In a separate thread I mentioned in passing that the lower hull on my Dragon differed in width to that of my Tamiya. On getting the correct measurement (thanks David Byrden) I went back and did some investigation. The width of the lower hull across the top (if you add the side panels) will come out to approx that of the Tamiya, but only if you can eliminate the SERIOUS WARP on both sides.

Heres the pics:

This shows both lower hulls with the rhs edges aligned - highlighted is the lhs edge difference


This shows daylight between the rear panel and the lower hull - when bending the hull to eliminate the warp this becomes much worse



This really highlights the warp - the upper hull fitted to the lower - forcing the lower hull apart to fix this then applies pressure across the top deck - which then warps


I have only modeled Tamiya and have not touched Dragon before. I might be off base here but I find this appalling. To have put so much effort into the detail, and then produce a (to me) serious fault in the item to which virtually everything else attaches is insane.

Does anyone else have the same problem? Am I being unreasonable? Any help would be greatly appreciated

Brian

P.s. apologies fr double posting - keep forgetting to select the forum

Brian, I am in the middle of building this kit now. There is nothing wrong with mine. There is no warpage. The lower hull meets the rear plate as it should. There are no gaps. Firstly, I suggest that the warpage you display in your pics is minor and will be corrected when you cement the parts together. I have and as I say there are no gaps. The gap you show in the last of your pics will certainly disappear when you cement them together. As for 'serious warp on both sides', I doubt that it's a problem. Don't forget you have the front armour plate that goes over this and accounts for the difference in width.

Vinnie

In addition to the message before this, take a look at this page:
Tiger nut

Now I know you have probably seen this page before, but this guy is a complete nut about Tigers, and some of the details he lists that need to be corrected about the Tiger are minute. It seems highly implausible that this guy would have missed that the whole thing is too narrow and that it didn't go together anyway. Maybe it's something you are doing whilst you're building?

Vinnie

Thanks for the reply, I'm glad that yours seems to be ok.

However the actual difference on mine between 'straight' and 'warped' is 5mm and cannot really be described as minor. The amount of force required to make the upper hull fit is actually bending the upper hull once its in place. As I said earlier the gap on the rear panel becomes worse once the warp is corrected. The warp is so bad that it is also apparent in the hull floor (look at the top pic)

I also have no idea what effects these corrections are going to have on things such as turret fit/movement. At this point I am somewhat unwilling to get halfway through a 200hrs plus project only to find that the original flaw prevents me from finishing it

Here are more detailed pics - as you can see the warp starts in the hull floor:

Judging from your pictures I can see nothing that a dip in hot water and some weight on top to hold it straight while it dries and cools will not fix. This is what I do to Resin parts that have this same problem.

Now Vinnie has said there was nothing wrong with his kit. Maybe yours is just a faulty kit! You do get this occasionly so my suggestion is that you get hold of the Manufacturer. They will probably replace it for you. In my opinion, and as others will tell you I do not build german armor, I have heard nothing but good things about these latest Dragon kits so I do feel you have a faulty kit

cheers
Cliff

Yeah I think I got a dud one . I have contacted SprueBros to find out how to replace the hull. I am not confident of being able to straighten this one as the defect is located in some of the thickest joins on the part, and is not just bent but molded incorrectly

Yuk! Definately a dud! Might be worthwhile contacting DragonCare on their website as well. These kits are superb and I'm having a whale of a time building this one. Please don't let it put you off Dragon, they're actually making some of the best kits around at the moment!

Vinnie

I have built a lot of Dragon's kits over the years, and rarely have seen this kind of problem. It sounds to me like you got a bad kit. This does happen, I had a very badly warped bed on my Tamiya Famo kit. hopefully Dragon will replace the hull for you, good luck.

Definitely a malformed part, get it changed. Hopefully it's rare.

David

This thread got me real curious, so I dug out my Late Tiger and alas...it's warped as well.



I think I will be ok though, just a little more glue and filler than usual.

Stuke

Thanks for the suggestions but:
Have looked at this every which way and applying heat is not really going to help - heres the reason:

Applying weight at 1 will bend it at 2, but not 3 or 4
Applying sideways pressure at 2 does not bend at 3 because the joint is very thick, and the whole side is also held by the torsion bar mounts which cannot be bent
Applying down ward pressure at 2 bends the floor upward at 4 because this is a weak spot in the sill.
I'm just going to bite the bullet and ask Dgragon to replace it.

I have the same slight "warp". The amount of pressue it took to move the sides out was very tiny. In actuallity you want that slight warp as it will hold your deck down better with out having to use filler. If you are so inclined to bend it, heat the bottom of the hull and press down on it, this will move both sides out, but I think with the rear and deck plate on you will find that everything is fine.

Looks like the piece was pulled out of the molds too fast. You see a lot more of this with Italeri kits and with larger aircraft kits, like the 1/48 B-1B and the 1/72 B-36 peacemaker.

Let DML know the problem, have fun learning how to fix it yourself in the meantime...cannot hurt to see what hot water or pressure can do?

I've build a fair few Italeri kits, and whilst they can be accused of putting an unneccessary number of sinkmarks in the wrong place I have not come across any kits with severly warped hulls. I have followed this post with interest, and the fact that more people are now confirming that this is not a one off 'dud', makes you wonder. Is Dragon letting their standards slip in an attempt to keep up? With a £ 10 - £ 15 kit ( Italeri ) I can accept a certain lack of finesse, but if I have to pay £ 25 + I expect more than a warped main component. I would hope that Dragon will remedy this when you contact them.

Cheers
Henk

I have the Tiger 1 initial production kit by Dragon and had the same warpage i put the rear plate and front fender plate on and it has corrected it self and i think i will be using filler only on one small area and i believe that i may have miss aligned the rear plate slightly that would account for the small gap. This may sound silly but maybe the parts are made this way to get a tight fit, just my opinion. I would try and fix it with what Cliff said the hot water if you think the warpage is to much, if you get a replacement great if not you will have to fix it anyway go for it.

If that would be the case I think Dragon would have pointed it out in their long list of 'special features'...
Other kits don't seem to need warped hulls to achieve a 'tight fit', the much malinged Tamiya springing to mind. ( the molds may be 30 years old, but they still make good fitting models. They may be badly scaled, full of motor holes, and overpriced but they fit without being warped..)

Cheers
Henk

Henk you may be wright i thought it looked a little off when i put it together but since i don't have as much experence with these new armor kits i just put it together anyway, i guess i just got lucky. I hope the rest of this kit goes together easy.

I posted this problem on my build log, and it looks as though people are having no problems once the back plate is fitted.

http://www.planetarmor.com/forums/index.php?s=c77ff2c8d4286ca9ad6d6b95e889b02f&showtopic=1180&st=10

Doesn't look like too big of a deal.

My problem is that I got this kit specifically for the lower hull for my Sturmtiger project. All of the top rear deck consists of separate resin or scratchbuilt parts that were constructed around the Tamiya hull and therefore cannot be used to correct the warp on the hull.

I feel its worth repating that applying pressure to straighten the hull at point 3 only succeeds in bending the middle of the floor upwards along its its length. As I am detailing the engine compartment this is also a problem. The warp at 3 cannont be fixed because the torsion bar mounts are moulded to the sides and floor, and thus hold the warp in place

OK, thanks to Brian for sending me measurements. This is a copy of my reply:

Dragon have molded the lower side walls with true scale thickness (60mm). The internal gap should be 1800mm, scaling down to 51.43mm. From your email, you measured your hull at 51.1mm internally across the bottom, which is marginally too narrow if anything.

You measured the gap between rear plate and hull side as
0.07mm. I don't understand why this gap looks so large in the photo. In fact it scales out to less than 3mm in a real tank.

I've compared photos of your hull to several samples that I have from Dragon. There is slight warping in all my samples, but it's 1mm or less at the hull top. It goes away when the panels are installed, so it's not a problem. It does NOT cause the hull top to bend.

You report a warp of 5mm across the top, and I can see a significant curve in your bottom floor. That's different to the samples that I have. So I think you do have a faulty part and should get it changed.

David

[quote] At this point I am somewhat unwilling to get halfway through a 200hrs plus project only to find that the original flaw prevents me from finishing it

quote]

In the even you decide to scrap the whole thing, feel absolutely free to mail it to me. I'll finish it!

Not to be an ass or anything, but since you started with the Tamiya hull, why dont you finish the kit using it. You might not be aware, but there can be sometimes huge differences in the same verison of tank done by two different manfautures. Your going to run into problems if you mix and match kits.

Thanks David for clearing things up in the measurement department. Looking at mine, I didn't think it would pose any problems for me and with y0ur post, you confirmed it. I'm just going OOB on mine, so my rear deck and back hull plate will make this a "no-problemo"

well,sorry to hear that,but with mine kit it is straight.fits like a glove .i checked three more recent dragon kits and they all fit 100%............see for yourself.;

Because the Dragon hull has better detail - in particular the torsion bar mountings in the engine compartment which I am detailing. I tried scratchbuilding these but could not get 3 to match . Measurements on the two hulls are within fractions of mm so fitting stuff already made won't be problem