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Desert Anvils (EIGHT 1/72 P-40s: Sword, Hasegawa, Special Hobby, Legato, Airfix)


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Tried to do some more work, but I'm just exhausted and my heart isn't in it. I poured a colour cup of Azure Blue into my jar of black paint, and generally faffed around. Really, the Airfix and Special Hobby kits are the only ones that seem to have been made with the idea that someone might build them. Sword in particular has their usual WWII kit gimmick of needlessly complicated cockpits, especially the seat mounting points.

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Also, test fit the rear view cut out windows thoroughly on the Sword kit PC. I didn't, because I had just spent hours masking them and was impatient to get everything together. The windows are too thick for the recesses, and stick out a ways. I just thought it was the masking tape at the time, but it was plastic. The recesses themselves need to be deepened, or new thinner windows need to be made.

In other words, maybe work on the Airfix and Special Hobby P-40's first.

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Way to get your enthusiasm boosted :fraidnot: perhaps you were right that only Airfix and Special Hobby expected you to actually try to build the thing :hmmm:

Well chin up PC, you will find a way around it...

Cheers,

Stew

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Too bad to hear that. Maybe it's a good thing I am leaving the Sword K to the last. Maybe some Hasegawa side windows will be thin enough. Something I'll have to try or watch you try.

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I've been incredibly depressed recently, worn down by work and winter and the perception that I don't have enough time to do...anything. Depression is just something that comes along and crushes me every now and then, and so I just have to ride out the storm. And by ride out I mean overeat and oversleep. Unfortunately, I've been trying to diet and exercise more, so all this healthy living just extended the unpleasantness. I took a half-day at work today, and went home (after an unpleasant wait at the train station, the main rail terminal for a city of 2.8 million souls, which improbably has only ONE lavatory area, which was closed for maintenance, nearly causing me to burst and die), ate an entire box of girl scout cookies, and went to sleep for four hours. This nap was only slightly shorter than the amount of sleep I get on an average weekday. No more refreshed, but muzzier and colicky, I decided to seize my destiny by the huevos and just go downstairs and force the pace.

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So far: Airfix kit still good, Special Hobby still pretty great for limited run. Sword relies way too much on trapping parts between the fuselage halves, which is a terrible way to do things when you can't cast your parts without sprue gates the size of the Koh-I-Noor over everything, and in the damndest places, too! Hasegawa is an old and surprisingly shoddy effort from them. The Legato kit is the worst, I think, of the lot, I'm very impressed by how much Cookie was able to get out of the kit. The chin intake is a weak point on all Kittyhawk (vice Tomahawk) kits.

I have decided to assemble the fuselages, for the most part, with only the bits that absolutely must be trapped between the halves in them, because the people who design kits where there are no locating pins or tabs in the cockpit are going to be shoved roughly up against the wall come the revolution, and not in an ostensibly erotic 50 Shades of Grey way, either. I intend to pop the cockpit assemblies into place from the undersides of the fuselage, in hopes that this way the seats won't be all a-kilter.

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That's a lot of fuselages joined together PC. Very impressive my friend.

Agreed on the chin radiators - the Sword is probably the best with those. I followed your advice from the AZ build on my Swords, and the cockpit rear wall fits pretty good by attaching it from the bottom after the fuselage is together. The IP fell off about twenty times though before getting the canopy on.

Keep it up PC, this is epic indeed. And soon you'll be basking in the treeless but sunny climes of Arizona.

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Agreed on the chin radiators - the Sword is probably the best with those.

I have to say, credit where credit is due, Sword did a nice job on the radiator, by far the best of the bunch, much more detailed than the SH ones. Not a fan of the backplate to the intakes, though. As for the IP, did you swear at it enough? I recommend not stopping until spittle's dripping down your chin, almost always works for me.

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Huge project!

Aren't you afraid to be a little bit bored after doing eight time the same operation, on and on?

I've sometime considered the same kind of multiple build, but I would have stopped at three.

Good luck anyway.

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Sword are indeed so inconsistent. My first Sword kit was their Spitfire, went together nicely. My mate and fellow groupbuilder Wayne-O attempted their Bf109D which I gave him thinking I was being nice, and it was a dog. I am presently working on their Helldiver- why I decided to break this old kit out when there are better options around I'm not sure. Yes, it's perilously close to relegation to the Drawer of Limbo, but not quite. Some fantastic cockpit detail, especially in the pilot's station... but the rear cockpit is really an empty void.

You keep hanging in there, sometimes it is all about patiently waiting for the black dog to find someone else to sniff. But I'm a fan of exercise as therapy.

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You keep hanging in there, sometimes it is all about patiently waiting for the black dog to find someone else to sniff. But I'm a fan of exercise as therapy.

Running definitely helps me. There's a bike path near my house that goes into the adjoining town -- a total of eight miles round trip -- that I like to run, but the weather has been abominable here, only getting above freezing for the first time yesterday.

In any case, more progress:

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AZ/Legato must surely win an award for bad fit:

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I've built a lot of limited-run models, but this one is making me feel like a novice again. It's like falling in love again, if love involved a lot of screaming. So falling in love with Sean Penn.

Mrs. P is watching "Benefits: Too Fat To Work" on youtube, a true horrorshow.

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I didn't take too many pics of my AZ build from the front! The radiator intake is like three or four pieces, and it's a bit like spinning plates trying to get them to stay in the right place while closing up the fuselage. And then, it seems you have to choose your gap. Looks like you chose yours up top. Mine is worse, it's in the middle of the 'splitters'. I thought about trying to get a shim in there, but decided that would likely result in the whole thing coming apart and rattling around the fuselage. The prop was cemented strategically in place to hide the gap tooth. The secret is out!

I have to say that I am very pleased with the shape of the AZ/Legato P-40 though, and the intake is really the worst part.

YOu're moving right along, keep it up PC!

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If I may:

Sleep, exercise, and food all play into happiness. It sounds like you don't sleep well, or much. Exercise can be a pain, but even 5 minutes of jumping jacks or something similar can lead to more energy. Food is the tough one. Making sure you get enough raw veggies is paramount, and staying away from processed grains and sugars has helped me fight the worst of my moods. Winter sucks. Winter just sucks.

I keep forgetting to check down here in the GB section, not a sign of disinterest. I am floored that you are taking on so many at once, but I recently described my chain-modelling success to my wife and we agreed it was better to do it this way.

Carry on PC, hope you feel best soon.

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Some more work on the AZ P-40E nose:

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Hard to believe this is an improvement over anything, but here we are.

In a burst of activity, I skipped steps all over the place, and shouted "[word we cannot use on Britmodeller, however much we might like to] it!" and added cockpit floors and lower wings. No instrument panels, which appear to have a gap between them and the coaming on P-40s, or at least P-40 kits, or joysticks, though. We'll come back for those, or stop caring, whichever we please.

It's safe to say these kits were made for people who truly love the P-40, in the sense that they will be required to prove their love through a series of trials that make the wooing of Atalanta seem like a Match.com compatibility test. The hitherto benign Special Hobby kit had a terrible wing to fuselage join, worse even than the Sword kits, and the wings seem weirdly warped and bent. A lot of strategic sanding (and swearing) was called for here.

Even the so far blameless Airfix kit has proved a bit of a bee (other words starting with "b" also available) in this area, as we can see:

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A gap so big, a London Underground employee burst into my grotto and tried to throw up a placard. Honestly!

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Nice work on filling the radiator gap on the AZ kit. I'll have to try that on the next one.

I've not yet begun to fill. Well, I mean, I have, but I'm not done. Speaking of, "I've not yet begun to fight" is a terrible battle cry. What if the men hear you? What will they think you've been doing?

Also, forgot to put in this photo:

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I've not yet begun to fill. Well, I mean, I have, but I'm not done. Speaking of, "I've not yet begun to fight" is a terrible battle cry. What if the men hear you? What will they think you've been doing?

...

"Look, I've been busy with this whole rations transport thing, I'll start fighting once I have got that sorted out, okay?" :D

Nice work on those mate, I wish you contented and effective filling :)

Cheers,

Stew

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Nicely going on! :) great job on taming the AZ P-40. The decision was made.. my Legato P-40 is going out to the world, thanks guys for saving me a lot of swearing! ;) But to not blame AZ models - their new kits (made with different technology) like Spitfire IX or Bf 109G goes together pretty great :)

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