Ok, I have come to the conclusion that Dragon have a big tub of 1/350 WWII USN sprues, and they just pick a bunch at random and throw them in a box.
Working through some more sub assemblies, and item “G” (possibly a quad-40mm?), of which there are two required, calls for part numbers M7 and M8. Now, Sprue M only goes up to part number 5, and I have already used all of these parts which are the main gun components (see image below).
So, what choice do I have but to once again go and raid my unstarted Chevalier kit to see what I can purloin. I check the instructions first, and to my great concern, these parts look to be not included and not required for the same quad gun assembly. Instead the 3 quad guns only have a PE ring sight on both sides. Not to be so easily defeated, I decide to scan the Chevalier sprues, knowing now that the instruction manual and the actual kit contents are unlikely to bear any real resemblance to each other.
Lo and behold, what do I find? I find 2 sprues labelled “H” which are completely different from Sprue H in the Chevalier instructions, but parts H56 and H57 are exactly what I am looking for.
Work can now continue, but I’m thinking that if this continues, when the time comes to build the Chevalier, it will either be a bare hull like an oversized rowboat, or I will have enough spare parts from the Frank Knox and Gearing to make it look like the Yamato!
Dragon definitely over engineer’s their kits and I have no doubt that they have a stash of generic sprues. Aoshima does the same thing with their kits but luckily enough i’ve never run into the problem of parts missing.
Glad you have been able to overcome the issues - can wait to see what you Chevalier will look like when your ready!
D, this is probably not the best way to ease back into the salty side & maddeningly frustrating to boot… No doubt it’s part of Dragon’s cunning plan to make you buy more of their kits 🤦
David, Russ, many thanks for checking in. I’ve finished up for the night and having a soothing bourbon on ice so the frustrations are quickly fading into the distance.
A couple of quick progress shots, the main gun, torpedo launcher and bridge structures are all just dry fitted.
Interestingly, what should be Sprue M in the Frank Knox kit is labelled (on the Sprue) as Sprue H in the Chevalier kit, with very different part numbering, but the other Sprue H is in there as well!
Anyway, the bottom line is that between the three kits I seem to have all of the parts required, I just need to do some shuffling of sprues. If that’s the worst they can throw at me, I will be ok!
Yeah, might be a case of “Friday Afternoon Syndrome” occurring daily
The good thing is that the three ships all have different configurations, and the three kits all seem to have spare parts, so at the end of the day I will have 3 completed DD’s
Ya know D, the original Odyssey was 10 years long. Are you trying to match that record? Glad to see you sticking with it. Maybe this time will be the charm.
Sounds complicated enough, but if you can get three DD’s by shuffling sprues around, it seems to be a way ahead. I wish you luck and especially patience (and am curious and a little concerned about what I will find out with my own Dragon kit…)
Thanks for checking Mark, 10 years sounds like a reasonable time frame for a complete noob to complete 3 x 1/350 kits
Thanks Jan. The bench is one of my Zen places (along with on the riverbank fishing and out on the deck with my guitar), so no problem with the patience levels. The non-Zen place is on my hands and knees looking for PE parts that are approximately human-hair thickness.
