Storm Eagle Issues

I started building my Storm Eagle many weeks ago, but haven't had too much time to dedicate to in in-between getting some games in with my Alpha Legion, and other painting activities. Over the weekend I managed to get in some serious time with the Storm Eagle though, and have progressed from the fuselage very significantly. Indeed, all that I nominally need to do now is to finish off gluing the weapons in to position. 

However, in building the Storm Eagle, I have faced (and still face) a number of difficulties. I'll pre-face all my comments below by reminding readers that I'm not a noob at conversions or building kits (even scratch built ideas of my own). So when I say that I've faced difficulties and problems, these are real for me, and I would also contend, are an issue for the casts that I built this particular kit out of. 

The first major problem is illustrated below. There is a slight misfit in the plastic components to the resin components. Indeed, in the instructions, it strongly suggests that the plastic components will need to be trimmed to size for compatibility with the resin ones. This is such a shame really. The issue here is that the front end of the craft is not flush with the resin (it sticks slightly upward). I put this down to some of the resin not being 100 per cent flat when I started assembling it. I tried with hairdryers and hot water to make it so, but even I'm not perfect it turns out. I also think I should have trimmed the bulk head down a little bit before assembling. Too late now. But this is salvageable for me with either some more hair-drier activity, and some greenstuff. I can handle that, but I wish I'd have known before getting in to it. 

The second major problem is the casting itself. This is ably illustrated below.

Notice where the corners of the undercarriage are. I had to grind out the corners as they were literally filled with resin -- so much so that the other components would never have fitted otherwise. And having ground them out, you can see that the assault ramp no longer sits flush with the undercarriage. This has been a real issue from the start of the build. (Looking toward the top of this image, some of the pinning I used to get the pieces together is also apparent).

Finally at the rear of the model (again underneath), there is filled in resin in the flying stand slot (top of the plus shape) that I need to try to take care of. Simply a pain! And one that I had not noticed at all until I tried to insert the flying stand!

Overall, this is not a kit I can recommend to beginners. Even with my experience, I feel I've not done the kit justice. I also feel like I could have spent a lot longer trying to iron out the issues with some of the resin pieces and come up short still.

I intend to finish the kit off later in the week (hopefully; time permitting) and get the weapons in place and try to get everything looking a bit more flush by fair means or foul.