With the top and bottom now matching externally, it was time to fix them together. The different body posts don’t come close to lining up, especially as there are four in the Heng Long lower and six in the Mato upper. You can see in this first pic that I decided to utilise four of the Mato posts to start a magnet conversion instead of screws. The magnets are held in tubes for screws from an old Tiger plastic hull and glued with epoxy.
The Mato posts line up with the sponsons of the Heng Long lower hull, so I decided to go with securing them in aluminium angle strips that double as hull stiffeners. I may go with a cross brace at the front later on. I’m tempted to cut out the battery box as there is a significant amount of wasted space, and that will be a good time to consider bracing. I also tidied up the rear hull shape to better match the curved Mato upper.
In order to line the body posts up I removed the turret and also went with opening up the engine hatch and installing hinges.
The hinges were a pain to install. I used dolls house brass hinges, and the first time CA glue ran into the hinge and seized it. I bent one trying to work it loose. The second time I used the same mounting recess without checking and the hinges weren’t identical, so they didn’t align and the door was crooked when opened. Third time was a charm.
