F-4J Phantom – wings are on

Fine Molds F-4J Phantom II, kit FP43S

This is where my mistake occurred.  I glued the forward fuselage underside (it’s painted white) to the aft portion and frankly it was a tight fight.  But it looked right.  What’s wrong?  Well, it turns out there is a gap between them that is quite small, but there nonetheless and given my experience with gappy kits in the past I thought nothing of it.  

So I attached the upper wings as directed by the instruction, then attached the wing assembly to the fuselage.  It initially appeared to fit on the forward end, but while it fit properly at the extreme nose it was off all the way back by — guess what? — that gap between the forward fuselage underside and the wing-fuselage underside. I tried making things fit but sanding a small bit forward did not allow the entire assembly to shift forward.  Likely due to the slots for the fuselage sides.

I continued to work it and got it all to fit, applying glue and squeezing to close the gaps, hoping I wasn’t ruining the shape.  Eventually it worked but it was obvious that I’d need to do some filling, unlike the fuselage.

Now it’s time to add filler.  I’ll be using Mr Surfacer 500 and Mr Color Leveling Thinner to simply wipe away the excess.  Fingers crossed…