All in all it looks like a good base kit - thanks Chuck.

Nice work so far, I built the Academy kit boxed by Eduard and know how finicky these pre-Tamiya kits are. Patience is a virtue when you join the booms, good luck with them.

Now that moment in installing the booms on the P-38.

The center mounted horizontal stab.

Before assembling the nose, a pair of lead sinkers were placed in the nose.

Most of the details are left off the boom for now, no gear, intake scoops and side scoop doors. The LH boom is loosely placed on the wing.

Next to set the RH boom in place, not glued in yet, the center horizontal stab is then placed between the tails but not inserted as yet.

Now I glue the center stab in place in both tail booms.

Some nasty gaps first appear before the booms are cemented in place on the wings. Especially around the rear attachment join to wing. Some adjustments for better fit is made before final glue application.

The outer lower wing panels fit very well to the outer join to the boom.

Next is to drill out the landing lights on the lower wing panel.

Not very careful being that I ended with a bit of a chunk of plastic breaking off at the edge. More cleanup time on my part. Any added the clear lens after apply some Chrome on the back side.

Finally the outer horizontal stab panels are attached to the tail booms.

Next up add the details to booms.

More to follow.

1 additional image. Click to enlarge.

That's a great progress, Chuck @uscusn!
Some gaps to fill, as expected from the Hase P-38!
Waiting for your boom details!

Booms can be a real problem sometimes, Chuck (@uscusn). Any fit problems along the way seem to double because of the extra boom. Hopefully your dry-fitting will solve most of the problems.

Cleaning up is definitely a fun part of modeling, Chuck @uscusn!
Sometimes it becomes too much, sometimes almost diminishes (did I mention modern Tamiyas?), but fun it is!

Here I will add some of the detail parts to the booms. Starting with the intake lip panels. Now the only deal with this is not having any screens that are at the back edge of these panels. The interior has no details so will have to paint the interior of the intakes black. Which I didn't do here but will do so later on as I progress.

The intake lip panels fit very well to the intakes, attaching all 4, 2 to each boom.

Next the movable intake ramp doors will be in the standard neutral position. These didn't fit as well and some minor adjusting before the cement sets to ensure a good fit. Still in the end I'm not really satisfied with the result.

The intakes on each boom are assembled.

Now the engine intake radiators are next.

These will have a PE mesh grille attached to the rear intake openings. Much better look under the spinners.

Once the PE mesh are attached. They are then attached in front of each engine nacelle. The fit here is good.

Now to attach each turbo housing atop of each boom. The fit is not the greatest here.

So about ready to do some seam work in and around the air frame. Quite a bit actually. Each boom, wing roots and boom to wing join area.

More to follow.

Great work, Chuck (@uscusn), despite the issues. That is the problem with a plane that has two booms: double the fun or double the trouble. It looks like the photoetch will take care of part of the open areas.