I’m not OP, but I can share what I found myself doing these kits. Angles on manipulated pieces are extremely important. You really need good leverage with some pliers that also have very, very small ends.

This was actually my second one. The first one I did was the Millennium Falcon. This was WAY harder than the Falcon. My advice is to check the metal earth website for the difficulty ratings and start with an easier one first. Get a good set of tweezers. Read each step very carefully more than once. Get a lot of light on your workspace. I used a desk lamp. Don’t bend any piece more than twice because you risk snapping it. I made a few mistakes. I actually broke one panel on the LM that you can see pretty clearly in the picture. I’m going to glue it.

I had a Zeppelin, maybe Hindenberg? And it was way beyond my skill level.

Those thrusters were hard as hell! I tried using the tip of a pencil to roll it round but it didn’t work very well. I just ended up using the very tip of the tweezers and carefully fold each corner the best I could. They’re certainly not perfect but they look ok.