels relatively OK, but it is too big mistake to make in such a model.
Interesting aspect of the kit design is that the road wheels are molded in set of four wheels connected by plastic ribs, as can be seen on the pictures. Orthodox model builders can remove these if they want, but otherwise it is not unreasonable idea, given that it helps to align the wheels better and the connecting parts are completely hidden once you attach all the wheels and mount the tracks.
From the wide range of the available aftermarket parts, I have decided to use the Friul tracks, I think they are great in terms of detail and they fit perfectly. Also the barrel was replaced with aluminium one.
Now with everything in place I am happy to be able to move on to painting.