Thanks for the kind words, everybody. It was a really fun project overall and it looks good in the case.
@Aggieman I had to search back into the archive to find your HobbyBoss F4F-4 build thread as I don’t recall having seen it before. Wish I would have read it before embarking on this project!
You perfectly described the canopy dilemma I faced and I see we came to the same solution – aftermarket! However, I didn’t solve the lower fuselage part and instead used thin styrene sheet, faired, to level the parts out. After rescribing and re-riveting, it looked okay, but under primer it looked BAD. I did not fix it and you’ll note the area is not photographed.
As for the wing joins, I faced the same issue. I could NOT get them to stick. What ended up working was to use copious sprue goo as my adhesive, which filled the gaps (the reason I believe the Tamiya Extra Thin wouldn’t work is that there’s minimal actual contact between the parts). Left to cure overnight it seemed to work.
Your suggestion that this is a copy of the Tamiya kit with modifications makes perfect sense. That’s why the kit can be 90% nicely engineered, detailed, and fit, while 10% makes you scratch your head. It’s because that 10% of engineering wasn’t done to make the kit better!