April 21, 2021
Basic construction in-progress. Tamiya's metal barrel is great, naturally. PROTIP: don’t glue the return rollers if you want to be able to fit the track after gluing the upper hull! Not visible here, but I added some little struts made from photo-etch scrap to the inside of the front hatches, so I could pose them slightly open without doing a full detail job on the inner surfaces. Most reference photos seem to show the hatches open most of the time. Top hatches are also usually open in photos, but I really didn't want to scratch-build any interior in the driver's compartment, so as a compromise one is slightly open and maybe will have a tarp or something in there.
Photo-etch sets seem to include protruding handles on the top hatches, but I can't find any period photos of these. The only reference for these handles seems to be some - but not all - surviving examples in museums, which suggests they might not have been standard, or only installed intermittently?