OK! Got a little more done on it last night. I did a few things different in this area than called for by the model.
First I cut off the tabs on the bottom part - I figured I could get a better clean edge along the bottom by doing an edge join. Result - passable. I did not do a great job on the edge join. I think the result would have been better had I left the tabs on. But this is the kind of practice I need
Second and more advanced upgrade was replacing the gray area with red river silver paper. This had the same failure point as the remainder that I did not get the edge glued very well. particularly noticable where it rounds up into the front forms (see pic 3) I will be able to trim that a bit and use the silver sharpie to cover it up I do believe so nothing major there for me to fix.
As noted by Billy - RR paper is EXTREMELY susceptible to the slightest bit of glue on the printed (silver) surface - its definitely different to work with than other types of paper.
Chris