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This is really solid work. Great job! On the ejection handles for the seat, how are you able to paint the yellow and black stripes so clearly at such a small scale?

When I do my ejection control handles I simply paint them yellow and draw on the black stripes with a .005 sharpie. Beats painting or even declaring them on.

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This is really solid work. Great job! On the ejection handles for the seat, how are you able to paint the yellow and black stripes so clearly at such a small scale?

G'day Linus,

Thank you very much. I just paint them by hand, just practice, a 10/0 brush and a steady hand.

I like how you installed the gear doors before you closed up the fuselage. Great idea. I'm stealing that one the next time it's pertinent. Great looking cockpit too. What's that little red bit inside the FLIR?

I just followed the instructions, but remember to cut off the door hinges first. I dunno what the red bit is, but it is clearly visible in my ref pics, perhaps others on the forum could educate us?

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G'day people,

The next major assembly will be another focal point - the weapons bay.

I will be substituting the kit items with the Aires set, although I will still need to use the kit trapeze items.

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The parts were pretty easy to separate from their casting blocks, however I will have a bit of a job to remove the remains of the casting block from the door items.

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Further, there was some damage to the main bay item,

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The lower corners of some of the door hinges were broken off. That is going to be a fun repair.

Test fitting has shown that the bay itself fits the weapons bay aperture reasonably well without modification, however the bay sidewalls are a different story.

The left side wall fits extremely well and basically locates within its recess without fuss. The right side however seems to be a little too long and did not want to lie in its recess.

In order to resolve the length issue, I decided that the easiest remedy was to remove the shoulder on the forward right bulkhead.

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Compare this to the left hand side which has not been modified

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This allows the wall to sit in the recess however it would not sit flush with the forward bulkhead. I decided that the problem was this internal cross brace and wire loom detail

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I sanded this back a little as well as removing some detail from the right hand sidewall area adjacent to the cross beam and loom details

In the words of Borat "Great success!"

The two sidewalls will now sit flush and parallel to the bay proper.

Aires provides a small PE fret with some details that need to be added to the rear bulkhead. I don't know what these bits are, but they look nice.

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PE air deflector screens are also provided for the forward bulkhead, but these will be extremely fragile and I will wait until the end to install these.

Does anyone out there in F11& experten land know if the deflectors only swung down when weapons were released. For example, would they be in a deployed condition after ordnance was loaded, or only in flight once a weapon release was initiated?

Edited by Pappy121
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There sure is Nick, painting it will be big fun!

G'day people,

Work continues with the weapon bay. First a comparison shot between the kit and Aires items

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The black plastic is the central divider provided by Tamiya.

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Forward bulkheads

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Bay doors

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Basically, the Aires parts include a whole bunch of wiring and hydraulic plumbing lacking on the Tamiya parts - and a whole new bunch of fit issues!

So far, the resin bay fits very well lengthwise with no need for modification of the kit opening

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The instructions recommend removing the locating guides but I want to tray an keep them as they aid in alignment.

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I will wait until the sidewalls are permanently attached before sanding away the bay opening as the tape allows for a little play in the parts. The weapon bay was taped together to determine the fit. Note the overlong sidewall piece that would not fit without modification.

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Compared to how neatly the other sidewall fits

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The first new fit issue is that the sidewalls have thin, raised locating edges. The whole shebang is now a touch too wide to fit inside the weapons bay aperture without some modification.

Edited by Pappy121
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G'day people,

Here is today's wobbly update.

The kit weapon trapeze units are designed to fit into the resin weapons bay roof.

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They should just drop into the corresponding slots/holes, however, ironically, the additional detail added to the weapons bay walls now interferes with the fit of these items. I ground away some of the added detail where the trapeze items were touching,

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The locating pins of the rear 'A' frame do not line up with the corresponding holes.

The units fit perfectly into the Tamiya bay

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So I must assume that the problem lies with the resin. The solution was simple enough, I just cut off the locating pins and will glue the second A-frame where it touches!

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The next fit issue concerns the height of the resin weapons bay. The resin pour stub interferes with the fuselage and needs to be removed. I painted around the edge of the pour stub with some black paint.

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Once this had dried, I simply sawed and sanded until there was no more paint showing simples!

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Remember to wear a respirator people

Now that this issue was taken care of, the final issue was getting the whole assembly to fit into the kit opening. The instructions suggest that the locating guides on the inner surface need to be removed - they are correct! These were cut and and scraped away and then cleaned up.

It was not mentioned in the instructions but I removed the small recessed lip around the weapons bay opening

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This allowed for the additional width of the resin unit but I could not get the bay to sit flush at first, then I found the culprits - the two angled features at the front and rear of the bay divider. I used a motor tool to grind out a recess that corresponded to these projections, as well as sanding in a 45 degree angle to the corners to correspond to the kit bay aperture.

update4111_zps22211cc3.jpg

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Great success!

cheers,

Pappy

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Hi Pappy, That must of stung some to need to grind away some of that pretty sidebay detail. Had to be done though. <_<

What are you going to arm it with? My vote is go big with a couple B61 nukes. Belcher Bits in Canada has some nice special weapons in their line.

Couldn't sleep tonight.. Watching your detailed and helpful build is a great way to pass the time, thank you.

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Hi Pappy, That must of stung some to need to grind away some of that pretty sidebay detail. Had to be done though. <_</>

What are you going to arm it with? My vote is go big with a couple B61 nukes. Belcher Bits in Canada has some nice special weapons in their line.

Couldn't sleep tonight.. Watching your detailed and helpful build is a great way to pass the time, thank you.

G'day Dr G!

I am chuffed that you are getting something out of my build.

Grinding off the detail was no biggie, it is in a spot that will not be seen anyway and I was careful only to remove material from the area concerned. Loading up some instant sunshine is appealing, but it means spending more cash. I have a few options at present, ranging from the kit GBU-27's, a pair of CBU-103's (Aerobonus)or GBU-10s, however I may even go the opposite way and fit a SUU-20 or even an MXU-648, so still undecided,

cheers,

Pappy

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G'day people,

Today's update.

update4127_zps1d081a51.jpg

I have been playing with the kit ordnance. Tamiya has supplied a pair of GBU-27/B laser guided bombs. These were developed specifically for the F-117A and are based around the combination of the BLU-109 penetrating round married to a modified version of the guidance section from the GBU-24. This is a signature weapon of the F-11A but is by no means the only weapon it could employ.

The Tamiya's goobers are very nice out of the box, but they can be improved.I began by drilling through the sway brace arms and adding the sway brace feet and adjusting screws using discs punched out with a punch set and some stretched sprue.

I added the activation latch to the rear aerofoil assembly

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The guidance section received some details in the form of the thermal battery activation switch and the lanyard guides. they are hard to see in my pics because they are small details in white styrene on a white bomb.

If you think they are hard to see in the pic, try adding them to the bombs!

Again, hard to see in the pic but they should pop out once paint is applied, so I apologise for the crappy pics.

I also repaired the broken section of the bay door. It was not actually that hard. I simply added a triangular section of styrene using CA, rubbed it back and then sanded the lower angle in - simples!

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The inner faces were painted up and given a pin wash,

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Still on minor stuff, I started prepping the boarding ladder. The ladder had lots of ejector pin marks on the rear face. I only eliminated the ones that would be visible on the lower leg section using some CA.

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A quick splash of paint and that is done.

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The bombs also got a splash of colour

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Still on the weapons bay, the bomb trapeze assemblies have been painted up

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The bay itself has had a couple of coats of white and I have now started a pin wash. Only the roof done at this stage. I could have slathered a wash in here, but the pics I have seen show this area to be very clean.

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Remember, the more you put on, the more you have to remove, and there are lots of nooks and crannies that would be very difficult to get to.

The weapon trapeze assemblies test fitted

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Lost of painting work to do on the weapons bay to do now.............

cheers,

Pappy

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G'day people,

I spent some time today cleaning up the gear bays. There are two prominent ejector pin marks visible in the main gear bays - more if you leave the forward main gear doors open. I eliminate these using sprue glue (melted styrene sprue pieces dissolved in liquid cement) and restored the details that were lost.The nose gear bay also received some attention. I also added some wiring.

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And after a lick of paint

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G'day people,

A small update for today.

I have finished painting the gear bays.

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(Note the nose gear bay is only blu-tacked in place in this pictures)

The main gear bays are mostly hidden as I chose to install the forward main gear doors in their closed state.

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These doors can be either open or closed on the ground, and there are plenty of pics which show both states. I am basically lazy and did not want to fill in any more ejector pin marks than I have to so the closed option was chosen.

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The main gear units will still fit into their locating holes once the gear bays have been attached, However the way Tamiya have designed the front nose gear unit, it will need to be attached to the nose gear bay before the bay itself is attached to the fuselage lower half.

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This is due to the square locating parts on either side of the nose gear unit which fit into a corresponding square recess in the bay walls

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Unmodified, this will prevent the installation of the nose gear unit after the nose gear bay has been attached.

I am not sure I want this part sticking out during the handling and painting, but on the other hand I don't want to mess with the strength or alignment of the part which the Tamiya design approach confers,

cheers,

Pappy

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Very nice work. I've always thought the F-117 was a difficult aircraft to model. A lot of built models tend to look like toys, but your attention to detail and excellent paintwork is making this one look great.

Jake

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G'day people,

I couldn't let it go. Tamiya have designed the nose wheel to be inserted into the nose gear bay before the bay is installed into the lower fuselage. This makes for a very rigid assembly and ensures correct alignment. However, this also means you end up with a nose wheel unit sticking out of the bottom while you are trying to fill and sand seams and paint the sucka. This sounds like a recipe for disaster so I decided to modify the nose wheel assembly to allow me to insert this at the end once all the painting is complete.

I cut off the square locating tabs from each side of the nose gear unit and glued these into their recessed location in the nose gear bay.

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Filler was applied (sprue glue) and once set, this was sanded back and the area was sprayed once again

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The nose gear bay has now been attached to the lower fuselage

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A dry run to check that the nose gear can still be inserted without difficulty

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Result!

Next up, I wanted to repair the damaged weapon bay outer sides. If you recall, my example had a damaged door latch on each side,

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I decided to repair these by shaving off the damaged latch and scratching up a new one from scrap styrene and stretched sprue,

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Not perfect, but passable (hopefully)under a coat of paint.

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I still need to pick out the details, but the weapons bay is getting there slowly,

cheers,

Pappy

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G'day people,

I have reached a milestone.

Today I finished painting the weapons bay. The sidewalls details were given a pin wash, after which I then picked out the various details.

update4089a_zps8d32f1d0.jpg

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The sidewalls were attached to the main weapons bay tub.

Although liberal amounts of CA was used to attach the sidewalls, I decided to leave the Tamiya tape on the corners as I did not want the bay to split open during handling or at a later date. CA can become quite brittle with age so the tape stays on.

Once I was happy that the sidewalls were square and firmly attached, the bay assembly was offered up to the lower fuselage. I only used a few small dots of CA to tack the assembly in place until I was sure the position was correct. Once I was satisfied, I ran a bead of CA around the bay perimeter, to which I attached pieces of styrene strip to add extra strength and ensure abetter bond.

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Although CA is very high in tensile strength, it has a very weak shear strength. I did not want the bay to come adrift whilst I was handling the fuselage assembly, especially since the lower fuselage/wing assembly is basically a flat piece of styrene that is quite flexible on it s own.

It is an impressive looking hole once installed

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With the weapons bay attached, all that remains is to join the fuselage halves. Dry fitting was carried out to ensure that there are no unexpected fit issues with the addition of the resin detail parts. I did test fit the items before I glued the cockpit assembly, but not before thinning the nose wheel bay roof to the point where the roof was starting to separate and the resin cockpit tub floor was becoming very thin just below the seat!

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Yay!

No problems. The next hurdle will be to actually glue the two halves together. Due to faceted shape, I don't think this will be quite as straightforward as I would have hoped.................

is box to load the editor

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Great job so far Pappy121 ! Here is something you might want to consider doing, you may want to remove the plastic that covers the intake area behind the mesh intake screens. I did not do this on my F-117A build and I regret it. Maybe build a small, deep box out of plastic sheet, to hide what might be visible from the outside or, just leave it alone and make sure everything inside is black so it's not so visible. Just my two cents.

Looking forward to the next update.

Steve

IMG_3222_zpsbc5a8e56.jpg

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Great job so far Pappy121 ! Here is something you might want to consider doing, you may want to remove the plastic that covers the intake area behind the mesh intake screens. I did not do this on my F-117A build and I regret it. Maybe build a small, deep box out of plastic sheet, to hide what might be visible from the outside or, just leave it alone and make sure everything inside is black so it's not so visible. Just my two cents.

Looking forward to the next update.

Steve

IMG_3222_zpsbc5a8e56.jpg

G'day Steve!

Thanks for the kind words!

Great build to you too, I came across your WIP pics when I was doing research. I agree with you about avoiding the see through look. I have ordered some PE, I will have a look and see if it needs to be done. I like the idea o f painting the innards black. I don't think I want to scratch up some intake ducts, sounds like hard work. I do like the look of yours with the filled in panel lines may I ask how you achieved that? A couple of other points piqued my interest.

You have a grey sill area, no white at all. Was this a common feature amongst some units, or particular to a certain time frame? Most(not all)of the pics I have seen show evidence of the white sill areas. Some have grey sills though.

Secondly, your exhaust area looks reddish? I believe the exhaust vanes are a darkish red colour but that the upper surface of the exhaust is a burnished and heat stained metal colour, is this incorrect? It is(understandably) a hard area to get clear pics of. I had the chance to look over one a few years back. We were allowed to take pics of the rest of the jet, but not of the exhaust.

Finally, If I remember correctly, you are a weapons specialist? I have a question in regards to the GBU-27's. In pics I have seen, the left bomb clearly has the tail operating latch on the left side (9 o'clock position) when viewed from the rear.Does the right hand bomb have the latch in the same position or is it rotated around to the 3 o'clock position to facilitate the installation of the arming lanyards? I think installing these on the right hand bomb with the latch in the 9 o'clock position would be very difficult as it would mean accessing a point between the trapeze and the bay door!

The CCG lanyards look like they are routed the same as a GBU-24 head, through the guide and thermal battery switch, then back to the last bit where they weave in and out?

Sorry for all the questions, but you may be able to help,

cheers,

Pappy

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Hi Pappy,

I did not have to fill any panel lines on my jet because it's the Monogram kit, the Tamiya one wasn't out yet when I built mine. I do have the Tamiya kit in my stash now because I want to build a Holloman jet.

As for the sill area, mine is painted silver. You have to remember that mine was built back in 1998 so, there wasn't as much reference shots available as there are now. I did get to look into a operational F-117A cockpit once (no pics allowed) and the sills were silver.

The exhaust areas vary in colors, I've seen them reddish, dark grey/ black, tan, brown, rusty color ?? I did mine with pastels to mimic my reference photo below.

IMG_3938_zps2313e72e.jpg

I am a Weapons Loader in the ANG, 17 1/2 years on the A-10A and these last 3 on the F-16C. I've loaded GBU-10's & -12's but, no -24's. The "tail operating latch" is called the wing release mechanism and it is at the 6 o'clock position relative to the suspension lugs. What you are probably seeing are bombs which have a tail fuze installed. When there is a tail fuze installed the bombs will have what is called a ATU-35 drive mechanism installed, see pic below. When the bomb is loaded the ATU-35 has a second hole in it's side where you run a piece of arming wire from the forward suspension lug thru the aft suspension lug and thru the vacant hole in the ATU-35 and secure it with a retaining clip. When the bomb is released the arming wire will pull out of the vacant hole on the ATU-35 drive and allow the propellar to start rotating with help from the airflow. This will arm the tail fuze of the bomb. We always had a nose and tail fuze in our GBU's to safeguard against the bomb not exploding.

IMG_3939_zpse3e22543.jpg

You are correct about the CCG lanyard. This arming cable comes from the aft bombrack swaybrace thru the forward suspension lug and thru the wire guide. It then gets looped thru the BFD ( BATTERY FIRING DEVICE ) and back to the wire guide which has the 3 holes in it. The wire is threaded thru these 3 holes BACK to FRONT and cut off between 1 1/2" - 2".

I hope this all makes sense to you. Let me know if I can be of any further help. Looking forward to the next update.

Steve

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G'day Steve,

Thanks for the detailed reply but I am not sure we are talking about the same thing,

check your inbox, PM sent.

Despite being the older Mono kit, you managed to turn out a very decent looking F-117. Thanks for the reference pic of the exhaust area, that is certainly something I had not seen before,

cheers,

Pappy

Edited by Pappy121
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G'day people,

A small update today.

Some bits arrived

update4101_zps0fe91498.jpg

These are designed to fit several kits, not just the Tamiya kit, but the masters look to be closely based on the Tamiya kit.

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The advantages of the resin wheels over the kit items is twofold, one, there is no seam to fill along the tyre's circumference (during which some of the tread detail will invariable be lost) requiring the tread detail to be restored, and secondly, there is a 'flat spot' and very subtle bulge to indicate the load on the tyres due to the aircraft weight.

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Modern jet aircraft use high pressure nitrogen filled tyres, so there is not much in the way of bulging, but there is some. Some aftermarket examples look like the tyres are flat, but these ones are pretty nice

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Another improvement that I noticed was that the nose gear includes the right hand side hub detail. The kit part is hollow allowing the front nose gear axle allowing to pokes through which is not very convincing.

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The resin parts do require a little preparation once they are removed from their casting blocks. A hole must be drilled for the kit axle. There is a partial depth hole in the centre of each wheel, but you need to drill this out to match your kit. I think this was done so that the wheels could be adapted to fit different kits. This was not a difficult task and only required a few minutes. I drilled a pilot hole and then enlarged it by progressively stepping up in drill bit sizes

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I also reduced the length on the nose gear unit axle as it no longer needs to extend through the entire width of the tyre

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The fit of the two items was very snug!

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Similarly, by repeatedly checking progress I was able to get a good fit with the main gear units as well

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Result!

cheers,

Pappy

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