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Dragon's 1:350 Ohio class submarine kit, some suggestions


Housesparrow

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I am building several submarine kits in 1:350 scale in parallell, and I have noticed some issues with the following kit, and I thought I'd help out with some suggestions should you build this model yourself:

 

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Dragon 1056 U.S.S Florida SSGN-728

 

1) The third big part that cover the launch tubes, have bad stand off's, so you are wise to create your own. I used two pieces of styrene that I glued onto the hull, and then I clipped the standoff distance correct with a side cutting tool, and then I sanded the edge level. This part is important, otherwise, you may not realize that there is supposed to be a long gap on each side between this part and the hull itself. One risk gluing this gap shut because of the bad stand off that is molded into this third part.

 

2) Looking at photos, there seem to be a solid wall at the center line underneath this big third piece of plastic covering the launch tubes. I used a long 1mm thick styrene part to build this wall.

 

3) When gluing the two big hull pieces together, after having glued the front portion, I realized that a huge guide on the mold on the rear side was causing an issue (I forgot to check before I starting the gluing process). Instead of trying to pry the halves off again, I simply used a sharp blade in-between the open seam in the rear and cut off the offending piece of plastic that was to be used as a guide for gluing the two big hull parts together.

 

4) I used Tamiya extra thin glue to add glue to the seams along the hull, though it is probably a good idea to only glue half the side AND after adding the glue, add a tiny ruler onto the seam, to push the two parts with equal force so that they better align.

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you might do better moving this to the maritime forum.

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