John - no, not you. There is a definite problem with those hatches. Even after fettling them they are not a perfect fit to the triangular armour plates at the top edge.
Jim - on some of my chop and go builds there is definitely a knock on effect with one correction leading to another problem. The
Tamiya Panther A and Stug IV builds were particularly bad for that as the kits were so skewed in the first place. This one though is a new kit and the problems are just that, they are not the result of me chopping things about. The hatches are just too wide for the aperture in the hull
The track vice is MasterTools made by Trumpeter - I think I got it from John at the site shop. Cost about £28 if I remember rightly but it is very well made with a nice anodised finish
Undo the big black knob you can see in the pic and it slides open to about 35mm so should be good for most links
I have found the best method is to just glue the links together holding them in your hand then place in the vice and clamp them so that it keeps them straight as the glue dries
If you need to get curves/sags in for the top runs and ends just remove before the glue totally sets - at least the links should be lined up
First time I used it I put the links in the vice dry then ran glue across the joins but capillary action drew the glue under all the links and they melted into a bit of a blob and lost all the detail plus they stuck to the matt surface of the tool and had to be prised off
It is of course just a big clamp so you can use it to hold things other than track links - I used it to clamp the road wheels in line the other day