I know it's shocking, Phil. I can barely believe it myself.
My wife hosted a ladies night last night, so I had a few hours to get a good headstart on this one. I had forgotten just how bad the fit and alignment is on this kit.
I remembered that few of the bulkhead formers fit, so I made sure to build the fuselage sections first and then cut the bulkheads to fit (as closely as I could).
In fact, of the ten fuselage formers, only three fit. The first one is at least 1/8th" too small on a 1" circle! I carefully cut a circle outside the former circle to fit.
One or two of the bulkheads were only a sliver too small and were easy to adjust for, Knowing that they were too small.
Despite all that, the fuselage does go together and fortunately the two worst match-ups are on the second main section and they will be disguised by the canopy, intake hood and exhausts.
Oddly, the two nose sections have no formers or tabs whatsoever, so I cut a circle former for each, just to add strength.
The misfits and mis-alignments are too numerous to mention, but the supposedly straight edge of this radiator cowling will give you some idea of the general fit of the model.:o
Trimmed and glued into place, you can see the alignment problem on the white sections where the exhausts will go. I'm graying those down so they aren't as noticeable.
With the exhausts, hood and filter in place, the forward section doesn't really show the problems that much.
The main bomb again shows the general fit of the kit, with the cone section being too large to match the next section.
These are the serious bugs. The wing formers don't come anywhere near where they are supposed to be! In previous builds, I've had to cut multiple more formers or use balsa wood to build out to the proper level. Not sure what I'm going to do here yet.
It's the same on both sides as well. This is as far as I've gotten and probably as far as I'll get for the next couple of days. Despite the troubles with this one, I'm enjoying building it again!
In defense of Mr. Wasiak's design work.... hmmm, I'll get back to you on that!:D
Chris