This would have been the toughest build in 32nd scale in my life and it took well over 9 months to complete the project. Its quite a crap kit and very distressing to build which ended up with me being given the nickname on saturday gatherings as the "SANDCRAWLER"
The fit on the wings were particularly bad as the thickness of the wing and the wing root has a step of more than 1mm. This has to be built up instead of sanding down as sanding option would have weakened the wings substantially. This was done with 2 layers of 0.3mm and 1 layer of 0.5mm Tamiya and Evergreen polystyrene sheets of variable width. The area was then puttied and sanded down, The process was repeated 6 times in order to get a smooth fit. This was then re-scribed to get back the numerous wing top details. The rivets were drilled back into place using 0.2mm drill bits. I broke 3 pcs in the process as they tend to roll off the work table and hit the ground.
The intake area need really some serious work. This was done using plastic cards and some Vallejo putty painted over and cured and painted over again 4 times. This took place over a period of 2 days. The area was rubbed with ethanol and painted over twice again with the putty and subsequently rubbed down and polished with Ethanol and Tamiya 1500 grit sanding foam. Care is also taken to do the same for the externals of the intake areas to preserve as much details as possible.
The tail section needed very careful planning. The joint is so bad that the step was 1.2mm on one side and about 0.7mm on the other side. The plastic was badly warped and needed to be forced in place with CA glue and accelerators. To sand own the top plastic is the short cut, but then the vertical stabilizers are protruding over the sides which is not what is on the real plane. The area has to be smooth. So, what I did for the wing is repeated here unfortunately, putty and sand and putty and sand and putty and sand and putty and sand and putty and finally sand and polish and scribed back the details. It took me 3 weeks of 2 hours a day on this part alone.
We can see from this photo on how flushed the area is.
The nose cone is mismatched in shape and needed the sand build up and sanding and scribing. Took another 1 week on this one.
There were quite a few sink holes that needed attention on the top surfaces. The wheel well areas as well.
More sink holes. Some serious ones I use putty, The shallow ones, I used Tamiya Cement reinforced putty.
The area where the wheel wells joins the bodywork has serious alignment errors and had to be stuffed with melted plastic card and then re-inforced and finished with putty.