A problem sometimes encountered by aircraft modellers is that models of aircraft with tricycle undercarriages can often rock back on their tails leaving the front wheel hanging in mid air. Weight then needs to be added to the front of the model to keep the wheel on the ground. A similar problem occurred here. Though perhaps not obvious in wartime pictures of the Tadpole itself, most of which show the vehicle on soft ground, pictures of the MK. IV from which it was derived show that the rear of the vehicle was held clear of the ground. My model had adopted an unrealistic ‘nose up’ attitude with the extended rear hull flat on the ground. To counteract this I made up a large blob of epoxy putty into which I embedded some metal screws. This was placed into the driver’s position to hold the front of the model down.
The drive sprockets come in two halves and while there are locating points provided, there is still a lot of room for movement so I assembled a short length of track and wrapped this around the sprockets as they set to ensure that the teeth on each half lined up.
With the inner hull sides attached I began to fit the plates separating inner and outer parts of the hull. This went pretty much according to plan though I believe that parts E10 and E11 are shown the wrong way around in the instructions. E10 should be attached towards the front of the model and E11 towards the rear.
I had intended to leave the doors on the rear of the sponsons open to display the gun breeches. However, I felt that had I done this, the lack of an interior would have been rather obvious, and I would need to add a framework and rivets to the inside of the sponsons which are rather featureless. I therefore closed the doors. This meant that none of the parts destined for the inside of the sponsons would be seen so I used only the parts that were necessary to fix the guns in place. This was not laziness on my part, I just didn’t see the point in adding detail that could never be seen and perhaps the left over items could be used in a future project? A soft plastic cap is provided to allow the main guns to move. However, I’m not a fan of moveable parts on my models feeling that something which can move will eventually break, so the guns were glued in place.
A few gaps were present when the sponsons were attached to the outer hull halves. These were filled with Mr. Surfacer and once set the excess was wiped away with a cotton bud moistened with nail varnish remover. The curved armour plates around the guns were moulded in three separate pieces and the gaps in between these needed filling, so it was out with the superglue and talcum powder again. I found it difficult to get the main guns to sit level inside their sponsons. To avoid this problem it may help to leave out the soft plastic caps, unless you actually want the guns to be moveable.
The Tadpole had a lot of road wheels with 32 sets of two on each side! There were two types of wheels and close attention has to be paid to the instructions as these have to be placed in the correct order. There were some very noticeable mould lines around the smaller wheels (Parts A2) and some sprue attachment points that have to be cleaned away from the larger wheels (Parts A4). I cleaned the sprue attachment points up very carefully, but I must admit that I didn’t bother with the mould lines. Again this wasn’t laziness on my part. The wheels are completely invisible on the finished model being hidden by the tracks. However, the wheels acting as return rollers can be seen through the lightening holes on the upper part of the hull so these have to be properly cleaned up. I noticed this after only the outer hull halves had been glued in place and I had to clean the wheels up through the lightening holes. This was very awkward and caused me to express feelings of extreme negativity.
The smaller road wheels are not symmetrical, one side having a small ridge. While not obvious in the instructions, I think that the ridge has to go on the inside towards the centre of the axle (at least that’s how I assembled them and things worked out fine when I came to fit the tracks).
