The review copy of the Modelsvit F-82H Twin Mustang landed here a few weeks ago and I got to work on it last week.
When I built the F-82G night fighter, I had no problems with assembly, and couldn't figure out why so many people were posting they were having problems, to the point where a couple people round-filed their kit.
Well, this time I got to find out what all the moaning was about, and fortunately I was able to discover the cause. If you are going to do one of these kits, here's what you need to know for a problem-free build:
BE ABSOLUTELY FREAKING CERTAIN BEYOND A DOUBT THAT YOU GET THE UPPER CENTER PIECE OF THE WING IN PERFECT POSITION! It turns out, I did that by happenstance with the first kit, which is why I had no problem, and didn't with this kit. It is easy to miss. The locating pins on the kit are very small and easy to get rid of when cleaning up the part. BE VERY CAREFUL NOT TO DO THAT when you clean that top center part. You have got to get it exactly in the correct position, not a micro-nano-millimeter wrong to left or right, or it throws off all the rest of the downstream assembly and depending on how badly you missed will be a PITA or a major freaking screaming fit with the atmosphere over the work table deep purple with lightning bolts and thunder.
I did not discover the mistake until it was too late to fix, with the end result I had to do a lot of cutting and filing and sanding on the mount for the right fuselage to get it close to correct position, and then there was a lot of rubber banding, and then a lot of Mr. Surfacer on the joins of both fuselages to the wing (less on the left) with concomitant sanding and loss of the beautiful surface detail and rescribing with the pounce wheel and then polishing out because this one is in NMF and not black so I couldn't hide anything with paint.
I also elected to close the main gear inner doors, which I should have done before further assembly of the wing. The doors are not designed for this, so you have to trim them to fit in the well. It's easy to take off too much, so proceed with caution in getting that done. If you do all this before assembling the wing, you could put some evergreen sheet inside the wing to create a "ledge" for the door to sit on and be glued to, much easier than trying to fit it from outside with the wing assembled. It does look right - the F-82 gear door cycles closed after the gear is lowered.
Another thing: the clear plastic windshield is too thick to fit correctly to the fuselage. You need to thin that part from inside the maximum you can without messing up the area that has to be clear. You should also sand down the coaming inside. Remember this is a "high-end/limited-run" injection kit and test fit everything well before applying glue. The sliding canopy is too thick to position properly open unless you also thin it down from inside to fit. The canopies are very clear, so you can close the canopy (it fits straight off that way) and still see what's inside.
Painting: I painted the red sections with Tamiya XF-7 Flat Red, then masked off, shot the rest with Tamiya X-18 Semi-gloss Black, then shot Vallejo Aluminum. The panels around the exhausts are in Vallejo Duraluminum, and I brush-painted some other panels with "dull aluminum" and "white aluminum." Vellejo can be brush painted over other Vallejo paint and it will dry without brushmarks.
The model has the national markings on. There are a real plethora of stencils, and they're all on the decal sheet, so doing those are next.
Overall, it's making up into a nice model. Be sure you get that center section right, and everything else will be no problem. Take care in assembly and use rubber bands to get things together tight, and you should get away with little or no filler. But get that center section in the center!
10 attached images. Click to enlarge.
