This Seaview went full circle...
Now that I got my hands dirty with sprue dust, I can give you my first impressions.
1. There is some flash to deal with but I have seen much worse, I.E. the Mayflower build.
2. There have been some fit issues, but it may be limited to the one section that I will spend some time talking about.
3. The ease of assembly is very good.
I started by test fitting the two halves of the hull. Immediately, I had noticed that there was some twisting going on. You press here, and it pops there. You press there and it pops here. It didn't seem severe enough though that I should do anything other than glue the darn thing. I started at the bow along it's keel, then over, and all the way back again. I did this in sections to make sure I was getting the best alignments. In the end, it came out pretty good. Phew...
Below: There are some gaps along its keel, and this is the worst of it. No matter how hard that I squeezed on that section I could not close that gap. I will repair that with CA.
Below: Nothing to say here other than to take a gander at the seam. It came together nicely.
Below: Here is where I had some problems. For reference, the piece that is out of alignment is called the upper deck. The sail gets mounted to this, and behind where the sail sits is where the nuclear missile covers are molded. The problem here is, in short, it would not fit into the recess. And, it wouldn't fit for various reasons.
Below: Here is one of the problems. The recessed corners are not square. I could not account for why this occurred. The rest of the model seems aligned well. I can only guess that this is some sort of defect. I had to notch those corners out so that they were square, and on both ends of the deck had to be done.
Below: The underside of the deck has two locating plugs and they don't align well with the corresponding notches on the hull. This caused the deck to ride high. So, I had to sand those down until I could get the correct height.
Lastly, the deck was too long! I had to sand the ends down some in order for the piece to fit. What the heck...
The Seaview went full circle for me because I remember having the same dang problem when I built it many many many years ago. I am having flashbacks.
Below: after all is said and done...it still has a crappy fit. Primarily, this is true at the very ends of the decking. This is unacceptable to me and I can't leave it like this. So, I will fill and sand smooth the entire deck join.
Overall, I am enjoying the simplicity of the build.