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


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Number Two: "Du mußt Amboß oder Hammer sein."

Number Six: "You must be Anvil or Hammer".

Number Two: I see you know your Goethe.

Number Six: And you see me as the anvil?

Number Two: Precisely. I am going to hammer you.

-- The Prisoner, "Hammer into Anvil"

Then Achilles,
in a fury, said to his horse:

"Xanthus,
why do you prophesy my death? There is no need.
I know well enough I'm fated to die here,
far from my loving parents. No matter.
I will not stop till I have driven the Trojans
to the limit of what they can endure in war."

-- Homer, The Iliad, Book XIX

Well, this is probably a terrible idea, but I'm going to try it anyway. At the start of this year, I had exactly two P-40 kits, the Sword Kittyhawk III double boxing. Because of this Group Build, I found seven more in my possession after I blacked out for a spell, so now I have to build them or perish, not least of all because my wife is starting to wonder why my stash seems to keep growing if I'm not buying anything.

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My intent is to build all eight aircraft as Mediterranean-based P-40s, which will require some scrounging, as the double kits only have enough regular roundels for one aircraft each. I'm going to use the spare Legato decals (supplemented by some from Cookenbacher) to build the Hasegawa kit as either J F "Eddie" Edward's machine or Clive Caldwell's sharkmouth. I'm polishing off three 109s elsewhere, but hope to get to work this weekend.

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You're a model-making machine! I wish I had some clever quote to back that up, but it's late where I am and I'm all tapped out. Hmmm, maybe I should be listening to my Spinal Tap collection - that'll get me going again.

Regards,

Jason

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:D i m sorry, the very first thing what came to my mind was "this is madness!" :D but i ll watch this carefuly, mainly how the AZ/Sword/MPM trio ll go together. I gave up on the AZ(legato) kit and sadly my Sword kit has damaged panel lines on wings :( But the MPM/Special hobby P-40F is something i want to see built :) So, lets go! :hobbyhorse:;)

Edited by Wolwe82
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Irritatingly, I seem to have mislaid one of the floors for the Special Hobby 2-in-1 kit. I'm hoping to find the right combination of swears to unlock the secret of its location.

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Irritatingly, I seem to have mislaid one of the floors for the Special Hobby 2-in-1 kit. I'm hoping to find the right combination of swears to unlock the secret of its location.

Monkey Island?

Cheers,

Stew

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So I was too depressed to really get stuck in yesterday, and instead ate two cupcakes, four fajitas, at least two sleeves of Girl Scout cookies (do they have those in the UK?), and drank a liter of Diet Dr. Pepper. Clearly I make good choices!

But early this morning/very late last night, I did some test fitting of bulkheads to the MPM kits, and I'm reasonably sure I can bodge up a floor replacement, as it doesn't seem to serve as a spacer or anything more than a convenient receptacle for the control column. So that's for tonight.

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But early this morning/very late last night, I did some test fitting of bulkheads to the MPM kits, and I'm reasonably sure I can bodge up a floor replacement, as it doesn't seem to serve as a spacer or anything more than a convenient receptacle for the control column. So that's for tonight.

Go to it mate, you can do that :thumbsup2:

Cheers,

Stew

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Fanfare!

11042942_941515795873233_793839610094327

Just keeps on going, doesn't it? Imagine how I feel.

So, here was my solution to The Case Of The Missing Floor -- I used to devour Hardy Boys books in about 2nd-3rd grade, a pleasure to which I suspect degenerate modern youth are largely oblivious of, being little more than dull beasts -- pretty basic, but it seems to work:

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Ta-da!

And with a little paint on:

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Apparently Curtiss used Cockpit Green, but their own custom-ordered mix, which was described as "browner". My colour perception is poorer in the green-brown area, I'm told (but how would I know, really? A question for the philosophers), so I just added two or three drops of Dark Tan to a color cup's worth of US Cockpit Green and went to town.

I'm keeping my small parts in these Chinese food cartons, a job lot of which I received from my wife's friend's boyfriend, who is in cooking school. So far it's enabled him to reinterpret delicious standards in horrible new ways, but perhaps that's just culinary philistinism. I will remind you, however, that more often than not, the Philistines won. In any case, the cartons are handy.

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I don't like to brag, but I appear to be the only man in Christendom for whom the Airfix joystick failed to break while being extracted:

1525336_941515919206554_2138128154745382

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That is just ridiculous PC - eight fuselage halves all lined up.

Here's my guess, top to bottom:

Airfix P-40B

AZ/Legato P-40E

Hasegawa P-40E

Sword P-40K Short Tails x2

Sword P-40K Long Tail

Special Hobby P-40L

SH P-40F

I can't wait to see all eight complete, and I've no doubts that it will be sooner than any of us think.

Your scratch cockpit floor on the P-40L is very convincing.

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Airfix P-40B

AZ/Legato P-40E

Hasegawa P-40E

Sword P-40K Short Tails x2

Sword P-40K Long Tail

Special Hobby P-40L

SH P-40F

Correctamundo!

Your scratch cockpit floor on the P-40L is very convincing.

Fortunately floors don't demand much in the way of verisimilitude.

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Good lord, you caught whatever MG has!

Great start and congratulations on the airfix control stock, mine has none as I broke it 3 times and decided it was bad luck in some way so burnt it in the fire.... Extreme yes but the sacrifice please someone as everything else was a walk in the park.

Good luck Mr p!

Rob

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Ah! I have found the first flaw in your builds!!! All your interior greens are the same, when they were likely to be different between batches and factories...

Two options: Fall on your sword...(very romantic, dare I say), or repaint everything with nuances!!!

I am sure you will agree.

Have fun

JR

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Sadly, much like the dilemma King Saul found himself in, my aide-de-camp has resolutely refused to run me through, and self-annihilation is a sin.

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