Ok, the way the fit on the gun ports came out really bothered me. I wanted to figure out just what happened (besides my impatience). So, I have several of the Airfix P-51Ds at hand. I pulled one out, took out all the wing parts and got them assembled right up to placing the gunport, but actually
not placing them in place yet. I then worked on one gunport trying to improve the fit into the wing (last few pictures). Once I had it sorted out, I then turned my attention to other gunport / wing and started on those mods and documented what I did in pictures. Picture one shows the initial gun port as it came off the sprue (Pic 1).
As you can see, the plastic is rather thick and the two tabs COULD be a problem. I decided to remove the tab that would be in the outmost part of the port )Pic 2).
That seemed to help better the fit, But, there are still challenges (Pics 3-6).
So, what next? I then decided to thin the plastic out on the port to make it easier to squeeze and improve the fit. That seemed to really help with the first attempt at getting a better fit. It seems almost like thinning the plastic reduced internal tension in the plastic as very little squeezing was required to get a much better fit. No pictures of the thinned pieces though, my bad.
Turns out removing that tab and thinning the plastic really helps improve the fit (Pics 6-9). Now, I cannot say every kit has this issue. I can say that the two I have checked have the issue. I do hope this helps any of you guys building the Airfix kit if you find you have the same fit issues I have discovered.
I think I will use this wing for the group build as the parts beetween the two kits are identical. I'll put the boogered up wing back in the 2nd kit and deal with all the fit issues when I drag that one back down.
Thanks for stopping by.