After this set I used Mr. Surfacer to fill the join, wiping off the excess with denatured alcohol.  This is an absolutely great product I do not know how I lived without.  Over the years I have tried many methods to fill small cracks or seams without destroying the engraved lines around them, or tried to fill areas that I did not want (or wasn't able) to sand smooth afterwards.  I have tried using white glue and/or wood glue to some success, filling the crack and then smoothing it with my finger.  I have also tried thinning Green Putty with lacquer thinner and painting it it into the seam.  This works well if you get it right the first time.  Any additional smoothing with lacquer thinner has the unfortunate side effect of melting the surrounding plastic.  Finally, I discover Mr. Surfacer after reading about it on the web in several reviews.  This fills the seam in nicely, and the excess wipes away with denatured alcohol, not hurting the surrounding plastic a bit!  Great stuff.

One other area that posed a problem was the front of the wing root.  There is a small gap where the wing halves (top and bottom)  meet one another, and where they join the fuselage.  Unfortunately this is also where a prominent panel line is.  The panel join (fillet)  running around the wing root is slightly raised compared to the rest of the fuselage, and the join runs right through this.  Not impossible, but messy to fix.  Some putty and lots of delicate sanding were required to smooth out the small gap and seam.  Tricky to do in this area of multiple curves and panel lines.

 The horizontal tail pieces are molded in one piece per side, with the attachment tabs interlocking when you join them to the fuselage.  Simple and perfectly aligned the first time!  While on the subject, the rudder which is molded into the fuselage is done extremely well, and looks almost like a separate piece.  Once again Hasegawa's crisp molding stands out.

The engine is pretty adequately detailed - the front row of cylinders is molded in one piece, with the back row molded into a firewall.  There are some additional separate pieces that help spruce things up a bit, and with some judicious painting it will look good.  One problem I did have was in removing the sprue gates from the cowling.  The front piece of the cowling (back to the flaps) is molded as one piece, and there are thick sprue gates present inside the cowl opening.  This thick sprue must have been necessary to get the crisp molding of the cowl, but it is extremely difficult to remove without damaging the cowling itself.  There are four attachment points on the inner lip of the cowl opening to be cut away.  Let me suggest you do so by cutting with a knife as opposed to clippers or sprue cutters.  I used my sprue cutters and ended up cracking the cowling in several places due to the stress I put on the piece while I tried to cut out the sprue.  I painted the interior of the cowl Model Master Japanese Interior Metallic Blue (meant to represent the clear, blue-tinted protective coating that was used to seal areas of the airframe left in their natural metal state).  I left off the engine and cowling until after the entire model had been painted.  This reduced the amount of masking necessary for the all black cowl.  Finally I installed the one piece, closed up canopy using a couple of dabs of white glue to protect the cockpit, as I would later used the opened up pieces on the finished kit.  I masked off the window openings in the sides and underbelly using liquid mask.

After painting (see below) I added on all the final touches.  The canopies were masked with Scotch Magic Tape, the frames cut out using a new Xacto knife, and were sprayed first with Model Master Japanese Interior Blue, then with IJN Green.  This allows the primed bare metal  to show through on the interior of the frames.  Hasegawa gives you all the pieces to show the greenhouse canopy in the open position, but this is a little tricky.  The gunner's canopy and the rear fairing both slide back and under the rearmost fixed portion.  Getting all these lined up on top of one another successfully is not that easy.  After much trial and error, I glued the gunner's canopy into the fixed section, then glued these two down to the fuselage.  Once dry, I carefully inserted the end piece underneath both of these.  I needed to fair in the fixed portions of the canopies using Kristal Kleer, which I painted over when dry.  The windshield fit beautifully.  I ended up replacing the two little side windows with clear acetate - despite my best efforts cutting them from the sprue, I ended up with little blemishes on the kit pieces that just didn't look right.  They were easy enough to duplicate using the kit pieces as templates.

The torpedo sight on the cowling is a nice addition, but it is a little thick for this scale.  I sanded it down and added it to the top of the cowl.  The sprues do include the torpedo sighting device that is meant to be installed on the cockpit glare shield, but the instructions do not mention this.  After skimming my research material, I saw several cockpit photos without this device, and two holes present as in the kit.  I think it is reasonable that they may not have carried this device when being used as a bomber.  I added a brass photoetch cross hair sight to the rear gun to replace the kit's, which was also very thick.  I also drilled out the gun barrel tip using a pin vise.

For as much as this is a state of the art kit, I was surprised to find some rather pronounced mold lines on the landing gear.  This took a bit of filing to clean up.  There are also lots of ejector marks on the landing gear covers and on the bomb pieces.  I added hydraulic lines for the brakes down the back of the main gear using wire. The main wheels look well detailed, and have a very minor flattened spot to represent the weight of the aircraft on the tires.  So subtle that i suggest noting where it is before painting - otherwise almost impossible to find!  On the downside, the tail wheel and it's strut/fairing are molded as one piece, making painting a bit difficult.  The rest of the bits and bobs were added per the kit instructions and went fairly smoothly.

I had always wanted to do one of the 'mottled' Kates I had seen pictures and profiles of over the years.  After much research using my library and many requests to the J-aircraft board, I ended up with a dilemma.  Several sources say these a/c were originally overall natural metal, and the mottling applied per directives just before Pearl Harbor.  Others say they were overall light gray, similar to Zekes of that time period, and the mottling applied over this.  Knowing full well that whichever scheme I chose will inevitably be the wrong one, I went with the natural metal base.  I am sure within days I will find a full color photo of exactly this a/c and I will be wrong!!  I really wanted to try out the new Alclad II metal finishes and this seemed like a way to ease into it, rather than breaking out a B-29 and going to town on a true 'full metal jacket.'  Reviews of Alclad II were raving, but I was still dubious.  I emailed Scott Van Aken (our host here at M2) and he was extremely helpful.  Alclad II needs a barrier between it and the bare plastic, and they suggest something that is acrylic.  In an attempt to take the lazy method out, I had decided I might be able to get away with a spray can for the undercoat.  My local hobby shop (one of the last ones left in NY) had plenty of spray cans, but none that were acrylic.  I decided to tempt fate and picked up a can of Tamiya semi-gloss black.  I have not used spray cans in years and was amazed at the smooth coverage this spray provided.  Very thin, very smooth - airbrush quality results.  I was very impressed.  Anyway, I coated the whole built-up model with this and let it dry.  Being semi-gloss, scratches and blemishes in the plastic would show up.  I sanded these out as necessary, and re-painted.