¹⁄35

DML Sd.Kfz.251/16 Flammpanzerwagen

Stages 7 & 8

The first thing to do was choose which of the seat options to use. There is a choice between early seats with plain back, late seats with moulded spring detail, and plain backs with photo-etched spring detail. Adding the photo-etched detail here is quite fiddly, and very little is easily visible on the finished model. With this in mind I decided to use the more detailed seats with the moulded spring detail, saving the Photo-etch for a different project later. The same could really be said for the dash. Dragon provide a lovely set of stickers for the dials on this, but bearing in mind the difficulty of removing the moulded on detail first, and the amount that is actually visible on the finished model, I decided to leave them off and paint the moulded dials later. The representation of the pedals in these 251 kits leaves a lot to be desired. They are over-simplified, and do not locate exactly, but again, given that they are barely visible on the completed model I suppose they are acceptable. Don’t forget to open up the holes for the fuel tank assembly and the rifle rack! Dragon makes no mention of this in the instructions, and if you decide to leave them off until later, it will be too late once the floor is fixed in position. A word of caution on fixing the floor. It locates quite well onto the pins from the hull base, but can move from side to side. If it is not fixed exactly central, the hull sides will be almost impossible to fit properly later, as they actually slide in-between the floor and the base.