After much back and forth comparing the pros and cons of the LR and Eduard PE sets for the gun shield, I ultimately decided in favor of the Eduard shield. While both required soldering to assemble, the Eduard set required far less although what was required did involve some very tricky joins to produce the desired result. I also realized that the LR shield was designed with the towed position in mind vs. deployed or on a vehicle and didn't easily allow for things like the small gunner's scope doors to be opened, a big negative for this particular project. I don't do a lot of soldering for the most part, but I keep a Radio Shack variable 20/40w iron handy along with solder, flux, and a "helping hands" set of clamps for when I do need it. After a couple of hours of careful work with the solder and bending the various angles, the shield was ready.
With the exterior completed, next up was adding all the interior side detail. This involved quite a few extra pieces from the Eduard set, all attached using Gator Glue into their various positions. I used one of the locking arms from the Tamiya kit and one from the LR kit as only one of the LR arms was long enough to do the job.
After numerous test fits, I used CA gel to attach the shield to the base of the gun and then installed the doors for the gunner's sight in the open position.
To round things out with the gun, I assembled the LR styrene parts for the spent shell basket and used the LR parts for the mesh as it had a finer pattern vs. what was supplied in the Eduard set. Ironically, these are the only major parts of PE from the LR kit that I ended up using. All of the pieces fit as designed and only the larger rectangular piece needed to be annealed to get it to fit to shape. Annealing something delicate like this takes extra care and I accomplished this by holding it above the flame on my kitchen stove burner so it would heat up but didn't put it directly into the flame. Delicate pieces that heat up too quickly can incinerate, a lesson I've learned the hard way in the past and was sure not to repeat this time around. I used liquid glue and the handle of a paint brush to carefully shape and attach the screens.
With that taken care of, the final task before painting could begin was to install all the various tools and clamps/hardware. I'd left this off until this stage to minimize the amount of handling and potential for breakage. I started first with the hull front, installing the jack, wire cutters, towing clevises, and the axe. Putty was required to fill in the mount holes and careful scraping away of the tread plate pattern to provide a smooth surface for the metal parts to bond to.
The right rear fender also got some attention with the installation of the hex wrench and the idler tensioning wrenches. The tensioning wrenches as originally supplied by Tamiya had no visible means of support or attachment, so the Eduard set helped tremendously here.
To round out the day's activity, I also installed the pry bar for the left fender and the fire extinguisher. The rear engine deck also received the pick axe
Weather permitting, painting should start next week!