Hello there! Ihave just started this kit after about a 10 year lay off from the hobby.Tamiya panzers before but is it just me and the lay off or are the dragon instructions quite poor? GREAT to be back into it again though, love every minute!

They can be very poor. Just be careful and study all the drawings.

G'day Cliff

Which kit? The reason I ask is that Dragon makes a LOT of different Panzer IVs.

Regards (from my 31C family room!)

Rob

Nothing like diving off the deep end for your first kit back Cliff. Yes, Dragon instructions are sometimes confusing. Especially if you have multiple build options. Sometimes locations are a bit vague but if you look at other steps quite often what was vague becomes clearer with a different perspective. Just take your time, dry fit and it never hurts to have a little reference material on hand. Also, at the top of your screen is a search box. Enter what you are working on and often you can find a build log to study.
Good luck on your build and welcome back to a GREAT HOBBY !
Cheers
Tom

The kit Is Ausf H mid production Autumn 43 6526. Will have to get extra decals too as only comes with unmarked unit. Thanks for your help will crack on and see how it goes?

Their instructions are notoriously crap. I've built quite a few of their kits and have struggled with the instructions on all of them. They're very vague and often just point to a rough area which doesn't help. One thing that I've found really helps (I always model in front of my PC so I can watch a film or a documentary on You Tube) is to use photos of the real thing, especially walkarounds where you get detail shots, to help work out where and how parts fit. Without doing that I would just stick them in the "unfinished due to lack of patience" kits pile and they'd never get finished. I've got a few DML kits in the stash but using on screen reference doesn't put me off building them as it would have at one stage.

I love Dragon kits, but yes, the instructions can be daunting. Study, study, and study some more.

As everyone else says, "study, review, use references, etc." And carefully check those sprues with parts marked as "not used." On several Dragon kits I've built, you'll have a sprue with 40-50 parts, but only need two of the smallest ones. I've heard of some folks cutting off those "not used" parts and setting them aside somewhere and later finding that they needed one mismarked part. I learned to leave all the parts on the sprues until you're done building.