People seem to have gone to great lengths to not say anything bad in
the reviews of these kits. I experienced the problems you
describe. My solution was to completely remove the locating marks
on the decks.
If you haven't gotten to the torpedo tubes yet, be sure to dry fit these also.
For the locating lines, my impression is that they were laid out with
the expectation that the wall thickness of superstructure parts and TT
mounts would be considerably thinner.
Also, the length of the 5" gun barrels was gross. When I asked
Chris Decker about this, he said that we can aways trim the part to the
correct size.
If you feel like going to a little extra effort, you will also find
that there is a deck section missing just aft of the break of the
fo'c'sle, at the 01 level.
If you build the Benham class, be prepared to do some major correction on the stack
The main gun director is grossly small. I skinned it with sheet
plastic on three sides and the bottom. Would have been easier
with a scratch-built effort.
I was delighted with the subject matter and prepared for a less-than
perfect start from a small manufacturer. They were a LOT less
than perfect, but still a place to start from.
Rick Heinbaugh