Eduard 1/48 P-400 Limited EditionWelcome aboard, Rowan. You are making much faster progress than I would.
I addressed my wings today by rescribing all of the detail that overlaps between the upper and lower wings parts. My upper starboard wing didn't line up at all with the lower section, the panel lines around the gun ports were off by about 1mm from each other. I basically obliterated the originals and rescribed them to line up. The port wing was not as bad but still off a bit, so it got the same treatment. I chose to line the outer tips of my wings up and this caused the panel lines to be off by an increasing amount as you go towards the fuselage. The outermost line up well, but the inner ones were unacceptable in every instance.
I'm wondering if it would have been better to mount the lower wing to the fuselage seperately, then fiddle with each upper wing half to minimize some of this mess. Too late now, but food for thought for my P-39Q boxing.
Anyway, wings are now joined to the fuselage, and all the gaps at the roots were addressed with first shims, then Tamiya putty, and finally some Mr. Surfacer which I am allowing to set up overnight. It was a pain but the wings look pretty decent now.
Fuselage press fit to the wings, no glue yet just the shims. This is a good pic to illustrate how bad the fit was. The remaining little gaps were almost completely closed when I glued the joins and set the dihedral.
The front of the wing roots, illustrating how bad the fit was in every regard. The lower wing was originally square where it abuts the fuselage, which is curved down to meet it. It didn't fit together at all, there was at least a 3mm gap resulting from this debacle. Eduard really confused me with the engineering here, it was literally trying to put a square peg in a round hole. I carved significant plastic away from the lower wing at this joint to make them sit flush. That black area at the bottom of the wheel well? That is NOT a shadow...
...it is in fact another area where the kit parts simply do not line up, leaving a very large hole to be filled. This one actually has its very own PE part to cover up though, replicating the detail perfectly but covering over that gaping hole. Go figure. I flooded the rear bulkhead with thick CA and popped the etch piece in place.
And finally, the last problem to address: this step. I had my choice of making the top of the cowl or the bottom line up perfectly, and the loser got the step. I chose to keep the top looking good and do the repair underneath. Its only at the front at least, the rear was a perfect fit top and bottom.It makes me wonder if this LE boxing wasn't somehow a bad egg, or if I made some unknown major errors. Almost none of the major parts fit well together during dry fitting, and glue didn't improve things at all. Other people have raved about how well this kit goes together. I am hoping my Eduard P-39Q does not contain these issues, but it is an early boxing as well so my hopes are not high.