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

[Fatcawthorne]

Like Stew I struggled to find a silver lining. He's said it all better than I could anyway. We're all rooting for you (did I spell that right?)

Pretty sure the Australian members of our congregation will be looking forward to helping you feel better too! Hopefully one of them can explain the reference to save me a warning point!

Seriously, as someone receiving treatment for depression I understand the feelings you describe, made all the worse when you are sentinent enough to realise just how fortunate we are in the wider scheme of things.

Mini-PC's arrival will open a whole new box of feelings for you which until it happens you wouldn't have believed were inside you. With what you have on the horizon I can only say things will get better!

Ps you need to get loads of sleep beforehand though mate!

Pps if all else fails 12 shark mouths have to make you feel some form of happiness, don't they?

[dazdot]

chin up PC it will get better

[Procopius]

It sure doesn't seem to be! I was really pinning my hopes on the masks for the Hasegawa P-40E fitting the Sword cockpits with only minimal need for trimming, but nope, nope, why would anything go my way? I'm hopeless at masking and debating right now if this isn't the final straw and it isn't just time to stomp these all into flinders and move on.

Ps you need to get loads of sleep beforehand though mate!

Unfortunately impossible, as Mrs. P's awful birds sing the sun up and she refuses to move them out of the bedroom.

I'm ready for things to swing back my way. Any time now. Any time.

[CedB]

Any time soon. Keep at it PC! We're with you.

[Procopius]

I'm just at my wits' end. I have tried every method I know of to mask the Sword canopies, but I haven't the knack for it. Bare metal foil, which I've used a few times before didn't work, trying to cut the masks by hand with a D-1000P cutter and Tamiya tape over the canopy, and I'm sorry to say the cutter proved absolutely worthless in my hands, proving it's the man and not the tools, I've tried adapting the Eduard masks for the Hasegawa kits, which normally works for me, but for some reason, despite the pieces being identically sized, and in real life the exact same components, the masks are much too large for the Sword panes, and the frames aren't prominent enough for me to trim them. I'm certain I won't finish now before the deadline, and I'm not even sure I won't just give up and abandon these kits, despite the frustration of throwing out something like $60 worth of plastic (more if you count the apparently useless masks I bought) on the Sword kits alone. Also, I misspoke earlier, sadly we're in the 70th percentile, not the 90th, hence my lack of a Dodge Challenger. But Mrs. P still doesn't need to babysit.

Everything is going wrong on this. I keep buying Sword kits because I'm an idiot and deserve to be unhappy.

[Procopius]

How frustrated am I? I'm listening to The Smiths.

[Rob G]

hence my lack of a Dodge Challenger.

You can be thankful then, you dodged that particular misfortune (no pun intended. Honestly.)

[Stew Dapple]

How frustrated am I? I'm listening to The Smiths...

My god! We must stage an intervention!

Actually listening to Morrissey when you are unhappy could lead to a huge spiralling column of competitive unhappiness, and you will never beat Morrissey; he drags you down to his level where he beats you from experience...

P.S. - the D1000-P? Didn't work out for me either, despite the impressive SF nomenclature

Gird your loins, or appropriate body parts, and crack on with these P40s PC, you overcame the Lanc and the Lib when both cast obstacles in your way; these single-seat pretenders will not prevail

Cheers,

Stew

[CedB]

There won't be many UK members who don't think of this, (the 2011 John Lewis Xmas ad in case that link's localised) when listening to that song now. Much more heart warming and uplifting than Morrissey!

For canopy masking I follow Paul B's advice here and I recommend a visit, if only to listen to the soothing voice and music. And there's always masking fluid and a careful brush?

If we say "chin up PC" once more you'll be bent backwards and banging your head on the floor, but we're really rooting* on your side here and cheering you on!

* amended for our Antipodean friends for whom 'rooting' is, I believe, a totally different pastime and much naughtier.

[dazdot]

Pc dump the smiths go to the verve's urban hymns album and play two songs 1 is lucky man and the other is straight after it. I forget what it's called now. But they will brighten your mood then play champagne supernova by oasis. And then finish with everlong and the pretender by the foo fighters. While you are doing that try cutting masking tape into thin strips and follow the frames with the strips and then fill in the middle with larger bits of tape. It's time consuming but it always works for me

[CedB]

While you are doing that try cutting masking tape into thin strips and follow the frames with the strips and then fill in the middle with larger bits of tape. It's time consuming but it always works for me

Or fill in with liquid mask? Quicker and less fiddly but thin tape's a great idea. In my mental toolkit.

[caszerino]

Oh dear, how am I just now seeing this thread? Always late to the party, me. Loving this.

*EDIT: Jesus Christ, I just went back and read Page 4. That is bad if The Smiths have appeared on Page 5. If it makes you feel any better, PC, and it should since misery loves company, I turned 35 on the 10th. It was by far the worst birthday I've ever had. I also have accomplished nothing, and all I seem to do recently is get drunk, even though I need to lose weight. So it could be worse, you see! And I haven't even finished one P-40, much less eight of the buggers! Stiff upper lip and all that, old scout. It'll get better. It always does.

Edited March 17, 2015 by caszerino

[Procopius]

You can be thankful then, you dodged that particular misfortune (no pun intended. Honestly.)

Bite your tongue, I got to ride in the passenger seat of one on my birthday -- my father rented it for a cruel birthday-related prank involving a huge bow on top of it, har-de-har-har -- and it was the most manly I've felt in my entire life.

P.S. - the D1000-P? Didn't work out for me either, despite the impressive SF nomenclature

Weirdly enough, that does make me feel a little better.

There won't be many UK members who don't think of this, (the 2011 John Lewis Xmas ad in case that link's localised) when listening to that song now. Much more heart warming and uplifting than Morrissey!

I really am getting old, because that pierced my armour of cynicism and was really pretty cute.

If we say "chin up PC" once more you'll be bent backwards and banging your head on the floor, but we're really rooting* on your side here and cheering you on!

* amended for our Antipodean friends for whom 'rooting' is, I believe, a totally different pastime and much naughtier.

I encourage our antipodean friends to root for me as loudly as they can. You have my permission to scream my name.

Or fill in with liquid mask? Quicker and less fiddly but thin tape's a great idea. In my mental toolkit.

I think I gave away my liquid mask, but I'd always read it doesn't work for acrylics.

*EDIT: Jesus Christ, I just went back and read Page 4. That is bad if The Smiths have appeared on Page 5. If it makes you feel any better, PC, and it should since misery loves company, I turned 35 on the 10th. It was by far the worst birthday I've ever had. I also have accomplished nothing, and all I seem to do recently is get drunk, even though I need to lose weight. So it could be worse, you see!

Yeah, but you got to live in a barbarous foreign land and had cool adventures. Do you know what strange barbarous land I've lived in? Waukegan.

I do feel a little better today, thank you all very much for your support, which I in no way deserve, living my life of indolent privilege and gratuitous self-pity.

[Stew Dapple]

...I encourage our antipodean friends to root for me as loudly as they can. You have my permission to scream my name...

Now you see, this is exactly the sort of reason we are all rooting for you (albeit in our disappointingly British way)

Cheers,

Stew

[CedB]

Now you see, this is exactly the sort of reason we are all rooting for you (albeit in our disappointingly British way)

Um, er... awkward!

I've just done an Internet search and my chosen search engine ('DuckDuckGo'*) suggested, as I typed, "rooting in Australia means making babies" which is far more polite than the definitions it found in its search.

I think Stew missed this double entendre - perhaps we should give him one?

Soooo, I'm rooting for you in a not at all disappointing and very manly English way PC, but not in an Australian way. (I refuse to address the comment about 'screaming your name' on the assumption that you didn't miss the naughtiness)

* Damn those non tax paying Google people - I can't say "I DuckDuckGo'd the phrase" now can I?

[-Neu-]

I'm just at my wits' end. I have tried every method I know of to mask the Sword canopies, but I haven't the knack for it. Bare metal foil, which I've used a few times before didn't work, trying to cut the masks by hand with a D-1000P cutter and Tamiya tape over the canopy, and I'm sorry to say the cutter proved absolutely worthless in my hands, proving it's the man and not the tools, I've tried adapting the Eduard masks for the Hasegawa kits, which normally works for me, but for some reason, despite the pieces being identically sized, and in real life the exact same components, the masks are much too large for the Sword panes, and the frames aren't prominent enough for me to trim them. I'm certain I won't finish now before the deadline, and I'm not even sure I won't just give up and abandon these kits, despite the frustration of throwing out something like $60 worth of plastic (more if you count the apparently useless masks I bought) on the Sword kits alone. Also, I misspoke earlier, sadly we're in the 70th percentile, not the 90th, hence my lack of a Dodge Challenger. But Mrs. P still doesn't need to babysit.

Everything is going wrong on this. I keep buying Sword kits because I'm an idiot and deserve to be unhappy.

Tried cellophane (scotch tape) to mask? It basically allows you to see a bit through the tape to see where you need cut behind it. I use it a lot for smaller canopies parts.

The other technique I learned from a Hobby Japan article on how to build a A6M2. Basically you cut out small little squares to fill in a canopy area, and then you can hit it with a liquid mask to keep it in place. You can see the tamiya tape that I have precut into squares in the photo below, which I'll then put onto the B5N2's canopy. For curved frames (like the rear canopy area) you basically cut curved lengths that you eyeball being correct, then fit the pieces with a bit of trial and error... again layering them over each other. Its not perfect, but I used the same technique building a Mustang III recently.

Edited March 17, 2015 by -Neu-

[Stew Dapple]

...I think Stew missed this double entendre - perhaps we should give him one?

Soooo, I'm rooting for you in a not at all disappointing and very manly English way PC, but not in an Australian way. (I refuse to address the comment about 'screaming your name' on the assumption that you didn't miss the naughtiness)...

How dare you Ced, I'll have you know I have never missed a double entendre in my entire life, I was raised on Benny Hill and the Carry on Films!

...perhaps we should give him one?

...

Nice double entendre. See?

Cheers,

Stew

[dfqweofekwpeweiop4]

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.

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.

That looks a similar set of P-40 kits to mine! I've got a few extra Airfix Tomahawks and both Academy P-40's. Not sure I'll be doing 8 desert P-40's but I bet I end up with 3 or 4 at least!

thanks

Mike

[CedB]

How dare you Ced, I'll have you know I have never missed a double entendre in my entire life, I was raised on Benny Hill and the Carry on Films!

Nice double entendre. See?

Cheers,

Stew

Apologies... Sometimes a simple 'like' just isn't enough. LOL etc.

Next time someone slips one in I'll assume you took it the right way and hold my own.

[Cookenbacher]

I miss a day on BM, and all this happens: Birthdays, Australian slang, The Smiths, Dodge Challengers, canopy masking techniques, Milliput, and eight P-40's on one bench.

Well, happy birthday PC - sorry it wasn't all it should have been.

It looks like Sword will rue the day their wing roots crossed you, though.

[caszerino]

Yeah, but you got to live in a barbarous foreign land and had cool adventures. Do you know what strange barbarous land I've lived in? Waukegan.

I do feel a little better today, thank you all very much for your support, which I in no way deserve, living my life of indolent privilege and gratuitous self-pity.

Indolence and self-pity are my two most cherished hobbies, so don't be knockin' 'em! And I've never been to Waukegan! It sounds exotic, full of mysterious promise and dusky maidens! It probably isn't. More likely full of bowling alleys and Green Bay fans. But one can always dream. I can assure you that Moscow isn't quite as grand as you probably think it is, either (I still vastly prefer it to Florida, though, from which I doubt I will ever escape - accepting my fate was part of this most recent day of birth).

[rob85]

Hopefully you have a break through with the masking, I am not a fan so normally hand paint all frame work which I find easier but that's just my bag you know.

Good luck and I hope you manage to complete!

If nothing else we have all learnt something mainly about rooting and stew and Ced's love of a good entendre.

Rob

[Procopius]

Very tired, so only time for a brief update; I met my predecessor in my current position for drinks tonight, and he only lasted 70 days in his new position before being let go, which doesn't bode well for my future outside the organization. I too have been institutionalized. I can never return to society.

Masking with metal foil seems to have worked properly this time, though I'm fairly certain the Sword canopies are going to look like total crap. But life is hard.

How dare you Ced, I'll have you know I have never missed a double entendre in my entire life, I was raised on Benny Hill and the Carry on Films!

I believed in you, Stew.

disappointingly British

No such thing. Every morning I get up, see the Stars and Stripes flying from the local church, and sigh heavily.

It looks like Sword will rue the day their wing roots crossed you, though.

I blame the Germans, they probably murdered the potential grandfather of the guy who could do good wing roots during the war.

Indolence and self-pity are my two most cherished hobbies, so don't be knockin' 'em! And I've never been to Waukegan! It sounds exotic, full of mysterious promise and dusky maidens! It probably isn't. More likely full of bowling alleys and Green Bay fans.

It's amazing how exotic Waukegan...isn't. Though if you like post-industrial-collapse rust belt cities, well, you just might love it. It is right next door to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, and I met many a young US navy trainee, who did the service little credit. I particularly recall riding the train with one pallid, marmoreal creature, reading Penthouse* (for this was c.2000, before the death of print) and alternately picking his nose and eating greasy, tumorous-looking fried chicken from a bucket; when he finished each piece, he would toss it over his shoulder onto the floor of the car. Delightful.

Hopefully you have a break through with the masking, I am not a fan so normally hand paint all frame work which I find easier but that's just my bag you know.

I would do that, except my palsied, aged hands shake like the dickens.

Photos tomorrow, I hope. Off to sleep.

*I understand in the UK, Penthouse is kind of a classy rag, ladies flaunting their secondary sexual characteristics aside. Here in the USA, it is read by two kinds of people, who may in reality only be one kind of person: long-haul truckers, and people whose hand you wouldn't shake even if you were both wearing level 4 biohazard suits. The fertility clinic we used also had a frighteningly large stack of them in the collection room, and they functioned as an incredibly potent antiaphrodisiac. Speaking of, I HIGHLY recommend this essay by the late David Foster Wallace, the greatest American author of the latter half of the twentieth century, on his experiences at the Adult Video Awards in Las Vegas. I laughed until I cried.

[Stew Dapple]

...I believed in you, Stew.

...No such thing. Every morning I get up, see the Stars and Stripes flying from the local church, and sigh heavily.

...I blame the Germans, they probably murdered the potential grandfather of the guy who could do good wing roots during the war

1. Merci, mon frere
2. I meant our rooting was disappointing compared to that of the Australians, and I stand by that
3. That is comedy gold

I have fond, if rather shame-tinged, memories of the UK Penthouse, growing up in the early-80s it was a hell of an improvement on the lingerie section of the Grattan catalogue

Cheers,

Stew

[CedB]

Thumbs up for the masking!

(On pre-post re-read this all sounds a bit heavy but it is written with a light heart, honest!)

"I can never return to society." If society is all 'dirty mags', fried chicken and grubby 'public transport' (initially typed 'pubic' there... Freud would approve) then you're better off where you are. Despite being 'brung up' (sic) on a council estate I escaped to Grammar School and, although maintaining an understanding of my childhood fellows, I'm not tolerant of their behaviour. 'Equal opportunity' doesn't always translate into 'equality' if the subject can't, frankly, 'be arsed'. And of course these guys are the main target of 'the Media' and so we get, IMHO, a very distorted view of the world.

I try to avoid public transport in the UK. In Bath, where we're quite 'refined' (having had the natural ingredients processed out of us) the buses are still a bit, um, 'not of my tribe'. And I'm always doubly wary when, as in some more 'urban areas', I'm forced to travel on something that's obviously designed to be hosed down at the end of the day. Maybe. Sometimes.

"I blame the Germans, they probably murdered the potential grandfather of the guy who could do good wing roots during the war." LoL. Comedy Gold it is!

Although he probably moved to the US where he's now involved in some advanced scientific project that, unless it fails and results in horrible deaths, will never be reported. Apparently we buy papers for the bad news - a journalist once confirmed to me that, literally, "No news is good news". She was adamant you'd never see "Clever new project runs on time, and on budget" on the front of her paper. I refer you to the (fairly) recent retractions when Beagle was found to have landed on Mars, not crashed as pervasively reported. Poor Trevor.

I have fond, if rather shame-tinged, memories of the UK Penthouse, growing up in the early-80s it was a hell of an improvement on the lingerie section of the Grattan catalogue

(I can use 'quote' there without too much editing)

I share your memories Stew, especially of "Mayfair" in my case. Although in my youth I seem to remember that the girls I met usually failed to look like the ones in the pictures or behave like the ones in the stories. It's part of the sadness of growing up. "Imagine my surprise when..." nothing happened. At all. Ever. (See above re 'refined').

For our colonial friends (independence is a temporary abhorrence whilst we try 'Capitalism') 'Grattan' is (was) a bit like Sears I believe (other shopping catalogues are available). They fell open at the ladies underwear sections. Honest Mum! A friend of mine worked in a factory in Bath that had been famous for its high-quality 'foundation garments' but, in harder times (Freud again?), had developed a range of tasteful 'sexy undies'. Some with holes in. In the wrong (or unexpected) places. They produced a mail order catalog (this was in the 70s so pre-PCs, let alone the Internet) with pictures, of course. Apparently very few got past the local post sorting office.

A great start to my day (thanks guys) and I'm off to read that 'essay' now.