I'm so sorry, Phil; I couldn't resist the gleaminess of the new.

It must have been the burned HDF vapours, yes; that was it!

I've caved, and got started on the Tactical Response Vehicle instead, and now the forklift will have to wait I guess...
Yesterday, the wife took the little one and went to visit family, so I had the entire afternoon to myself and my HDF. And I managed to complete the entire thing in one sitting. Well, the basic assembly anyway.
There's still tons to do to the kit, as there are some small gaps that need filling and I've already dug up some parts from Bitz Hill that will do very nicely on it, as I feel there's still a lasercut HDF feel to it in its unadorned form.
For instance, I'm not going to use the handrails and missile launcher that came with the kit. Neither will I use the hatch handles on top. Not a fault of the designers; I think they are taking what can be achieved with HDF (almost) to the limit, but there are some parts that simply cannot be lasercut from this material at this scale. More specifically; those parts that should be very thin.
So those will either be left off, or be replaced by more appropriate plastic and/or metal versions. The steps underneath the doors though, I've cut in half up to the tab, so they're not as thick anymore, and will do nicely now.
Also, I modified the wheel layers, so that instead of grooves running right across each tire, they now have a semblance of profile to them. I simply cut out the hole for the tab holding the layers by first holding two layers together, rotating one to the correct angle, marking its tab hole on the other one and then cutting that out with a sharp knife. Pretty easy, but it still took almost a quarter of the entire building time...
Here's the basic vehicle, glue dry, without any gapfilling etc done yet:

And here it is, with some of the more important plastic parts mocked up on it:

Next step, undercoating the little beasty in grey, so all the gaps will be clearly visible, and they can be filled and filed...