Nightmare on Apollo 11 build

I built the Buzz Aldrin Saturn V kit about six months ago and had a similar experience, although from the sound of it, not quite as bad.  In my case, it was only Stage II that had a significant mismatch, Stage I and III were pretty close and didn't require much tweaking.

For Stage II, one of the halves was maybe 2 mm shorter in radius than the other half, such that, when aligning one side perfectly, the other would not join together evenly.

The first thing I did was to gently flex the two halves to make them closer together in size.  So, I would flex the larger half inward, and the smaller half outward, until the difference between them was reduced to a more workable level.  This took a while, in several sessions.  It's sort of a miindless activity so you can do it while watching TV.  Just be careful not to flex too much and break one of them in half!  Anyway, this got me to a point where I could at least cement them together and get the edges to look reasonably even with only a small amount of gap showing in a few places.

Next, to fill in the gap and cover the seam, I used several applications of Elmer's White Glue.  Spread it on liberally into the seam, let it dry and then wipe off the excess.  The beauty of this was that since the rocket itself is painted in flat white, the glue blends in perfectly as is and you don't notice it at all.  Of course, if it does show, you can always just re-airbrush or repaint over the seams in your base color and it will disappear.

I just ordered a set from Rick.

When assembling the new Stage I, I did a better job, but I swear that after I microwelded the two parts together, it shifted when it dried.  The seams are almost gone.  I did some Mr. Surfacer 1000 and can see there is still some putty work ahead.  Grrr.

Excellent and correct decals can be found from Rick Sternbach at http://www.spacemodelsystems.com/decals.html

I got a set and they are perfect.

Mike

I haven't dealt with that yet.  Not sure who does aftermarket.  What I might do, as I have at the past, is find high res photos, photoshop them and make decals out of them, as I did with a previous Studebaker build.

I've just taken the easy way out. The local hobby store restocked the kit after I bought the last Apollo, so I bought that one too.  Now I can start fresh on Stage I.  Expensive, but worth avoiding the aggravation of fixing my mistakes.

When I did my Mercury Redstone from the Glencoe kit I had four pieces of banana to assemble.  You need to use warm water to reshape the parts.  Once you've secured the side that lines up ok you should place the parts into very warm water to soften it enough to flex it into the proper shape.  Use tape to hold the circle and glue the offending seam into place.  Let everything dry thoroughly before you dissemble it.  You might need to use a set of clamps to "squeeze" the out of true cross section into the correct shape.

Hope this helps but I would definitely NOT use filler.  You'll never eliminate the out of rounds appearance.  How are you dealing with the incorrect color decals??