Daily struggle continues

Turns out I was so wrong last night. The toughest and most frustrating part of this model is getting the running gear aligned properly. 

The swingarms have extremely loose fit so I had to check their alignment at least 20 times while the glue was setting. They're also very thin so I double secured them with superglue. 

Roadwheels have super loose fit as well, but this led me to an idea. Aligning them once the model is painted and weathered would be even worse, so I'll do something similar to what Bayin Wu did on his Tiger he built on his channel. I'll glue the wheels together, keeping them removable from the model for painting. To make painting easier, I'll keep the outermost set of wheels removable, because you won't see much behind them and all the alignment takes place in the second and third row - those will be glued together. I'm super glad about this idea because it'll fix so many issues in the long run.

Also, Friulmodel tracks don't fit around the kit sprockets, so I need to use the metal replacements provided with the Friul set. Those are disgusting compared to the plastic ones, but it's the only option. But it gets better lol, these are overly wide and to align them properly with the roadwheels you have to remove solid 2mm of white metal from their inner side. 

Each track link consists of 2 pieces which need to be superglued together and only then you can connect each link with wire. This is easier than I expected and shouldn't bring any more frustration down the road. 

On a lighter note, I rescribed all the armor plates (most of the grooves were non-existent in the kit), added very faint armor texture and got the model ready for welding. 

I'm sure that now I have the worst behind me, but I'm not keeping my hopes too high lol. 

Dunno how I'm gonna rate this kit in the video, as I'd like to avoid too much negativity on the channel, but here I'll be honest with you: I'd never pay 20€ for this kit and wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wants a nice fun little model.