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Hi mates, For my next trick, I'm going to build something that doesn't have an overall white scheme. I walked into my warehouse stepped into the closet opened the cabinet fell over a pile of kits on the floor, and came up with the 1:72 Avro Anson made by Special Hobby. I don't recall if this is one of the box full of Czech kits I acquired from @occa or if I bought this elsewhere, but it's a short run, multi-media kit from several years ago. There are just a couple of injection moulded sprues, containing the fuselage, wings, cockpit floor, greenhouse, and sundries: It looks like at some point I also bought the masking set from Eduard. Inside the decal envelope are the photoetch fret, with the instrument panel, seat belts, trim tab linkages, etc., and a small piece of film with the instruments for the panel. The kit also has a lot of resin parts, most notably the engines (with individual cylinder heads), cowlings, seats, gear struts, exhausts, gun, wing lights, etc. If I understand correctly, the Anson was powered by two Armstrong Siddeley Cheetah engines, each with 7 cylinders. That's a total of 14. Not sure why Special Hobby give us 32 cylinders - I might drop one or two but I think it would be hard even for me to lose so many that I'd need that many extras. Speaking of resin, here's where the kit gets "interesting." This, of course, is one of the more recognizable features of the Anson - the tubular framework visible through the greenhouse. As you can see, in addition to the cleanup required, these pieces are warped. Hmm. I can always count on Special Hobby to be looking out for my modelling skills development. They're so kind. I did a bit of cleanup and got this: The sidewalls will eventual mount to the cockpit floor (the teardrop shaped piece at top left of the second photos) so they will need to be curved in order to conform to the shape of the floor. The tubular portions of these parts (let's just call it the roll cage), are not round in cross-section, they're flat on the side that is visible through the windows. This is due to the casting method and cleanup. The top portion of the roll cage is warped, too. Here's what I'm going to do. First, I'm going to pour libations and make sacrifices to Zeus (remembering, of course, to wrap fat around the thigh bones). Then, I'm going to construct my own roll cage using styrene rod. Let's try an experiment first. I measured the diameter of the tubes, and they're all somewhere around 0.030 inches. Great, I have some Evergreen rod of that size. Using the above piece as a template, a short while later I have this: OK, why not? This should work. I think the best way to do this is to cut off the tubular section from each sidewall, attach the sidewalls to the floor, close up the fuselage and add the roll cage later. As with most short run kits, there are no alignment pegs to show you exactly where any of the cockpit pieces go. There is usually quite a lot of dry fitting involved before any glue is, well, glued. You have to find the "keystone" - the one part that can only go in one spot, and then build out from there. For this kit, I think the keystone is the forward bulkhead for the turret compartment. That needs to align with the rear windows, so I'm confident that's where we'll start. Luckily, there are quite a few on-line photos and references that will help with this build. I'm not sure what markings I'll use, probably the ones shown on the box top. This is a famous Anson that actually shot down two Bf 109s (one for the pilot, one for the gunner). Imagine that. Although I also like the trainer schemes with the yellow undersides. We'll see. Stay tuned for another exciting episode as Uncle Navy Bird gets paint under his fingernails again. Cheers, Bill