Jason,

I meant to comment on this build earlier, but this is some beautiful work.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how it all comes together.

Thanks for the detailed build account and photos.

The miscellaneous photoetched parts were all worked on next, including the metal shutters, the metal floor plates, and the doors.

The shutters are included in the Eduard kit but frankly they’re terrible. They’re way too thin, have terrible photoetched-in hinges, and frankly, the less said about them the better. Dealing with the pin marks and excessive thickness of the plastic Tamiya parts would be better. Heck, even not dealing with that would be better.

Royal models comes to the rescue here, with a nice set of shutters that are etched in thick brass, making them much more realistic. The vision ports are also made up of several parts, giving them the correct thickness as well. The only problem with them is the hinges. While Royal models did try to make separate etched hinges, they are just stacks of flat plates and not like the folded, operational hinges of most sets these days.

So in an attempt to find suitable, 3-dimensional replacement hinges I looked online and the only ones would sold separate hinges was Aber, who makes 3 sets of them. Not sure about the sizes, I ordered all three sets. Imagine my joy when only one set contains the correct 4-pin hinges, and they’re entirely the wrong size. There goes about 35 bucks I’ll never see again.

I was about to just say screw it and make the hinges out of plastic rod when I noticed someone’s M16 half-track build which had Lion Roar photoetch on it, and what looked like 4-pronged hinges for the hood. I got pretty excited because I have the Dragon M3GMC kit and the lion roar photoetch to go with it, which I plan to get to one of these days. I tore open the box to find… the hinges were too small.

Just when all hope was lost I noticed the M3 GMC set also included a replacement floor pan you can use to display the M3 GMC-specific floor storage bins open. And with those bins came hinges… of exactly the right size. They measured perfectly, and were four pronged as well! And there were 15 of them! Happy day!

Sadly if you count the hinges on the Dragon wagon, including the armored shutters for the radiator and then 3 hinges for each door you’ll notice you need 30 hinges to complete the entire dragon wagon. Thankfully Lion Roar sells the M3 GMC floor stowage compartment set separately for about 10 bucks, so I ordered a second and away I went. Be aware though, these hinges are an enormous pain in the ass to build. Because they’re four pronged, they are much more sensitive to alignment issues than the standard 3 prong kind, and are also more delicate. But with a lot of time and patience, I got them applied.





Also visible in these images are the Tamiya doors. I wanted to have at least one door open to show off the interior I spent so much time on. But there’s just one problem with that: The doors are supposed to be the same thickness as the shutters. Replacing those with photoetch left the door looking almost 3 times too thick. And to compound the issue, no photoetch set includes replacement doors. The Tamiya doors also include the interior and exterior handles molded in. Royal models includes replacements for the exterior handles, but for some reason I simply can not fathom, they didn’t include the identical pair for the interior!

To correct all of this, I took the Tamiya doors, sanded off all of the exterior detail (which was just a strip at the bottom, the molded on handle to be replaced anyway, and the molded on hinges to be replaced anyway) and then sanding it down slowly over fine sandpaper until my calipers told me it was the exact same thickness as the brass shutters. I then added back all of the exterior detail using the Royal models set, the hinges, and a strip of brass.

After all of this work I realized that the interior of the doors was missing a lot of detail too. On the right hand side door is a map holder that’s entirely missing in the kit, and the locking rods are molded into the kit. These actually don’t look to bad, but the handle is in the wrong position and removing it to correct that is almost guaranteed to destroy the rods anyway, so they were replaced with brass. The lock parts themselves were added using tiny strips of plastic, and the interior handle was scratchbuilt entirely using brass sheet since Royal models didn’t include it. This was a pain to do, as the part is smaller than a grain of rice. For reference, it should look like the exterior one.

I also added an L-shaped piece of brass along the top edge of the door, which acts as a rain guard or shutter support I think, and also isn’t in either the kit or the photoetch sets.

And yes, I’m aware the brass wire on the doors is a little bent, it got that way when I attached them to the Styrofoam for painting. I’ll straighten them out later on.

While I’m not overjoyed with Eduard’s sets in general, there are a few things they did right that others have missed. The heat shields that cover the muffler are made up of two pieces of metal with a gap in between them. Eduard includes both of these metal shields, while the kit and the Royal models set just includes the one. This is a visible detail on the finished model, so its worth using. Sadly they didn’t include the angled strip to mount it to the muffler straps, so I added them from an L-shaped piece of scrap brass soldered in place.



I don’t actually know what sets the space between those two plates apart, so I just added two disks of 0.010 sheet styrene to the exterior heat shield. When the interior and exterior shields are glued together this won’t be seen at all, but it will create the needed gap.

Eduard also got the winch shield correct, with the appropriate mounting hardware, so it was soldered together, to be painted and added later. They also have the exterior floor plates that go on the chassis rails (the one with the hole in the center is entirely missing from the Tamiya kit) so this is a welcome addition. Unfortunately the one they provide with the tread pattern on it is way too big. From what I can tell it’s designed for a Dragon Wagon which doesn’t pull a trailer and is only used for recovery, as in if you use it you can’t properly lower the A-frame. So I cut it to the correct size.

Just for the heck of it I assembled the Eduard tire tongs, which actually look really nice compared with the Tamiya ones.

Exterior painting time!

I apologize for accidentally skipping taking pictures of the primed model. I primed it using Mr Surfacer 1000 diluted three-fold with Tamiya lacquer thinner. After this dried and began airbrushing the AK-interactive US olive drab color modulation set, using the darker colors for the underside and lower sides, and getting lighter towards the top.

The winch, fifth wheel, and cab+frame were all primed and painted separately, then glued in place.



If you’re wondering how the armored shudders are holding in place to mask off the interior of the cab without the Tamiya tape, I remembered an ingenious solution for this. I added a bit of liquid latex (moldbuilder latex from Michaels crafts shop) around the edges of the plastic Tamiya panels, then put them in place and wiped off any excess. Once the latex hardened the panels held in place, but you can remove them by just pulling them off and the latex just peels off with them and doesn’t damage the underlying paint!

I also used this to mask the spotlights, and front lights, and it didn’t harm the chrome parts.

The oxygen and acetelyene bottles, along with the muffler, were my first attempt at ‘hairspray’ chipping. The local AMPS model club I’m a member of did a little tutorial on how to do that and I decided to try it here. Rather than risk using the wrong hairsrapy, I picked up some AK-interactive chipping fluid and airbrushed that after the basecoat (the basecoat for the bottles wasVallejo german camo black brown, and the base for the muffler was Tamiya hull red, then mottled with some random orange and nato brown.) Once the chipping fluid had dried I airbrushed the same olive drab onto the muffler, and a mix of Tamiya olive drab and olive green onto the bottles. Then a little moistening and some scuffing with a stiff brush and a toothpick, and voila. I’m really quite happy with the results, especially the Oxygen bottles.

Also visible here is the cable added to the winch, which travels from the shifter down the back of the cab.



Here you can just see the tiny loop I added to the winches just in from of the cable spools. This was used to hook on those large springs which wrap around the cable and spool to keep the cable from unspooling.



This image shows the lettering I added to the side of the upper winch, which reads ‘Garwood Detroit’. I added this using Archer Transfers resin decal lettering. I had to add this while the winch was on the model, as I only noticed it later.

It might seem like a lot of work has been done from the last post to this one, but its really only about a day and a half’s worth.

After the basecoat color modulation had dried for 24hours, I applied the decals. Normally I have no issues with decals. I can usually get any decal to snuggle down and look painted on, even over zimmerit. I use the standard future floor wax, microset/microsol technique and it’s never let me down… until now.

The Tamiya decals in this kit are ridiculously thick. No matter what I did, there was still a pronounced ridge where the decal ended. Even if I cut away the excess film, it was still noticeable. I’ll give you an example. On the right side of the above image the winch shield plate has a decal on it that represents the placard normally there with the lever instructions on it. See how it is raised from the surface of the plate like a placard should be? I didn’t do anything to get that effect! That’t just how thick these decals are! They literally make the decals look like bolted on placards!

After discovering this when applying the start decals to the door (and then having to strip the doors and repaint them twice!) I gave up on all of the Tamiya exterior decals except for that winch placard. I replaced them with generic star decals and letters/numbers from the archer transfers 2.5ton GMC set I happened to have around.

Here’s something I realized when doing so. The numbers below the USA lettering, on either side of the cab, came from the GMC set. The original numbering was 7 numbers starting with a 4. After getting these applied and looking great, I was looking over my references again and noticed every single war image of a dragon wagon in operation had a 6 number designation starting with the number 5. Every single one.

Ugh.

So I had to peel off the numbering I had just applied using a brand new x-acto blade, being as careful as I could be to not damage the paint. I had started decaling this model at 9pm at night with the original Tamiya decals, and now it was 4am, and I was gently scrapping off the numbers with an x-acto knife. This is my life, folks. This is my life.

That being said, I managed it! In place of the old 7 number series staring with a 4, I put on a 6 number series of random numbers starting with 5. I also added a star to the front, the roof, one to each door and two small ones to the front bumper. These aren’t to represent a specific vehicle, but more represent the general trends I’ve seen in the operational vehicle images.

Entertainingly, these 2.5ton GMC transfer set also included little names, presumably the soldiers significant others, which came in handy here. I’ve seen at least two different vehicles with names on the armored shutters, so I used the GMC one’s here.

After the decals I brush painted the smaller details, like the side lights, khaki straps and the tools. The tools were initially painted Vallejo natural wood, then given a light coat of Windsor and newton burned umber to simulate the woodgrain. The straps are all lead foil with Aber buckles.





Once all of that was in place a coat of Vallejo semi-gloss was airbrushed on, diluted 50/50 with their airbrush thinner. Unfortunately this rendered a lot of the since, faded and chipped appearance of my oxygen bottles almost invisible. If I could go back in time I’d add the bottles later, after the semi-gloss, but I couldn’t have predicted that once. Maybe I can justify it by saying they look more realist and less beaten up?

Finally Mig productions Allied green filters were applied over the entire model. I used the ‘brown for green vehicles’ along the bottom and lower sides, and the ‘grey for bright green’ and ‘green for bright green’ along the upper parts.

This might seem like a large jump compared to the prior post and the last image, but its actually only maybe 3-4 hours of additional work.

After the filters had been applied, I used the same oil dot method I did on the interior to vary the contrast of the larger top and side cab panels. I used the same yellow ochre, titanium white, and cobalt blue in the centers of the panels, and darker van dyke brown around the exteriors, all blended with white spirits.

Chipping was kept moderate and only added around the edges of the cab, armored shutters, and in other higher wear areas. I tried to use the traditional Vallejo german camo black brown for chips but it proved too light and blended in too much with the olive drab, so straight up Vallejo flat black was used instead. I applied it with a small 000 brush or more usually with a chunk of upholstery foam dipped in the paint with tweezers, blotted almost dry and then just dabbed onto the model.

The streaking was Ak-interactive ‘streaking grime’ and ‘rust streaks’, painted on with a fine tipped brush and then streaked with a wider brush soaked in white spirits.



The mud was done by mixing the AK-interactive enamel colors ‘kursk earth’ ‘fresh mud’, ‘dark mud’ and ‘light mud’ with a bit of plaster. Dipping a paintbrush in the ‘mud’, and passing my airbrush over it and aiming it at that part of the model was used to apply each color. I effectively ‘blew’ the paint off the brush onto the model. I’m not sure how much more I really need to go into this as there are dozens of tutorials from Mig, AK, and others around on it. The important thing is to build it up slowly in layers and keep it realistic to where the mud would actually go.




A second figure, the commander, is an Alpine miniatures figure who went together beautifully and painted up really well. I have to say, while I’m not yet an expert on figure painting, for my 12th figure or so I’m kind of impressed with myself as to how well these guys are painting up. Or maybe it’s just the quality of the Alpine figure…

The 50cal machine gun is a tale all its own and so it gets a post of its own. In fact I currently own over a dozen 1/35th scale 50cal machine available and the quality differences are ridiculous.

I looked carefully at all of the Dragon Wagon images I could find and found something interesting. The ammo container that the Tamiya kit includes, as well as almost every other model out there uses the full size 100 round ammo box. But there isn’t a single WW2 image I’ve seen of a Dragon Wagon using this. Every single image either uses the smaller 50 round square box (with no X’s on the sides) or has it covered with a tarp, and even then, it looks like the smaller ammo box under the tarp. The only images I’ve seen with the larger boxes are the modern restored vehicles or museum ones.

So I needed a square 50round ammo box. In addition, the mount included with the Dragon wagon is also the wrong style. Tamiya includes the D80030 style mount, while the dragon wagon used a D40733-style mount. Details of all types of 50cal mounts can be found here:

http://www.usarmymodels.com/ARTICLES/MG%20Mounts/MGmounts%20page%201.html



So now I needed a machine gun with a different style mount and a 50round ammo container. I had the Dragon, Tamiya, Italeri, Tank resin, K59 early style resin, Aber 50 cal photoetch set, lionroar barrel and photoetch set… surely I could build all of this into a single, proper style machine gun, right?

First I’m going to take a look at all of the options I had, and break it down here a bit to explain why I built mine the way I did:

The one that comes with the Dragon Wagon is…. okay, at best, but once again Tamiya goes stupid on us and plants an injector pin mark right in the middle of the left hand side of the receiver, a place almost impossible to fill without destroying all of the detail on the left hand side. As already stated it’s on the wrong mount and has the wrong ammo box. If I had to guess I’d say Tamiya based this choice off of a restored museum vehicle, or just ignored the differences entirely in favor of reusing the 50cal mold they already had.

The ones from the Dragon M2 halftrack kit are… okay, but nothing to write home about. They’re roughly the same as the Tamiya. They’re also on the wrong mount and with the wrong ammo box for my purpose.

The less said about the Italeri 50cals the better. Just ugh.

The K59 resin early 50cal set is easily the best, finest detail machine gun I’ve ever seen… too bad its somehow a different size from all of the others! The receiver is about 1-1.5mm too thin (width-wise), and thus doesn’t match up with any other mount but its own, which is the wrong style. Now, I can’t say that 1-1.5mm is wrong, per say, in fact it might be correct and all the other ones are wrong, but either way, it means I can’t use it for anything other than in a really early 50cal mount that the Dragon Wagon never used.

The Tank resin 50 cal receiver had a bubble in the thinnest part of the upper receiver (on both copies of the part) making it almost unusuable. Other than that it had pretty good detail! But it includes no mount or ammo box anyway.

The Verlinden one from an M8 greyhound armoured car kit was actually pretty nice, and even had the right style mount, but it was overly thick and desperately needed a barrel replacement. I also wasn’t too keen on the mount, even if it was the correct style, being molded into the machine gun. Still, it’s a pretty good runner up and I came very close to just using it directly.

Furthermore, none of these options had the proper 50round ammo can, and only the aber photoetch set and Verlinden gun had the proper D40733-style mount. Oh, and of course the Eduard dragon wagon exterior photoetch set includes parts for the 50cal, but the mount is all wrong too, somehow a warped variant of a combination of the D80030 and D40733-style and with a useless photoetched replacement of the wrong style ammo container.

At this point I was tearing my hair out when I stumbled onto the Tasca/Asuka models early model 50cal kit. It was out of production but I managed to snag one from an online hong kong retailer off of ebay. It had X’s on the square ammo bin but a quick few swipes of a file got rid of those. I replaced the barrel, barrel-changing handle, trigger, and rear sight with the lionroar brass replacements, added the tiny chains holding the mounting pins from the K59 set (but any tiny photoetch chain should work here) and voila, a detailed 50 cal using the correct mount and ammo bin in accordance with my references.





Honestly, the Tasca 50cal impressed me a great detail, even compared to the other resin alternatives. Sure, it could use some photoetch for the rear sight and trigger, and I did thin down the mount a little, but other than that it was perfect. If you see one of these around, get it!

The last post completes the cab until it can be installed on the diorama, so.... Trailer time!

Here I really need to commend the Tamiya kit. The trailer is really well done and only needs a few additional details to make it truly accurate. I had almost no issues putting it together, other than a ton of pin marks on the undersides of many parts, some of which might be visible on the finished model.

The big omission on the trailer is the complete lack of the braking system for each of the wheels. This had to be scratchbuilt from styrene rod and strip, as per the references in the technical manual.



In addition, the wiring and air tubing from the front of the trailer going back to the wheels is entirely missing. This was added using 0.040 inch lead wire as per the references. Both the technical manual, tankograd in detail book, and Toadman’s walkaround were very useful in this. The only thing to watch out for is that a lot of the images online aren’t of the M15 trailer, but the M15A1. Thankfully most of the wiring, air hose and brake details remain the same.











The pins on the rear part of the trailer that are to hold down the removable wheel covers for loading and unloading cargo are molded into the upper hull and poorly detailed, in addition to the center pin holders being wrong (they are split into two sides as opposed to being a single set of three holding both pins. These were carved off, sanded down, and replaced with some styrene strip and brass pins, with added photoetched chain.





Finally, the rear loading ramps. These things are a pain. Tamiya split them down the middle in a terrible place, and it makes for a VERY difficult joint to clean up. Thankfully there is a weld which is there normally, some of it will be covered up, but it wasn’t fun. Also be aware that there are four or so pin marks on the inside of the ramps. These ARE visible when you close up the ramps so make sure you fill them before you do. Ask me when I realized this…

I also thinned the edges and support braces as per references, as these were molded too thick.



A brief note about the screws used to assemble the trailer. Tamiya has been pretty clever here in using the holes the tire changing crane can go in at the front and back of the trailer for the screw holes. The problem is that when the screws are in there you can see the ends of them and they fill up most of the hole. What I ended up doing is actually assembling the trailer using the screws, gluing the trailer halves together, and then once set removing the screws. I then drilled out the full depth of the hole using a ¼ inch drill bit and put a circular punch of 0.020 sheet styrene on thew underside to fill the bottom of the hole. The end result is a trailer that’s firmly together, but you can still see the full depth of the holes for the crane, and if I so desired I could actually slide the crane into any of the holes for a tire-changing diorama.

Jason, what I've found for those hard to get at knock out marks is to use Mr. dissolved putty by Mr Hobby (Gunze?) and a fiberglass pen to smooth it out.
Dan

Ah yes... Mr Dissolved Putty. I carry a pot, always.

While I have Mr. Dissolved putty, I generally only use it for very hard to reach areas. For most pin marks I tend to fill them with gap-filling superglue, spray them with accelerator and then sand them down.

Excellent workmanship going into this. I'm loving watching this come together.

Darren,

Glad to hear it!

Just spectacular super-detailed build I have one in my want to build but I did a Maz 537 build I did like you did an someone broke the Maz 537 so I want to build that again then I've had the dragon wagon for awhile now an would use this a a guide when I do the dragon wagon. So I some what understand what happened to you an your wagon wanting to do it again. Looks awesome I especially like how you did the
drive sprocket is just mind blowing.

Happy modeling

Time to paint up the trailer. This was done pretty much the exact same way as with the tractor. I primed with Mr. Surfacer 1000, then pained the base color using AK-interactive’s allied green color modulation set.



Once this had dried I sprayed on a satin coat and then on went the filters, just as before. Here you can really see the ‘bright green for light green’ Mig filter at work. It may look overly green right now, but it will tone down a lot with weathering (sometimes to the point of me wondering why I bothered to apply the filter at all!)




Next up is just the application of mud, a brown wash, some streaking grime and some sponge chipping. Some of the loading accessories were added to the front of the trailer, including both ramp skids (They were placed there in the image I'm patterning the diorama off of).







The wood planks in the trailer bed were a bit of a happy accident. I painted them with a combination of Tamiya Buff and Tamiya dark yellow, then applied AK-interactive’s chipping fluid, followed by some of the dark olive drab base color from the color modulation set. My plan was to simply apply water, chip them, and have it look like worn wood. Simple, right?

Unfortunately I must have added too much chipping fluid, because the paint started flaking off in way too large chunks, even using a semi-soft brush, let alone my attempt with tweezers or a toothpick. Now, I’ve done this technique before and it worked, so this was probably just my fault for adding too much chipping fluid or too much water to soften the upper paint layer. Either way, I let it dry and, feeling lazy, I decided to try just airbrushing over it with more paint, as opposed to stripping it completely and starting from scratch. As I began to apply the paint though, I noticed it softened the bright, excessively large chips and made them fade, but not disappear. It actually started looking pretty good…

But I wasn’t satisfied with the rather poor grain the plastic parts had, and had forgotten to scribe some new grain in before painting it. So I took a brass dremel tool brush and began to drag it along the already painted planks, expecting more large chunks of paint to flake off and have to strip and repaint the planks as I had expected to do anyway. But instead the Tamiya base coat held, and the ak-interactive green held enough that it began to look like really nicely weathered woodgrain IMO. Suffice it to say I was shocked. I like the look, I think its pretty well in scale, and it happened completely by accident.

Yet more wheels!

As with the Dragon Wagon tractor, the trailer has a lot of wheels; 8 total, and I’m tossing the spare one in the trailer as well. This means 9 rubber tires which all need their seams removed. Now, I’ve had to do this before in other kits and its one of the reasons I hate vinyl tires, but this kit was easy!

All I had to so was just sand with a fine emery board/sanding stick and the seam vanished like nothing. No need to put it in the dremel tool, no need to put them in the freezer first, just bam, gone. Thank you, Tamiya!

The wheels were painted with the same AK-color modulation set colors as the cab, leaning on the darker side of course, and the tires painted separately with Tamiya Nato Black. This is one area where I wouldn’t even consider using the Vallejo or AK paints, as the rubber tires can flex a little and the Vallejo and AK paints just don’t have the strength to hold up to that kind of abuse as well as the Tamiya paints, IMO.

After this dried overnight I airbrushed a protective Satin coat, this time using the new Tamiya X-35 semi-gloss rather than the Vallejo Satin I used on the tractor. To be honest I didn’t notice much difference, and both protected just as well for later mud/weathering, but I do think the Vallejo Satin had a bit better Satin effect than the Tamiya, which sometimes seemed on the glossier side.



The mud was done using the same ‘mix up some brown colored paint, put it on a paintbrush, then pass air from an airbrush over it to splatter it against the wheel’ effect most people seem to be using these days, and it worked well. I actually got my brown colors from AK-interactive’s ‘heavy mud effects’ kit and ‘mud effects’ sets, and they worked fine, but frankly any old variety of browns will do. I used all four different colors the sets come with, and do find that you do need more than one darkness of brown to get a realistic look, but beyond that any brown, be it enamel, acrylic, etc will probably work just as well.

The final mud step was to mix up some dark brown pigments (also from the AK heavy mud effects’ set with some of their ‘wet effects fluid’ and dab/brush it along the outer part of the tire to simulate wet mud, as though the trailer just passed through a puddle (which in my diorama plans it did). This dried a little more matt then I’d like. You can see the clear color difference, but its not as shiny as expected, so I might go over it a bit with some clear gloss at a later date once the rest of the diorama comes together more.

The spare tire, on the bed, just got some light brown pigments fixed with some white spirits, as it’s an unused spare and thus doesn’t have much other than some dust buildup.


And with that the trailer is finished. It took maybe 1/4th the time the tractor did and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. As per my reference image, this particular trailer didn’t have much in it other than the skids removed and placed on the upper front part, so I only added a few additional pieces. The tire-changing crane in lowered/folded position was added to the bed, as was the crank portion of it. The side bed extensions got a little chipping and some mud to match the rear before being put in the bed, as was the idler pulley carrier.




In the upper front of the trailer had two ground jack boards put in, as well as the tire changing tongs and the crane chain with hook.




My basic idea here was rather than adding tons of crap willy-nilly, to add only what I had in my references or what made sense. Since the trailer had its jacks in place, I added the ground jack boards. Since the trailer had the spare tire around but the reference showed the crane not in the upright position, I figured would likely be folded and tossed in the bed, along with its parts. Since the reference showed the side bed extensions and pulley carrier not in place, I figured they might be in the bed as well. Nothing interferes with the use of the winches or the winch cable path either.

Review and wrap-up time!





When I began this I decided that I would try to keep track of the modifications I made to the kit, as well as the tools used, and give a bit of a breakdown on them for anyone planning on undertaking their own version. I’m going to focus both on what was critical, as well as what, frankly, wasn’t worth the effort. I hope this helps future modelers as they decide what to spend their time and money on in the future.

To start with, the underside of the dragon wagon is simplified in the kit and missing many, many nuts and bolts. It’s also missing a lot of wiring, and even some control linkages. That being said, a lot of the detailing I did here simply is not worth the time. The detail added to the wheel wells, as well as the replacement of the shock absorber attached to the leaf spring and its associated arm is definitely worth it and is highly visible. The added bolts and crossbars in the wheel well are visible too even with the mud added and are worth it, as are the four large bolts added to the bottom of the leaf spring shackles. But most of the wiring, the added bolts on the transmission components, etc, is just about invisible and if I could go back in time I wouldn’t waste my time on it. No one will see it.



Moving to the cab interior, a lot of the effect here was worth it and is visible if the doors/windows are open, but not all. The roof details and most of the wiring/weldseams are almost impossible to see unless looking at the kit from an angle from below it, and with a flashlight. While I’m glad I cleaned up the basic roof piece, a lot of the details like the map holder, the wiring, and the weld seams simply were not worth it.



That being said, the ammo storage containers were definitely worth the time, including adding the decals to the 50 cal ammo bins. While I might have just built it from scratch or used the resin ones from the Royal Models set if I could go back in time; I’d still improve these over the stock kit for certain. The same goes for most of the detail on the rear wall of the cab. Adding the tool chest was also a no brainer. That being said, most of the detail at the front of the cab was a waste. You simply can not see the shelves below the commander’s map desk, which I spent so much time scratchbuilding. You also can’t see any of the wiring on the driver’s steering column with the driver in place. If the figure wasn’t there then it would be worth it, but if you have a driver there, don’t bother. The windshield wiper motors were worth it, as were the wipers themselves, but not the wiring for them.



Moving to the outside, any detail added to the dual winches is worth it, no question. The photoetched chains were a pain to build, but they really do look good and really do enhance it, as do all the other small details I added.



The same goes for most of the cab exterior details, and especially the machine gun. If you do anything to improve your Dragon Wagon, replacing that with a higher quality gun and adding photoetched/3D printed chains for the rear drive and winches will add immeasurably imho. If you plan to add any aftermarket to your kit, this is where to do it.



The armored shutters were a pain but do look a lot better than the stock kit ones, but the hinges weren’t worth the trouble. I had to track down two sets of Griffin models M3 GMC floor stowage box kits just to get enough four-pronged hinges, and most of the fell apart or broke while painting/weathering. They look okay now, but seriously, just use some plastic rod and don’t make them operational. It’s not worth it.



Moving to the trailer, everything added there was worth it, no joke. Its didn’t take much to add the braking system and wiring, and it really is visible.



Now, moving on to what I bought for this kit, and what was worth buying.




The tankograd walk around book, as well as the Ampersand dragon wagon book were worth their weight in gold. Most of the rest of the books didn’t really add much. The technical manual was also definitely worth it. After reading it I swear I could almost build my own 1/1 scale dragon wagon from parts and maintain it!

As for the photoetched sets, the Royal Models sets (both the main one, the armored shutters and the chains) were definitely worth it. They have some issues, no question, but the majority of the parts were good and were used. You might want to try the 3D printed chains first, as they look 100 times easier to assemble, but the Royal models sets did work. They also include the chains for the winch, which I haven’t seen 3D printed versions of yet.





The Eduard exterior set was also worth it surprisingly enough, with enough well done parts to make it worth it. However the Eduard interior set and the Eduard storage compartments set were almost useless and definitely not worth the money. Save your cash on those.



The archer transfers, in particular their resin micro weld seams, were fantastic and really improved the look of a few parts really easily. Those, and pretty much all of the archer transfers I’ve used have been fantastic.



As far as paint and weathering, the AK-interactive stuff I used all worked very well. Is any of it something you can’t make yourself? No. I could have made my own color modulation set by mixing up lightened and darkened Tamiya paints. I could have made my own filters, washes and streaks using white-spirit-thinned enamels and oils. But it all worked well, was easy to use and did give me a good final result, which is all I can ask for. I wanted to try the latest finishing products, I did, and I enjoyed them.

That being said, I’m still not convinced you need to do both the filter and the oil-dot method. They seemed to mostly cancel each other out.

On to the tools which I found critical to this build: To start with, do not try any of this without a good solid, metal photoetch bender. I have an original etchmate from back when they were made of solid metal and it works great, but the new one is plastic and I wouldn’t bother. Get a metal hold-n-fold instead.

Along with that, a good soldering iron is a must. I love my Hakko soldering station, and even though I paid about 150 bucks for it I’d do it again in a second. It heats up fast, has variable temp control, and was critical to this build. I used to barely be able to solder anything, let alone tiny photoetched parts. Thanks to it I now prefer soldering to superglue for most photoetch work. But, of course, decent flux is critical too!



Surprisingly enough, a tool I used A LOT more than I expected was my Xuron 450 tweezer-nose pliers. Even with the photoetch bender, I still reach for these when straightening a bend part, holding a tiny part, etc etc. Once again, worth their weight in gold to me.



As for punches and dies, I have a Waldron submicro punch as well as UMM-USA punch and die set (yes, both, I know, its excessive). To be honest the UMM-USA one is much, much better. It’s very solid, it goes down to 0.6mm, and it punches well. Best of all, its only 30 bucks. Frankly I think it will outlast me. The Waldron punch set though… ugh. It was almost 5 times the cost, does go down to 0.5mm rather than 0.6mm, but frankly, if I could get my money back I would. It does work, but it’s not at all worth the cost compared to the UMM-USA one and even though I’m careful with it I can already see the smallest punch starting to bend a little. I suspect it won’t last longer than another couple of years or so before at least the smallest punch will be done for. Not happy about that one.



I also have an Iwate HP-C+ airbrush and a Harder and Stenbeck 2in1 infinity airbrush. Both are fantastic, but both are overkill for 1/35th scale modeling and I REALLY don’t need both. I reach for the Iwata most of the time simply because it’s a tiny bit easier to clean (except the nozzle itself!) but frankly both are overkill. A simpler dual action 0.35mm nozzle airbrush by either Badger, Iwata, etc etc will work just as well and save you some cash. That being said, I still do believe an airbrush is critical to a good paint job. I’ve never seen anyone paint a large, full model well just by brush. It can be done, in theory, but its not really worth the effort. Spend some money, get a good airbrush… just not one that’s too costly and too ‘good’!



For paint brushes, get a couple of Windsor/newton Series 7 size 0, and size 00 or 000 and you’re set. They are by far the best brushes I’ve ever used and all I will now use for painting figures in particular. They cost a lot, but are worth it. Seriously.



Every modeler should have Aves Apoxie Sculpt epoxy putty on their desk. It’s a cheap two-part putty that can be smoothed with water, dries in a few hours with no shrinkage and works gloriously. I’ve been modeling for the better part of ten years and can’t believe how well it works. IMO it’s MUCH better than milliput, rolls out really well for making tarps/etc and it, along with gap-filling superglue are almost all I use anymore. Where had you been all my life apoxie Sculpt!? ☺



And finally, the Tamiya kit itself. Overall I liked it even though some areas are simplified. But there are some really boneheaded parts to it as well. Tamiya also needs to learn from Dragon, Meng, Bronco, etc, etc on where and how to handle ejector pin marks. You might claim that this is a 10 year old kit, and they’ve certainly they’ve gotten better, right? No, I’ve seen their Gamma Goat and it still has an ejector pin mark smack dab in the middle of the leaf springs, as well as many more that a large and visible from various angles. Come on Tamiya, this is the 21st century, step up your game! That being said, it is still definitely a highly recommended kit with great potential.



Unfortunately for now that effectively completes the Tamiya Dragon Wagon and trailer as far as I can take it. The other associated vehicles and the base need to be finished before I can link the Dragon Wagon to its trailer, add the right side door, the rear view mirrors, the final figures, etc.

I’ll post a completed image or several once that’s done, but it might take a little while. Until then I do hope you’ve enjoyed this blog and it is of some use to anyone who builds this kit in the future!

Impressive post build comments Jason! What load will you have for the DW?
Dan

Dan,

Here's a hint.



I already have the LCM3 and crane going. I'll do an LCM3 build log next.

So...now it's getting really interesting. BTW it's an excellent built so far. Can't wait to see the following up to see the crane.
Design of the truck is so 'space'. I just love it. Hard to imagine it's been there at that time.

Regards,

RJ

I had the same idea:

Let the games begin.

FREE PARTS: I would hate to pitch quality items such as these - I have TWO (count em two!) unopened Tamiya 1/35th Dragon Wagon armored cab moldings plus a third which is complete but cracked. This is the one piece cab molding that comes in the kit as a separate bagged item. The first two are still sealed in their original bags!

Anyone interested? Free to a good home. A little shipping money would be appreciated but optional.

Mike

Michael,

Thanks for that second pic! I hadn't seen such a large version of it and now I can see those brackets holding the wood in place are welded to the trailer frame. Interesting! I'll have to add those.

Robert,

The LCM is going well and other than the machine gun mounts, is a pretty quick build. The crane though... I wouldn't wish this kit on my worst enemy. The only diesel crawler crane available is the resin and photo etch accurate-amour kit. It's not the identical crane as in the image, but its pretty close. So far no one has been able to ID the exact crane model in the image.

That's a pretty challenge of a crane Jason.
Price is way over my butget, but I'd love to build something like that in the future. Combination of soldering the etchparts and fixing them with the resin is a different story. About 2 years ago I started build on a very nice steamcrane in 1/87 scale. All brass on a workable bogey.
Still needs a final touch. Love those old draglines and harbor stuff.

Regards,

Robert Jan

Robert,

I saved up for the kit for a while and though to myself that it must be an awesome kit to cost that much, even if it might be complex, right?

Entertainingly the crane boom was actually really easy to build and was done in 4 hours.

But the rest.... the suspension is still waiting for 15 parts to be resent to me as they were really cast terribly the first time. The cab interior went fine, but the exterior literally won't fit the interior. I've had to cut off or modify almost every locator tab and rebuild a bunch out of plastic strip to get it to fit. I'm almost done with it but honestly... never again. For the cost of the kit, the quality of the cab exterior is atrocious, as are the instructions. I still have 8 photo etched parts left that aren't even called for the instructions!

I'll finish it, and it should work out okay, but honestly... I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy,