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Building the Dragon 25pdr w/ Trailer

25 pdr Gun

Step 1

This stage builds up the gun carriage and is quite busy. The instructions here are accurate and correctly numbered if not always perfectly clear. Take note of the correct position of the braking system and how it attaches to the brake drums.

I started by assembling the gun carriage (“coffin”) and the axle followed by the wheels, remembering to note the wheel eyes, as they must hang down when attached to the carriage. I didn’t encounter any issues with the fit of the parts, though the instructions aren’t completely clear as to where to attach some items, and there is a lack of moulded connection points provided that could have been used to aid assembly. That said the carriage did go together fairly well and no imperfections were found in visible locations.

For those who like their models flawless, I recommend that the seam on the underside of the carriage near the spade is filled, taking care when sanding to avoid destroying the fine seam and bolt detail around the inner edge. One issue I encountered is that the two handles which activate the chains that hold the ground plate in position when in travel mode, are not in the correct position for the gun in firing mode; the only way for the manufacturer to overcome this would have been to supply alternate handles, along with, perhaps, photo etched chains for them. Also in this area of the model, the rivet detail securing the handle brackets is completely missing.

The gunner’s seat requires some careful cleaning up as there is a mould seam running across the top of it which needs to be completely removed. It should be mentioned that while the seat is in reality made of wood, on a real gun there is no grain visible as it is totally smoothed out and hidden by the paint. The mould seam here needs to be removed at the point where it attaches, or it will be difficult to obtain a clean join.

An area that I like is the hand spike releasing foot levers which really look the part and are accurately placed on the model. There is a “but” here though, and that is again the lack of an indicated connection point; they should be placed on the top edge, and a photo is included here to illustrate this. I should mention that at this stage the tools have been left off the gun and will be added later.