11 December 2020

Ersatz M10 - Work in Progress

A quick update on some work in progress.

I'd wanted this Dragon kit for some time, and I think Dragon first put this kit out about 10 years back, maybe even longer. 


I was put off by the high price of the kit and was glad when I saw one online at a reasonable price. The box was a little dog-eared but the contents were complete.


And to be honest I'm glad I found this cheap because when I took it out of the box, I noticed the flexible tracks were in a little plastic bag which was full of a kind of sticky oil. 

Very strange I thought.

Then a kind of  "Quatermass and the Pit" event happened as I took them out of the bag - after their years of being preserved in there, they crumbled and cracked into little pieces ! 

Dragon's not so flexible tracks

So now I've got myself a lovely Ersatz M10 with no tracks.

I've gone the quick route to solving this and susbstituted the whole track and bogie assembly with a one-piece set taken off an old CC-Lee Panther kit I had in the stash that I never got around to building.


Now undercoated on the painting table waiting for a little free time over the weekend to try and finish it off.


So, a lesson learned with regard to this Dragon kit and its old flexible tracks - over the years they leach oil and fall to bits.

In spite of the track problem, I've got a vehicle I've wanted for quite some time.



5 comments:

  1. Ah yes, the curse of the disintegrating 'DS' tracks. By coincidence I was rummaging in the stash yesterday and found a Dragon kit with these but they appear to be intact. I've also had a few original Matchbox kits where the rubber band tracks have the strength of extruded soap after being left in the box too long and exposed to mould release residue on the rest of the kit... Looks like you found a great solution!

    Cheers, Dave

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    Replies
    1. Cheers Dave, just my luck to get one of the bad batches. I had the problem you mention with some Matchbox M16 Half-tracks too.

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  2. I've never encountered DS track disintegration, but I had problems with Matchbox tracks as well.

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    Replies
    1. I was looking on internet and it seems to be a sporadic problem, maybe the storage or just bad irregular batches. Who knows.Cheers, John

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  3. Interesting piece.
    I've enjoyed your blog for years.
    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete