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Dragon does it to me AGAIN!


RickC5

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Either I just have extremely bad luck with my Dragon model purchases, or Dragon's Quality Control is continuing to slide downhill. Grrrrr..... :smiley13:

 

Yesterday I received a new kit purchased off eBay. Dragon # 6104--8.8cm Panzerschreck Infanteriekarren--a horse, five German troops, two small carts. The kit was still sealed in the plastic wrap and had a price tag on it from a Hobby Town shop. Brand new--never opened!

 

BUT, once again the instructions are incomplete. One sheet, tri-folded, printed on one side, but totally BLANK on the back side. So I have instructions on building the horse and 1/2 of the cart(s), but nothing on completing the carts or assembling the soldiers. Not a major issue for me, but WHAT THE HECK is going on at Dragon? Doesn't anyone check this stuff? :smiley6:

 

I also recently built a Dragon Bergepanzerwagen IV, and once again (just like the Dragon Wirbelwind) the instructions are a mess. Many parts never called out, others which only show up in the drawings, and some totally illogical build steps--like installing the tracks only after all the rest of the model has been completed. I realize some builders wish to keep the tracks off until after they have been painted/weathered, but IMHO, it sure is MUCH easier to install the tracks once the lower hull/drive train has been built rather than wait until all the little easily broken bits and the fenders/upper hull have been added. The final assembled kit looks great, but maybe because I now understand how to build a Dragon kit with incomplete & frustrating instructions.

 

I figured out what they are and where they go, but does anyone else know why parts P12, P13 & P14 are in these kits? :smiley25: These are unique to the late Panzer IV kits (hulls) and really add some nice detail. There's even a set of them in the PE fret (also not called out in the instructions).

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Not sure what happen to this kit you received, But IMO Dragon is known for leaving off parts in the instructions. I am currently building a Dragon German Halftrack and sure enough I have found several mistakes in the instructions. Had a major part that went inside the fighting compartment that was left off in the instruction. Figured out where it went about five steps later.

 

The Dragon kits are nice and come with a lot of extra stuff. So much so that I believe the forget things in the instruction because of it. I still like the Dragon kits, but I will take a good ol Tamiya kit anyday.

 

Mark has a good link there that should help. Good luck.

 

Chris

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Rick,

 

Sorry about that but I hope this helps!

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10076666

 

Hey Mark! WOW! Thanks for the link. I was able to easily print the 3 missing pages I needed (out of 5 pages). I'm sure I could have muddled along without them, but it's nice to know in advance what/how Dragon intended this kit to go together. I added that shop to my favorites list.

 

I think I'm developing a thing for these German handcarts as I now have six of them. Two from an old Ironside kit, two from the Bronco kit I mentioned a couple of weeks ago and now these two. Interesting to note that the Dragon version is the simplest to build, with no tread (?) on the tires and the least amount of detail. I actually saw one of these carts at a military museum in St. Petersburg, FL this last January. It still had its original yellow paint and was in very good condition and the tires had tread.

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Not sure what happen to this kit you received, But IMO Dragon is known for leaving off parts in the instructions. I am currently building a Dragon German Halftrack and sure enough I have found several mistakes in the instructions. Had a major part that went inside the fighting compartment that was left off in the instruction. Figured out where it went about five steps later.

 

The Dragon kits are nice and come with a lot of extra stuff. So much so that I believe the forget things in the instruction because of it. I still like the Dragon kits, but I will take a good ol Tamiya kit anyday.

 

Mark has a good link there that should help. Good luck.

 

Chris

 

Hi Chris,

 

I really do like Dragon kits for the detail and lack of pin marks, plus they seem to do lots of research on each model. Obviously it must be easier for Dragon to simply toss in a complete spue of parts when the kit sometimes only needs 3 or 4 parts off that sprue than it would be to make a new sprue or trim off the excess/unused parts. This sure gives us modelers lots of extras for the parts bins. But, when kits cost upwards of $50-75 these days, it becomes harder and harder to justify spending that much money on kits that you just KNOW will have terrible instructions. Dragon needs to take that "next step" and get the instructions right! The glossy "photo" instructions were an interesting deviation for awhile, but were likely too expensive to print and perhaps were not as easy to cut & paste like the blue & black drawings we are now seeing that are full of errors.

 

If you ever build the Dragon Wirbelwind (#6540), you will eventually discover that the turret ring for the upper hull, part # D-22, should be installed at Step 11, but it mysteriously shows up in the Step 21 drawing without ever being called out anywhere. The turret for the quad 20mm won't sit correctly without the ring in place. Bizarre.....

 

Rick

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