Hi Jason,

Looking at their catalog it's all very promissing. But after reading this at part of their reputation is gone for me.
It's allways a big risk to get a resin kit.

Regards,

Robert Jan

Robert,

Some of their stuff might not be too bad. This kit dates back to 2002/2003 according to the date printed on the photo etch. The reviews for their new stuff is pretty good, so maybe they've improved since?

The kit is buildable, but just barely and I expected a lot better for the money. I suspect this will be my last accurate-armour build for a long time.

This picture was taken in Maastricht, the Netherlands, in case you'ld like to know. My hometown.

Great build by the way. Love your work so far.

Rob,

You're from Maastricht? Awesome!

Maybe you can help me out a bit. Do you know where exactly the image was taken? I'm trying to figure out what colour the water should be. Green? Brown? A mixture of both?

Also do you know if the embankment is concrete or concrete and brick?

Any help would be fantastic. Thanks!

Once again Jason I say, fantastic work!!!

Makes me want to get back onto working my DW but right now I have the hots for super detailing my MAZ-537 late production tractor so that is where I am at right now.

Hi Jason.
I'm not from Maastricht, but I'm Dutch. So a little digging is worth trying.
As far as I know the water you see is not the river Maas.
Used to be a rather clean, but shallow river.

Other possible river/canal options would be:

Option 1

'Zuid Willemsvaart'. A canal running parallel to the river Maas, connecting Maastricht harbor to the big rivers Waal & Rijn.A 'highway river' instead of the shallow and 'meandering old river Maas'.

Option 2

'Koning Albert kanaal'(coming from Belgium connection to Antwerpen.
What I can see, and what I remember the picture is taken at Maastricht Harbor, the west side of Maastricht.
Reason why they had a rather big harbor is historical,
economical and political.
Looking at the picture I see a railway related building on the left side of the crane, telling me it is the harbor location.

Hope this is useful.

RJ

Ok Jason,
I found the same picture on a historical site. It´s the River Maas
The location you see on the picture is called ´Bassin´.
The old River Maas harbor. Background shows some industrial buildings.

regards,

Robert Jan

Robert,

Thanks! That helps me out a lot.

You're welcome.

Robert is correct. The area around the Bassin was Industrial. The Sphinx factory (ceramic factory) was located there. nowadays it is a small inner harbour for small pleasure crafts. you can use google maps and search for "bassin maastricht". The area has changed, and is still changing, a lot since the war.

Jason: The maas river has been brownish with some greenish for as long as i remember. The water flows from Belgium where there was serious pollution by heavy industry, mostly iron/steel works from Liege and surroundings.

Hi Jason,

These pictures come from the same site, I presume is the site where your picture comes from too.

First is taken in front of one of the buildings of the Dutch State Mines Emma located in Brunssum, M26 waiting.
Second is in Voerendaal. Text with the picture is telling us that it's a M36 from The 628th Tank destroyer Battalion



Picture Nr.1 belongs to F. Faro
Picture Nr.2 belongs to B. Savelkoul
Your picture belongs to R. Hageman
Original site WWII in South - Limburg

Regards,

Robert Jan

Robert could you please share this link with us? Thanks

Sure we can.

Site gives a lot of info, which I believe is not all correct, regarding vehicle description and details. But nice pictures.

http://www.ww2insouthlimburg.nl/

Regards,

Robert Jan

Jason,
I saw you did use the resin boltnuts from Archer?
Can you explain how to do that. I don't know the product, but it looks real interesting.

Regards,

RJ

Super collection of photos both before and after liberation! Thanks

The tribute to the liberation forces has allmost become a culturale one in The Netherlands. Limburg is special in this case.
Throughout the years so many historical sites showed up with a WWII remembrance in it. I think every town has one nowadays.

Regards,

RJ

Robert,

I used the Archer resin weld bead set for some of the welds on the A-frame and trailer. Honestly, they are fantastic, and I bought a larger set for doing the LCM3 that I just put on.

They are decals, but rather than ink Archer sprays resin onto the decal paper so they are three dimensional. You then just cut off the amount you need, float them in water for 30 seconds, and apply them like decals. They can be applied directly over plastic, or over primer or paint. Once painted they look like beautiful, raised weld beads.

You can get the same effect with stretched sprue and glue, textured with tweezers (like I used inside the cab), but this is 100x faster, especially for large weld beads and much more consistent. I just did the equivalent of 60+ cm of weld beads on the LCM3 in under 30 minutes. Doing that with stretched sprue would have taken me many hours and wouldn't have looked as even. For tiny welds they aren't worth it, but for anything longer than a couple of centimeters they're great.

If you plan to order any transfers form them, order a small resin sample pack as well. It's relatively cheap and you can see how you like them. I personally love them.

Disclaimer, of course: I have absolutely no association with Archer Transfers other than being a happy customer.

I second Jason's report!

I have not used their raised weld beads but I have used Archer's raised Sherman casing marks and numbers. They work the same way and once they are painted over you can't tell if they were applied to the model or moulded in by the manufacture!

A terrific product.

HI.

Thanks, I'm convinced. Se what my dealer has to offer.

RJ

Really a nice model.
Why not to reproduce this truck



It's the well known 331 Jagdtiger now preserved at Aberdeen Proving Ground.
Tamiya makes this tank.
Bye
Pierantonio

So now that the Dragon Wagon is almost entirely done, its time to work on its load. That being an LCM3.

Feel free to follow along with my LCM3 adventure!

That JT is not at APG anymore and look at the big jeep tires!
Dan

Amazing build, and thanks for sharing all the info. And the good and bad bits of the kits etc

Thanks! My goal of this whole thread was to show the work and research I did to build an accurate Dragon Wagon so those who read this and build one afterwards will have an easier time and know what's worth doing and what isn't.

I know its been a while but I’ve been making progress on the diorama slowly but surely. The Crane, WC-56 and figures are all done, and the diorama base is being worked on. Hopefully it will all be doe within 2 weeks for AMPS great white north.


Sadly the crane isn’t an exact match for the one in the image, but since I haven’t been able to even identify the model of crane being used, let alone find scale plans of it, I decided to go with a crane with similar lifting capacity and size.

The crane I went with is the only large tracked crane in 1/35th scale, the Accurate Armour RB 17/19. The kit costs quite a bit and frankly, the quality of the casting was not as good as I expected especially for the price.

The detail is all there and looks fantastic when finished, but I had to order 15 replacement parts due to casting issues, replace a few with scratchbuilt items, and lets just say the fit and quality of the cab exterior… well, I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. I had originally planned to try to modify the cab exterior to look like the one in the Maastricht image but quickly realized just getting the kit cab together and fitting properly would be a massive challenge in and of itself! I’m fairly sure about 1/3rd of the cab is made up of solidified superglue.



The WC-56 on the other hand was a joy to build. Even straight out of the box it’s pretty accurate and falls together fast, but add on the Eduard and Part photoeth sets and it really gets detailed.

As per the picture from Maastricht, I added a canvas top from Blast Models. This top… well, the front half of it is accurate at least. The rear part ends in the wrong place and has the wrong sized rear window. Suffice it to say I wasn’t impressed and ended up scratchbuilding a good portion of the rear of the canvas top out of epoxy putty.









While both of the photoetch sets include replacement instrument panels, I decided not to use either one. The Part one is wrong for the WC-56, having only 4 rather than 5 dials (it matches for a WC-51/52 though) while the Eduard one isn’t really an improvement with its flat detail. I used the kit panel and the Archer transfers instruments instead, although you can barely see it with the canvas cover on.

The trunk was shown open with a crate of apples on it, and the soldier I plan to have standing next to the WC-56 will be holding an apple in his hand, as a small little vignette within the diorama. After all, the soldiers hauling an LCM3 deserve a snack, no?

Speaking of figures, there will be 20 of them in this diorama! In addition to the 3 crew in the Dragon Wagon and one in the RB 17/19, there will be 16 or so just milling about watching or directing.

They are mixtures of Alpine minatures, Dragon, Miniart, Legend productions, Tamiya, and pretty much any other US troops that looked similar to the ones in the original photo.






The figure on the left is the one holding the apple.


The legend productions figures, while decently detailed, are significantly shorter than the rest. I’ve not 100% sure I’ll use them due to this, but then of course, I’m sure there were short people in the army in WW2.

And finally an image of the diorama base I put together to hold it all. This thing is going to be huge! It’s about 42 inches long by 22 wide!



Next post will hopefully be one of the last, with the diorama base complete or at least getting there. I have a little over two weeks until AMPS great white north. Wish me luck!