Assembly
The instructions are clear, so assembly of the Takom kit is actually quite straightforward.
The main parts of the kit come as flat panels. These have bevelled edges to aid alignment, but need to be carefully prepared before they are used if gaps are not to appear. The sprue attachment points are small, but must be carefully trimmed away and the mould lines must be removed to ensure a good fit.
I was a little concerned that I may have had problems aligning the assembled fighting / engine compartment with the hull sides. I therefore deviated from the instructions almost immediately and built up the fighting compartment gluing the flat plates to each other and to one of the hull sides. This ensured that they set in the correct positions. Once this assembly had set I attached the mortar plate with its ‘X’ shaped support and glued the other inner hull half in position. This gave me a solid base onto which the rest of the kit parts could be added.
Some of the parts in the kit are from Takom’s earlier Mk. IV kit. A few of these needed trimming and / or filling to adapt them for the Tadpole. The filling was done using thick superglue mixed with talcum powder. This mixture has an advantage over fillers such as Milliput or Mr. Surfacer in that it can be set with an accelerator and sanded down immediately.
Despite my best efforts to avoid them a few gaps appeared between the armour plates. Filling and sanding was not an option here as the rivet detail would have been damaged. I therefore used Milliput to fill the gaps and immediately removed the excess with my fingertip dampened with water. In areas that were difficult to reach, a wet cotton bud was used to remove the filler.
