I've seen the thread on the melon on the other forum, it's a nice shape and is definately different, interested to see how you manage the curving too.

Yay for fuses! That was an accident tbh, I misunderstood the rules and as I was using LiPo I fitted a fuse, my switch was also too big, so we ended up with an Ant sized link, works Ok, can be a bit fiddly at time though.

For the traction you could try some of nuts and bots wheels, I only have 2 and had a surprising amount of traction, it was a shame the lifters were so tricky to operate, looks a very well built machine.