Topside

Precision work

To begin with I skipped the instruction's track assembly phase and left that for later. So I climbed from the lower hull to the upper hulll. Interestingly the top hull was built of two halves, front and back. Both of them needed a few (to a total of eight, iirc) 1mm holes. For a bit safer results I started drilling with my finger drill from the inside out and then cleaned the holes up a bit by drilling again from the outside in, then slashing any remaining plastic off with the xacto.

The upper hull halves settled together pleasantly sturdily with their own shaped connectors. In addition to that I was to glue two trapetzoid plates that were also covering the bottoms of the grilles on the sides (I had been thinking of blocking them (before checking this part in the instructions) with some styrene). There wasn't much to see from the driver's closed hatch, but it was there anyway.

Next I dropped an additional set of grilles on top of what I assumed to be the engine's air intake vent. This was a funny-looking setup. Then I glued on the exhaust system's cover pieces. I also liked the simple PE bits on this one: they just were superglued on. No bending, turning, swearing into place not to mention nothing to be searched crawling on the floor with a flashlight and a magnifying glass.

The next time I built and dug up the pieces so I could proceed, I was met with this sight. Who knows what sort of fumes had spread to reveal my touch, but there it was. It reminded me of the detective novels where they use superglue + something aerosolized to find all the fingerprints from a room and so on. Funny.

I then proceeded through the rest of the topside, installing unrecognizeable bits (those in the front and back corners, on both sides), engineering tools, boxes and the fuel drums. While I was working on the nose, I got annoyed when I noticed that the instructions had told me to drill two pairs of holes on both sides of the driver's hatch, but then on the next page I was told that there was only need for two. Into these I installed the light and the horn(!). The extra holes I'd have to cover up later, before priming.