I apologize for not checking in here sooner. It’s been close to a month since I’ve been active on here. Sorry

I’m guessing the two little parts P-40 and P-41 are supposed to capture the elevator once it is installed. I believe that it goes over the rod that connects the two elevator halves together. Then the rudder and PE would go on next.

I think that we all have done this before or something very similar to what you have done with your wheel wells. I’ll take some luck any day !

The modeling Gods were smiling on you.

I am not a big fan of using three or five different parts when one very nice one would work just as well. Makes it a bit “fiddly”.

But in the end the results are looking great. I’m very happy to hear that you are making good progress and I sincerely appreciate your detailed photos and descriptions. They are going to be very helpful in the future for the rest of us that have a kit like this one in their stash and are going to be building it.

Take care my friend and keep it going. I’m looking forward to seeing your next steps.

Exactly what I was thinking too. I think your description is better than mine.

Semi-catastrophic day today. I assembled the wings yesterday. Today I test fit them to the fuselage. They seemed to fit fairly well, but was tight in the forward wing root area. I carefully sanded a tiny amount of the wing until they fit was good. I glued and taped the wings and fuselage together. When I removed the tape I discovered that the wings had somehow shifted while drying, leaving a huge gap on one side and a mismatch between the wing and the fuselage on the other. I managed to eliminate some of the problem on both sides, but I have resorted to some brute force to try and bring things into alignment. We'll see how it goes. If I can't solve this problem, I may need to take a break and get away from it for a while. More tomorrow.

3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Hi Spiros (@fiveten). I really put a lot of force on the clamps to pull things together. I hope it doesn't turn out like an over-torqued nut and bolt.

Hi John (@johnb): You are right. Still can't figure how things went so wrong after I spent a good deal of time test fitting before I glued.

I’m sorry to hear that you are having trouble with your project. Unfortunately we have things like this happen to us from time to time. I have had my share of this kind of thing too.

I tried out a different method of assembly to help eliminate gaps here at the wing to fuselage joints. I know that you have mentioned this procedure in a previous comment. I simply glue the upper wing to the fuselage joint and then let the glue dry. Once it dries then I will continue with the rest of the assembly and attach the lower wing parts together to the upper.

Lately I have had some good results with this method. I’m sure you have done this before.

I don’t know if you were even able to try it out on this particular model because of how it was designed.

I had a chance to get some work done today, and things certainly look more positive today than they did yesterday. I pulled all the tape and clamps off the model and the wing to fuselage join looks much better. It will still need a touch of acrylic filler, but much better than before.

I completed the steps that add the horizontal stabilizers, the elevators, and the rudder. Everything looks like it aligns with the rest of the plane. I started assembling the various things that attach to the bottom of the wing. I will finish those tomorrow. Took a minute to look at the wingtips. This kit has both regular and clipped wingtips. This particular plane has clipped wings. I have never built a plane with clipped wings, so this will be a new adventure. More tomorrow. Cheers.

4 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Thanks, Carl (@clipper). I got lucky this time and I got things back to a workable condition. The Spit is a remarkably attractive airplane.