Now this is typical really, I have recently received the dragon Black Label Saladin for a build review and low and behold like a London bus you wait for ages and then all of a sudden 3 turn up at once LOL.

The Black Label collection from Dragon already offers a tantalizing range of novel model kits. The latest item is another subject designed to titillate – a 1/35 scale replica of the Alvis Saladin Mk.II FV601(C) armored car. Bearing similarities with the Saracen armored personnel carrier, this 6x6 armored vehicle was widely used by the British Army from 1958 onwards, as well as by many other militaries. Production ended in 1972, by which time 1,177 examples had been manufactured. The 11.6-tonne Saladin featured a turret mounting a 76mm L5A1 gun and a coaxial M1919A4 machine gun, and it was operated by a crew of three. A Rolls-Royce B80 Mk.6A engine powered the vehicle to a top speed of 72km/h. Saladin's were widely used in Oman during the Dhofar conflict rom 1972-76, as well as in Cyprus (1970s), the defence of Kuwait (1990) and the Sri Lankan Civil War. In British service the Saladin was eventually replaced by the Scorpion CVR(T).
(Extract taken from the dragon website)

Firstly the details of the kit
The Black Label Saladin MK2 no 3554
I've had a look around and they are retailing from around £40 to £45 in the UK depending on where you shop, so its not the cheapest bang for your buck but yet not the most expensive either

I will mention here at the start I am not a rivet counter but even so I am aware from a number of people there are a number of inconsistencies with the kit a big one being with the complete lack of interior detail on the hatches, there is a good article on here currently comparing the accuracy issues with the DML kit V's the Accurate Armour kit
Comparison build of AA V's DML Saladin.

Also there are also some additional builds of this for those that like some variety
Magnus's Saladin Build.
A modified Saladin Build.
there is also a nice build of the Saladin in Model Military International

I am going to be building this mostly OOB, so I can attempt to go over how it goes together and try and pass along any issues, stumbling blocks and general brick walls with the kit.

So here goes
the box art is the usual nice in action shot but will lead you astray a bit with the kit (it shows a tow rope, barrel cover and top mounted machine gun all of which are not included in the kit)


In the box you get
A fold out set of instructions, 6 Poly bags containing a total of 237 parts spread across 4 sprue's of grey plastic, the upper and lower body, the turret , a clear sprue with the lenses, the decal sheet, 6 rubber wheels and a single piece of PE.





The parts are moulded nicely and the details are very crisp, there is a good amount of clean up required for seam lines and some very annoying attachment points, it would be also good at this point to mention that a lot of these are on the vast amount of very small parts that will happily feed your hungry carpet monster so it would be a good idea to be aware of this.






The rubber wheels are moulded out of the same DS rubber they use for their tracks they aren't as crisp as you would expect them to be and in my opinion should have just been moulded out plastic like the rest of the kit, which would have made them a lot more appealing.




The Instructions are the usual fold out sheet with clear diagrams but say compared to instructions you get in the other kits (Meng for example) they look like something you get in the older Ikea flat pack kits, but they do the job which is the main thing at the end of the day.






First impressions from just getting this kit out of the box, it seems to be an aftermarket company's wet dream.

More progress to follow......

THE BUILD

Step One
Three parts are being added to the back end of the upper hull, one part that fits on to the back (be gentle here as it needs to go under two hooks that are molded on and can easily break off if your not careful). and the other two are tools which in my opinion should be left for later when you have the fenders on, these are parts A23 and A24.


This is where the tools go but will get in the way.

Step Two
This shows some more tools being added which again should be left until later along with some wiring that connects to the fenders once they are on, so again leave these, the parts i would leave here are A5, A22, A44 and A46 just looking at these parts shows how many small components are going on to this vehicale, this step also adds the rear engine hatches to start off with i will let you know alot of the parts of this kit have multiple attachment points and most of them you just cant clip off easily, so clean up takes a bit longer than you are expecting it to be, the hatches have a attachment point where you need to leave a lip that runs around the top of the hatch so be careful again here i ended up using my trusty modeling chisel to remove and reshape here and also on the back end of the upper hull.


Note the lip at the top.

Step Three
In this step we are adding the front hatch and front armour panel they say you can have the hatch open or closed but with the lack of detail on the back of the hatch and internal detail i would just leave it closed if i were you, now for the front armour panel they ant it glued onto the front of the upper hull but this should be left until step four as you attach the lower hull and this gives you more stability when putting it on, I am starting to realise that the kits instructions are not in the best order they could have been, they seem to be making it overly complex for the general modeller

Step Four
we attach the lower hull to the top hull here which make adding the front armor nice and easy now, there is also part of the Steering here that you shouldnt glue in, as it just slots in and will swing freely the upper hull had bent a little so i taped it down to make it flush while the glue dried


the arrows are pointing to te nice big gap and two awkward attachment points that i had to remove.



I'll post the next few steps when i get a chance tomorrow as i still need to get the photos off the camera.

Sorry folks due to my pc dying a horrible death I have yet to get the next stage of this build updated, I hope to be back on track in the next day or so with alot of progress to show you.

Neil the picture under step 4 showing the rear with the red arrows, are those marks as noticeable to the naked eye?

Darren those marks were of my own making unfortunately, they were caused when I was removing some of the horrible attachment points that plague the parts of this kit, they look worse than they actually are, saying that they have all but disappeared since the primer was added only a very slight small nick is visable but you need to squint to see that hence why I missed it.
oh and just noticed I made a mistake in that section where I said I removed 2 attachment points on the rear it was actually 3 which can be seen in the earlier photos.

Right Folks new PC so new progress (Sorry for the delay)

Step Five, Six And Seven

The following 3 steps in the instructions involve the lovely looking suspension on the Saladin and have been one of the most longest and soul destroying clean up sessions i have ever done, seam lines, tiny parts and instructions that will make you swear at times, all in all the following steps took about 4 hours on and off to clean up and attach.
when my PC died I lost most of the build shots of the suspension going together and i didnt save them on the camera a mistake i now have learnt so the following photos are when the suspension had been finished but anyway lets start.

when you attach parts B27 and B28 make sure you slip part B17 onto them before you glue them in place as you cannot fit them on after, the istructions say not to glue most of the suspension in place I think this is if you wanted to set the wheels at slightly different heights ie rough terrain but its fiddley and will fall apart if you knock it i just opted to line up the parts and glue them as mine will be on a mostly flat surface apart from the long clean up these sections went on quite straight forward and easily.











Step Eight

In this step we are adding the wheels and steering arms i decided i would take this section with a pinch of salt as i want the wheels seperate for painting also in this section it adds the supports for the exhust cover B21 and A69 i would leave these until the fenders are on and you can line up parts easily. here we add also the single piece of PE in the kit. This part does not fit every review i have seen moans about it, it will leave a gap at the back which leaves you 2 choices live with it or make a new one, as im doing this mostly OOB i left it.



On to the wheels the way i decided to do this was glue the front hubs and hubcap parts B15 and B4 to the rear of the wheel B14 but leave the tyre loose at the moment to make painting alittle more easy the axle pin part B12 i glued into the suspension which meant i can just pop the wheels on and off to test, this is handy when you add the steering arms as i held the wheel on so i could line up and glue the arms in place they fit into two holes on the back of the wheels but when you line them up make sure the holes on the lower half of the wheels that are closer to where they will be touching the ground.



At this point its starting to come together a few quick test shots to see how it looks.




Step Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen

These steps are for the fenders which according to the instructions should be built and then put on as complete peices i would recomend you again just ignore this and attach the fenders first its easier to do without everything on them but before you attach them do add parts A61 and A58 to the ends fo the fenders, once you have the fenders attached you will notice two massive sink marks on the under side dont worry these will be covered by boxes so i wouldnt bother filling them.




once the fenders are on add parts A44 and A46 that wer left off in step 2 as its so much easier to do so now.



You can start adding the rest of the parts in these steps now including the supports for the exhust cover B21 and A69, i have decide to leave the lenses for the lights off until the model is painted to save pre painting and masking them. I have also left attaching the muffler cover as i want to do this part differently which you will see later.









The photo above shows the wing mirrors be carefull once these are on as these can break at the drop of a hat I personally have broken mine 3 times now so be warned.





You can also now add the tools that were left off earlier.



Step Fourteen

This is the start off the turret build and involves the first hatch being put on they say you can have it open or closed but as we know there is not internal detail so mine are staying shut, the hinges are quite workable if you leave them unglued.

Step Fifteen

This starts to add the grab handles to the turret when i removed them from the sprue i left the join nub to give me more area to hold onto when i added them as these are tiny and i found it was easier to sand them off once they had fixed in place, if you wanted to you could quite easily make your own using wire and drilling out the guide holes.



It now adds 4 periscopes that have a cover on, when you glue the periscopes quicly put the cover on before they are set as there is a little give in angles and the cover will help you line them up.



This step also includes the most massive and surprising cock up within the entire set of instructions, they show part A45 and A34 being put in from the top on the front of the turret THIS IS VERY WRONG....... part A45 goes at the rear behind the main hatch and slots up from the inside then A34 goes on top luckily i had heard about this before, when i glued it i had some slight mess but the primer will take care of the little gap around it



Step Sixteen

This adds the second hatch and more grab handles
Step Seventeen
this step adds the smoke dischargers and the main periscope a couple of things to note the smoke dischargers are fiddly and i almost had to make a few replacements as they pinged off to feed the carpet monster but luckily i was able to wrestle them back from it, the main periscope uses one of the clear plaastic lenses you get with the kit what i did here was i painted the inside of the periscope and then glued the lense in covering the outside of it with a smal piece of masking tape so it wouldnt get painted over the problem here is that there is a very small wiper blade that goes in front and i have made the choice to keep it seperate and add it when the model is painted, but i will leave that decision up to you if you build this kit.



Step Eighteen

This adds the rest of the turret details including more grab handles, (Yes there are a lot on this kit) the arials, a search light (again i have left the lens off for the time being) and the wire reel at the back.







Step Nineteen

Here we add the front mantle, the base of the turret and the main gun and oh yes even more grab handles LOL




Step Twenty

This is the last step which adds the turret to the chassis and adds the built fenders but as i have already done this i am done YAY.....

Overall conclusion

Once you get past the in my opinion bemusingly labourious instructions, the massive clean up of very small parts and the fiddly suspension this kit goes together quickly and easily and builds into something very nice, yes there are details missing and some details are just plain wrong but most modelers should easily be able to over come this and the kit offers a vast amount of super detailing opertunities if you so wanted, with the arrival of the enevitable after market parts that will be in the pipe line for this kit i would say the skys the limit and it really ends up a lovely looking model in my eyes.

Now for the next bit

I primed the kit peices with grey halford primer which gives a good base, I have started to use it more on kits now ever since a friend at my local model club suggested it to me.

I decide looking at some reference shots (god bless google image search) that i will be doing a plain green paint scheme, so to start with I gave the kit a tamiya black green basecoat






Then I gave it a lighter coat of tamiya Nato Green which I highlighted with the nato green mixed with alittle yellow, i then seperated the tyres from the hubs as i hadnt glued them at this point and gave the tyres a coat of tamiya rubber black, using a circle cutter i cut circles from a masking sheet and covered the rear hubs and used some tape to protect the front so i could spray the rubber black onto the tyre parts that are part of the rear hubs i chose to do it this way as the front hubs stick out quite abit and would have been awkward to mask with the tyres attached.



At this point i did a test build so see how it was looking, you will notice between the end of the build and painting there are a couple of differences the first is i have replaced the arieals with wire asi thought the kit ones were too thick and i decided to add a scratchbuilt machine gun mount for the turret based on one i had seen in a reference photo (I know alot of people have moaned about the lack of the mount with the kit but looking around at photos of saladins i noticed they dont always have the mount), you will also note a arrow pointing to the edn of a stick on the right, at the end of that stick is the wiper i have left off for the main periscope




This is why I decided to leave the muffler off, after seeing a few like this I chose to burn and rust it up so I textured it with some mr surfacer and gave it a coat of tamiya red brown ready to rust it up. I like the fact it stands out against the green the way it does.



It is now ready for a gloss coat then i can start the decals and the weathering.

MORE PROGRESS TO FOLLOW SOON...

PS a quick addition
a couple of shots of the base i have made for the kit ready for some grass to be added when it arrives.

The Muffler shield doesn't rust like that, it rarely discolours let alone rusts. The Muffler underneath (which they conveniently left out)does.
Al

I thought that myself until while researching I saw a few shots like this which is what I've based it on.

fair enough

I cannot disagree with you but all I can say is that these vehicles in the picture show very heavy wear and have had the light stone hand painted over the Bronze Green. During the five years I served on Saladin's and Saracen's I never saw one like that within our regimental orbat of vehicles, not even in the Middle East.
No doubt they would have been sanded and repainted prior to 'hand over' to another unit or regular overhaul.

You can clearly see the different shades of burned and flaked paint on the cover versus the actual rust underneath.

Thank's for your build and it does show the major flaws with the kit.

You may want to revisit the color Green you chose as It really is closer to some of the foreign vehicles and or some of the museum/private hands items.

Good job, nice build and thank's for sharing.

Keith.

Thanks for your comments keith i always like to get feedback from people that have first hand knowledge on the subjects.
As for the colouring i ummd and arrd over a number of shades of green before i decided on the shades i went for. but as this is just an oob build so i decided to go for shades and effects that i personally liked and had some basis of reality around them. if i were doing a super detailed and accurate version of this kit i would be more specific in trying to use exact shades and markings.
now this is coming together i am tempted to get hold of a saracen to have go at so i may have to hit you for some advice on that if your willing

Well thats the future coat on and the decals too will post some pictures later. i did however find the decals alittle on the thickish side and size wise they needed a trim here and there but nice and vivid colours and very easy to use so not a big issue in the end.

Here is a top down view taken from the viewing platform at Cosford Museum

Right sorry folks thing got a little away from me this week but here's a shot of the decals on the front which i had to trim down a bit when they dried, as the fit wasn't great on the licence plates i went with the British army markings that the instructions showed in the end and then i tried a test on the base, I have added the grass to the base and i am quite happy with the way it turned out, and thanks Paul for the aerial style photo a interesting angle always nice to see things from different perspectives.





More progress now I added a transparent brown filter from truearth to the green which dulls it down nicely and it also acts as a pin wash, once the wash dried i started on the mud, i used a nice slurry made from pigments with a little white spirit mixed in and slopped it all over the tyres and lower body






once the mix dries it can be rubbed off and settles quite nicely, i didn't really want it overly muddy but a good dusty coat in the recesses.





finished the base off ready for when i finish the Saladin which is coming along nicely just waiting for some of the mud to dry and will have some more progress to show

Ok i realised i had made a completly rookie mistake when i added the mud, i had forgotten to flat coat the model so most of it has now come off, i was raging at myself about this mistake but hey ho live and learn, so i re-varnished it to seal what i could save and then i will flat coat the model, i have added some chips to the saladin in the photos they look quite servere but will be toned down by the time its finished, i have also started on the base coat for the lights which will have a trasparent paint over the top





I also decided in the end that the exhust cover wasnt quite right as other had commented, so i have recoated it using the salt method and a faded light green and will weather it more like a heated and pitted exhust instead of my original plan of a completely rusty exhust cover.



here is the test build before the final flat coat, re-weathering and details are painted






as always comments are welcome

Right Thats the details painted now, they turned out nicely although now i wish i had replaced the shovel as even though this was an OOB build it is pretty poor but hey ho. all in all this build went rather well the kit went together nicely









I would recommend this kit and in my opinion it has vast possibiltys given alittle extra work on the kit, and with all the new add on parts becomeing availible it should be easy.










As always any comments are welcome

A very nice 'Out of the box' (99.99%) finish and well presented

BUT >

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Given a little extra work

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and

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It should be easy

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are not words synonymous with this DML Black Box item in my book!

Keith

Thanks for the comments keith. And yes i do understand some peoples reactions to this kit are somewhat negative at times but all in all apart from the suspension i really enjoyed building it. I think with this like so many other kits out there it comes down to individual taste and the fact the add ons are now there to correct most of the things dragon got wrong helps it no end but mistakes aside in my opinion it still is a nice little kit. But that is just my opinion.