Taking a short respite from the riveting process, I've tried to figure out how to deal with the fit of the wings. As this kit is moulded, there's a very prominent gap at each of the wing roots.
Two obvious options would be (a) filling the gap with filler or superglue or (b) doing the same with a plastic card insert. I'd rather avoid either of these options, because they both involve sanding and rescribing in an awkward place. After smoothing out that chin intake I feel I've got enough of sanding!
Some other builders of this kit have advised slightly forcing the wings upwards so that the wing roots meet with the fuselage. Given the width of the gaps, I was worried that this would markedly alter the dihedral of the plane, so I decided against it. As a matter of fact, I have opted to reinforce the wings by adding a plastic "spar" to prevent this from happening.
I decided that this fit problem is a bit odd given the high overall quality of the kit. What if Hasegawa designed the kit so that it would fit tightly together in the first place, but had failed to account for the fact that the fuselage halves would become too flimsy due to the use of the various inserts (there's no ridge to the fuselage halves where the wings go). I guess that the gaps could more or less be the results of mould distortion.
The best advice towards a remedy came from an old article by Spencer Pollard - installing additional spacers in the lower fuselage to push the wing roots apart to their correct positions. I have checked with the drawings and yes, this produces a correct fuselage cross-section as well as eliminates the wing root gaps.
No gaps = No filling!
