Greg, Thanks for the advice. Actually, what I'm dealing with in fact, are two Hasewaga kits, one from 1990, and one from 2003 (North America Release Dates at least). I know what you mean about the Hasewaga kits being 'unforgiving'. I've done 5 x 1/48 Hase kits so far and I've had to tear apart something on everyone of them. My last project was a Spitfire MkV and I screw up the front office something fierce - it was way out of alignment. I had to spray it with de-bonder to separate the parts, soak the parts in Windex to get the paint off, weld the tiny parts back on that I had broken off in the process of taking the cockpit apart, and then start all over again - about a weeks work down the drain and it still doesn't look quite right.
I've learned that none of these kits can be called 'fast builds', at least, not if you want to do them right, but Hasegawa must surely be up there with the leaders for the 'Make haste slowly' award. (Don't ya just love those catchy little sayings?)
Interesting note: the 'Monogram/Hasegawa kit still has the price on it from 1990 - would you believe $20!!! My LHS gave me a price on a new release, 2003, Hase, and its $36. Those are Cdn dollars too. I think I'm going to buy the Monogram kit on general principal and keep it as a collectors model: I haven't been able to find another one on the net so I think I may have found a rare beastie that may someday be worth quite a bit more than it already is 'as is'.
But Oh the temptation, to build, it would look so good scattered under, over, around, and on top of my workbench, with little parts stuck to my arms, crushed into the carpet, chewed up by the dog, painted the wrong colour, covered in my Tenax fingerprints.........the beauty of it, the poetry, the sheer exhilerating grace and beauty of watching the decals dissolve in the Micro Sol......I'm just too weak to invest, to weak, to weak....