Adding to the pile

I hope everyone who accesses 72 Land from the US survived the festivities for the Fourth last night. It was pretty noisy in this neighborhood until well past midnight, despite the fact that the 5^th is a working day for most. Interestingly, the city recently passed an anti-fireworks ordinance which means no one can sell commercial fireworks around here. But it sounded to me like everyone just went to one of the local Indian reservations and bought their weaponry there. And since they sell the big stuff, it sounded like an artillery attack on Beirut til the wee hours. Being a current Gentleman of Leisure, I just responded by sleeping in.

But since I have a number of models in the final stages of decals and matte coats, I decided to shake down the stash and determine what the next kits to enter the production cycle should be.

Since I’m close to finishing more of the Lockheed twins, I thought it would be appropriate to start examining the cockpit of the Special Hobby PV-2 Harpoon. The kit looks nice on the sprue, although there will likely be some typical dry-fitting and seam work. Not much resin in this one, mostly just the engines. My plan is to put it in overall Gloss Sea Blue with the Orange fuselage stripe, but I seem to be running low on GSB Xtracolour paint. I’m not sure that I’ll have enough to finish the job.

The recently completed Ho-7 flying wing got me nosing around into that section as well. Though I didn’t opt for the B-2 yet – there are a lot of horror stories about it and I’m not mentally ready to sand down all those raised lines – I did pick up the Planet N1M and the Revell Ho-229. I completed a PM Ho-229 when that kit first came out and there was no alternative, but it will be nice to replace it with the finely produced Revell version. Maybe I’ll refinish the earlier model into some sort of what-if experiment.

The N1M is much smaller than the N9M (done by Sword) and features adjusting wingtips. Well, adjusting on the real plane; on the model you need to make your selection and glue it. The thing that worries me the most is the forward air intakes. Lots of little individual vanes to glue into the intakes. And I do mean little. The vagaries of superglue will have me sweating that one.

And of course there are the two additions to the postwar USN fighter group: the Emhar FJ-4 and F3H Demon. Both of these will be in some variation of Light Gull Gray and White, though exact markings will be coming off of the two Xtradecal sheets associated with the types. I’ll have to see what captures my interest when I get to that stage.

Not sure how much I’ll accomplish this week, with the temps rising (well, into the 80s) and a need to get out and do some lawn maintenance. I’ll be armed with a bottle of Roundup (domestic weed and wild blackberry killer, for those of you not in the US) and strking a Mad Max pose as I approach the grumbling masses of non-desirable plant material. I am become Death, destroyer of Weeds.