¹⁄35

D7 Armoured Dozer

Alan, looks really nice. Thank you for showing the build. I wish more of these were available, and in plastic.

Wow!!! Interesting build.Something you don't see very often but I sure wish there were more of,and like Russ said,in plastic and in 1/35.Very nicely done and thanks for sharing, Ron.

I second all those previous comments, especially about availability in plastic. I looked at Historex Agent's site at the kit and by the Google currency converter it is about $188 USD. That's what is so hard about buying resin. When the same money would buy 3 or 4 Dragon offerings, unless it's something truly unique it's hard to justufy. I suppose ultimately it's all in what you like and what it's worth to you. The resin M543A2 5 ton wrecker model I bought wasn't exactly cheap either, but it was the only such kit available and having operated one I wanted a model of it. A subject I have whined about before was the lack of models of early SPGs which were essentially bulldozers fitted with cannon on a platform. While I don't believe the D7 was used as such I canlook at this Cat and easily visualize such a kit based on a Russian or other European make of tractor! Ah well, a guy has to dream, no? Maybe some day I'll become wealthy and start a model company to fill the gap between the wars... Early proto SPGs aside, it would be nice to have an affordable period correct dozer as an alternative load for the Tamiya Dragon Wagon! The engine detail looks especially amazing as does the entire build! It proves a vehicle doesn't need to be bristling with guns to look menacing and exude brute strength! Thanks for sharing this, Alan!

Hi Russ, Ron and Jim, Thanks for looking in guys and the comments. Yes, one of these in plastic would be very cool, didn't Tamiya do a 1/48 job? Who knows if they might upgrade that. Jim, price is alwasy an issue when modelling . I bough this about 4 years ago and if I remember correctly it came in around the £70.00 at the time. It's a very detailed kit and not for the faint hearted, it took me over a year to build and I thought it had beaten me when I got to the wheels/tracks and put it too one side for some time. The engine is terrific, I added some additional detailing, some missing handles and some plumbing from reference pics Paul Raines supplied me with. It's a very unforgiving kit, being highly engineered you have to fit things exactly of the next bit won't play , but patience, (a bit of brute force!!), got it build in the end. On the price side I think you pay for what you get, this isn't cheap by anyones standards, but like a lot of resin kits you get real quality. When I went down the Commonwealth route I kinda new sooner of later I'd have to build resin as much of what interests me insn't available in plastic. So it's a trade off, what you want to build against what you think the value of the kit is worth to you. There are resin kits I'd like but simply won't buy as I can't honestly justify the cost, but there are some I'll save for as a one off because the urge to try and build them is too strong . Al