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Rando
Such a nice build, for as frustrating as this kit sounds every step looks beautifully done. I have an AM P-51A with a Verlinden engine that I plan to build in the near-ish future.

Boris B
Hi Rando, glad you find the build interesting. I suppose not many people build this not-very-successful and not-very-pretty airplane ! 😉
I hope I don't sound too whiny, as I wouldn't say that the build is frustrating overall (even if the instructions are). It's satisfying insofar as the result promises to be on a par with the effort put into it (and that's what model building is about, no ?).
Out of the box, there are pitfalls to avoid by testing for fit an placement before gluing, but the result would be quite ok. I chose to go the extra mile because I enjoy the detailing and the research behind it. That's the core of my comments about AM's general idea to do molded-on detail instead of multiplying extra parts. It's laudable in principle, but I prefer to remove some of it that I find too soft and replace it with scratch-built.
Still, OOB, these AM kits remain top of their class after many years (even when they are not rare birds : for ex. the SBD, the TBD, the B25, the early Mustangs, I suppose), because of their detailing but mostly because of the general quality of the molding as well as their... accuracy, of course.