And now we get into the real meat and potatoes of the conversion - the modifications that are necessary to the driver's hatch. Before we go on, I must emphasize that this work is not done by me, as I lacked the necessary talent to bring this forward. What I had done however was to commit to a course of action by modifying the conversion parts so that they would work with Tamiya's LED lighting box and upper hull retention system. It meant that when a tank buddy of mine offered to take on the conversion, he was committed to a specific approach, which resulted in a large amount of scratchbuilding:


In this photo, you can see the the Ludwing conversion parts cut at an angle to retain the necessary changes and retaining as much of the stock plastic as possible. You can also see the driver's hatch area, pay attention to the colour of the styrene which is analogous to plastic thickness - more on that in the next post.


With the superfluous parts removed (gun barrel cleaning rods and housing) by grinding, it is clear that Tamiya did not provide enough plastic material underneath, and there are missing parts of the hull compared to the 2A4.


Once the hull has been cut to accommodate the conversion fillet.


Bits of scrap styrene are next fitted in to fill the gaps and reduce the amount of filler needed to smooth out the surfaces. Parts are also salvaged from the original 2A6 hull such as periscopes, and little details such as bolt heads, mounting plates and various deflector panels are added.


Much more action is going on under the hull and an entire reinforcement section is added in, as the driver's hatch at that location is dangerously thin after milling for the necessary height level differences compared to the hull.


Despite being able to retain the front hull mounting clip, my builder had to scratch build a mount so that the LED light box is able to remain in its stock position to make it easier to re-connect the fibre optic lines for the lighting system.