**** DONE: GB-56 1/72 XP-72 - Thunderbolts and Lightnings

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I spent a few hours last night struggling with the butchery........I mean surgery last night and these 2 shots are what I ended up with after a lot of trial and error, trying to get the best fit, tareing it apart several times in the process.




I have a lot of issues with the shape of these resin parts and came real close to binning the whole thing.
Here's some of the issued:
First, the cowling is the wrong shape. It should be symmetrical top and bottom but is deeper on the bottom. Also the recess for the exhaust is molded into the cowling when it should be in the fuselage side behind the cowl. It will have to be filled in and the proper location cut out in the fuselage




Here you can see here where I set the fuselage plug to match the depth of the profile and that the cowling is much to deep and will have to be re-shaped.




And lastly, the fuselage plug is also way too deep at the rear. I set it in as deep as I could burying the scoop as much as possible but its not enough and I'll have to file the plug down quite a bit.



All in all I'm very disappointed with the resin set. There is a 1/48th full resin kit out there that I wish I would have went with instead of this one. It was a lot more expensive but by the time the price of the donner kit is factored in for this one it only works out to be an extra $25
Well I'm still going to struggle on with this one for now.
 
Sorry for the not great picture quality but I had to use my cellphone

First picture is the the lower fuselage I added in front of the intake which I made up from pieces I had cut off the fuselage halves to install the resin. It is will require a lot of filling and sanding just like the rest of the lower fuselage. I will have to give the glue some cure time before I start attacking it with my needle file.




The exhaust vent was molded into the resin cowling which is incorrect as it was in the fuselage side just behind the cowling. I filled it in with some plastic sheet and will shape it to the cowling.




The resin cowling is not shaped right. It should be symmetrical around the centerline but instead is too deep on the bottom. I believe this was done to match the height of the Revell model fuselage, but the XP-72's fuselage was not as deep as the P-47's at this location as it did not have the tubro ducting. When I glued in the lower fuselage piece I did it at the correct height and you can see that the resin part is about 3/16" too deep and will have to be reshaped.




While taking breaks from all the surgery I did some work on the wings, painting the gear wells and glueing the upper and lower wing parts together.

 
I started working on the cowling, re-shaping it. Not only was it too deep, but too wide when mated to the fuselage so it also had to be taken down. I don't see the reason for this as the Revell model was the one the resin kit was made for.
This is what I was left with afterwards. These rein pieces are like swiss cheese, completely filled with bubbles.
I will be spending a lot of time filling. Either that or binning the whole thing.




I also closed off the turbo intercooler vents and faired in the belly resin into the fuselage with CA and a whole lot of work with a needle file.
If you look closely you can see hundreds small dark spots on the resin that are the bubbles just under the surface.

 
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