Thankyou all - although Rick, you need to get her out of your head... no bella donnas on this one!
The next part of the turret interior I had to tackle was the ball mounted MG.
During its service life the Ha-Go was equipped with two types of machine gun: the 6.5 mm and the 7.7 mm Model 97. The FineMolds kit gives you both options - but all you get are the ball mounts and the external armoured shrouds. Once again, I regretted not starting with the Dragon kit, which provides two beautifully moulded complete guns - even though the one in the hull cannot be seen.
I looked online for even the infantry equivalent in 1/35 and drew a blank. I was about to start trying to modify a Bren, but then I discovered that the Japanese Model 97 was actually a near copy of the Czech ZB 26 (which was, itself, the forerunner of the Bren). The most obvious differences between ther ZB and the Bren are the cooling ribs on the barrel and the square magazine on the former.
Even finding a ZB in 1/35 wasn't easy, which surprised me - it was a popular gun amongst the Germans in WW2. After all, they acquired a bunch of them when they annexed Czechoslovakia (along with all those 35 and 38(t) tanks). Eventually
Tank came to the rescue (although I suspect these are OOP).
There was still quite a bit of work required to convert the ZB to the tank variant of the Model 97: in particular the addition of the folding stock and the sight. The former is one aspect of the MG that Dragon get wrong, because the whole point of having a folding stock was to allow it to be hinged out of the way when being used from within the vehicle (the Russian tank MGs had a very similar system). I also added some (rough) detail to the ball mount to replicate the internal cradle.
It's not perfect, but I think it will do. As you can see from the overhead shots, the MG adds to an already crowded interior. There's no way I could have left those large cupola hatches open without the machine gun on display. I am also going to have the side hatch open to better show off all my hard work!