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GR7s against Iraq (Airfix 1/72 x 2)


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I suppose I should at least get this up here, for when I finish my Korean War GB tithe. I'm going to be building two shark-mouthed Harrier GR7s: one during Operation WARDEN in 1993, and one during Operation TELIC in 2003. I'll be using two of the splendid Airfix GR7a/GR9a kits, with gunpods shamelessly looted from a pair of Hasegawa GR9s (which I cannot now for love or money unload on anyone, making them officially the most expensive pieces of "aftermarket" I own, at $20 a pair), and weapons from the kit, Mavericks from the Revell Hunter FGA.9, and bombs from a Hasegawa weapons set (Op WARDEN GR7s carried US CBU-87s).

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  • 4 weeks later...

I am plugging away at these, despite a near-total loss of mojo, because, well, because I gave my word as a gentleman that I'd build these if I got the decals for them. Right now the fuselages and wings sans flaps are together. Will try and post some photos tonight, if the new hedgehog doesn't distract me overmuch -- I need to handle her for an hour a night so she gets used to me, and so we're watching an episode of "The A-Team" each evening.

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Oh, the frustration was more the obtrusion of all sorts of real-life nonsense yesterday. I am going to blame my wife for the whole thing, but if you pay attention to the chain of causality here, you can see it's actually all my fault and that blaming her instead of me is like blaming thunder for lightning and viciously ungentlemanly, to boot:

Last November, I tried to tightly close the handle of our outside faucet, but as the faucet wasn't the only thing that was tight at the time, I managed to instead wrench off the handle, and the faucet is of course 90-odd years old, so difficult to replace. As a result, my wife uses -- or used -- the inside valve shut-off to turn the hose on and off so she could water her garden. Well, I came home from a long and infuriating day at work yesterday to be confronted with a leaky valve shut-off, so I had to drop everything and call my father (son of a plumber, that man, and as good at home repair as I am bad at it) to come over and try and fix things, which he managed in a very jury-rigged way that should last until Saturday when he has more time, but in doing so, I had to shut off water to the house, and that caused a leak in THAT shut off valve, which is ancient, so on Saturday I'm going to have to spend my precious weekend (I work/commute 57 hours a week) doing that, AND the new leak is also in my workroom, so there's water all over the floor, or was until I brought in a bucket, and I didn't eat until like nine last night, so it's all just maddening and I'd like to blame someone other than myself, and it's proving difficult to do that in a credible way.

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Having a devil of a time getting the nose sections to close up properly. They require a lot of rubber bands; mere clamps don't answer.

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Okay, okay. I need to get this sh...ore-based-build in gear. Long day today, actually a long weekend on the whole. Yesterday was one of those days where I woke up, my wife announced she wanted to get doughnuts from Dunkin' Donuts [sic], and so I spent the next, I kid you not, dear readers, two hours waiting on five minutes readiness for her to actually get out of bed and be ready to leave for breakfast, which we ultimately ate around noon. My wife is a wonderful woman, but also often intensely infuriating. I don't even really like Dunkin' Donuts. Then we spent the rest of the day rampaging through our checking account like Godzilla through Tokyo getting a million annoying little things for home projects - a dehumidifier for the basement, deck cleaning fluid and deck stain, all sorts of other fun stuff, and then groceries. Then when all of that was done, company came over, and had to be fed and entertained. So no modelling done on Saturday.

So Sunday --and I know you're on the edge of your seats here-- she woke me up and announced she wanted to go to the Botanical Gardens, as an exercise in spontaneity. Well, complain someone never's ready to do anything, and the universe punishes you. So we spent four hours of my life that I'll never get back wandering amongst assorted flowering things, all of which make me slowly swell up like a barrage balloon, before we could finally leave. To tug at your heartstrings more, I'll mention that my mother also subjected me to this as a child, and there's nothing worse -- and I was once sort of half-heartedly shot at in a bad part of Chicago -- than the vague sense that you're trapped in the most boring place on earth, at the mercy of someone who just can't get enough of it, and the added frisson of terror that in the near future you may be called upon to buy and plant some of these horrible things yourself.

So! Still with me? Wait, come back! I got home, ran eight miles in an hour and seven minutes (a pretty good time for me for that distance) in a desperate attempt to escape fatter me, who's been overtaking thin me at a high rate of knots. Then my wife made a lovely dinner of salmon, asparagus and rice, and thus sated, I retreated to my subterranean grotto and actually did some modelling. I know you were wondering!

Both of the GR7s are mostly assembled now, and I was working on the intakes of ZG479 (sharkmouth minor), as the Telic Harriers seemed to have a rather infuriating bit of interior paintwork. Here's where I am on those:

IMAG1247_zpsypguoi9f.jpg

IMAG1248_zpscf692ge6.jpg

I'm also working on ZD408 (Sharkmouth very major), and I didn't do the intake color there because I've seen no interior photos of her intakes as of Op Warden and also because I'm lazy. Trying to ascertain if she had the strakes or the "gunpods"; the one photo I've seen is inflight and I can't tell. Here's a look down her intakes (heyoo!):

IMAG1250_zpsmmepwwd9.jpg

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Hard to get much work done, as the heat and humidity here is terrible...frankly, most of the United States is wholly unsuited to human habitation, and that goes double for Chicago, which is unbearable for about 48 weeks out of the year. Also, my mojo remains in deadly abeyance.

Still, I polished out that nasty seam along the tops of the two canopies. This lead to the following little vignette:

[My wife walks into the bathroom to find me polishing a model airplane canopy using toothpaste and a toothbrush. There is a long pause as she asseses the situation.]

Me: I imagine you have a lot of questions right now.

IMAG1274_zpsbz2gr4f8.jpg

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I concur with Bristolhibby above, even if you are not making much progress (they look good by the way) keep on posting! Btw I had a long weekend in Chicago a few years ago and the weather was most agreeable!

FF

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Yeah I know what you mean PC but if evolution had not intended us to be addicted to sweets it wouldn't have made sugar so damned delicious :Tasty:

Anyway I trust the Colgate is as effective on your teeth as it was on your canopies :tooth: , the Harriers are coming on nicely, press on mate :bye:

Cheers,

Stew

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