# Wing to fuselage joints. Mind the gap



## fastmongrel (Feb 4, 2021)

One of my pet peeves is no matter how expensive the kit the wings rarely fit to the fuselage without the aid of scalpel, sandpaper, filler and lots of time and swearing.

I know there's lots of work arounds I have used many of them but how in these CAD days can a plain butt joint that fits where it touches be acceptable on a kit costing lots of money.

I have built a few kits where the joint is in the form of a socket on the fuselage and the wings plug into the socket. This on a couple of occasions worked well but one time it was like the fuselage was moulded by a different person to the wing moulding. 

Am I missing something is the butt joint the best way or should manufacturers be looking at something different.


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## Donivanp (Feb 4, 2021)

Cursing, I like cursing.

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## rochie (Feb 4, 2021)

I've had some success glueing the top half of the wings to the fuselage before fitting the lower wing halves when its possible

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## MIflyer (Feb 12, 2021)

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's SUPERGLUE!

Built the old Monogram 1/48 T-28D a while back, for the first time again in almost 50 years. Was appalled at the size of the gaps 
at the top of the wing root. But enough SUPERGLUE took care of it.

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## stona (Feb 12, 2021)

rochie said:


> I've had some success glueing the top half of the wings to the fuselage before fitting the lower wing halves when its possible



I've done that with a few resin kits.

It's much easier to deal with a gap in the leading edge than at the wing-fuselage join.

I've made a Tamiya P-51 recently, a kit on which the wing-fuselage join looked like this and only needed glue because the interference fit was not quite strong enough.







I don't remember using any sort of filler on that join. All that's on the model is a coat of primer, which should show up any problems. I used some filler to fill in the wing panel lines I didn't want when I sanded off the rivets I also did not want, but that was it.

It shows what can be done (by the manufacturer, not me  ).

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