World War II Project - Return to Normandy - P107/U304(f) Halftrack - MGs

Probably against my better judgement I decided to go ahead and add the extra MG positions. Realizing that this are going to be pretty fragile I pinned everything. Since quarters are pretty tight I used a #70 drill bit (and probably should have used a #71 or #72 instead) for all the holes and staples for the pins themselves. Finding staples around here is a lot easier than darn near anything else. Each staple yields four pins so they are a pretty good value when you think about it.

This is a pretty standard pinning job. I didn't realize how soft the lighter grey resin really is until I managed to shave away one of the support posts when I was cutting an "x" into the top to guide the drill bit. Fortunately I had a piece of styrene that I could substitute for it so I cut the whole thing away after my knife slipped. The only issue is the cross section is hexagonal rather than round but I doubt anyone will notice once they are on the table.

Six MG34s and three MG42s. Each halftrack will have three MGs; one in the main mount over the driving compartment, and one on either side.

With pins glued in. I'll cut these to length after I glue them to the support arms.

Glued to the support arms although not I have not trimmed down the pins yet. I also had to drill out the bottom portion of the support arm to hold it to the halftrack. This is when I discovered I should have used and even smaller bit when I blew through one of the sides when I was slightly off center.

Drilled out the holes for the support arms on the left and right side. I had already drilled out and mounted the MG shield at this point.

Pins in place on the sides

And all glued up. I suspect that they side MGs will not last long in game play, but they look cool now.