# Pegasus Space Ark scale problem



## Frank2056 (Mar 23, 2007)

I didn't want to hijack Paulbo's thread... but the Pegasus Space Ark is grossly out of scale.
I scanned in the line drawing from the book, scaled it to exactly 1/350, scanned in half of a Pegasus fuselage, scaled it to its measured length (276mm) and superimposed the two. I also scaled the line drawing until the two hulls matched. They're not even remotely close - the Pegasus kit scales out to about 1/458. That works out to a 3.36" difference in length. That's some screwup!
This may be some other Space Ark, but it's not the same ship as in the movie. I'll still pretend it's in 1/350 and get Paulbo's PE set, but it's very disappointing that Pegasus couldn't get this kit's scale right; it's probably one of the easiest SF ships to scale - the dimensions are given in the movie, plus there's the Spaceship Handbook.

Here's a link to the scan, with numbers.

Frank


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

We were talking about this over at SSM earlier. My math works out this way:

According to Jack Haggerty's read of the on-screen blackboard diagram, the hull is 400 feet long NOT counting the needle or the fins.
The kit hull is 10 7/8 inched long.

This works out, therefore to 1/441.3 scale.


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## Frank2056 (Mar 23, 2007)

John P said:


> We were talking about this over at SSM earlier. My math works out this way:
> 
> According to Jack Haggerty's read of the on-screen blackboard diagram, the hull is 400 feet long NOT counting the needle or the fins.
> The kit hull is 10 7/8 inched long.
> ...


If you have the book, (pg 222) Jon Rogers drawing (based on the blackboard diagram) has station 0 at the top of the needle, STA 18 at the base of the needle and STA 433 at the end of the fuselage (where the main engines are) Total length is 445 feet. So the fuselage length is 433 - 18 = 415 feet. 1/350 would give you a 14.23" fuselage length. The same length on the Pegasus kit is 10.87". (415' x 12")/10.87" is about 1/458.

1/441.3, 1/458 or whatever value you pick, it's so far off 1/350 that you have to wonder what their rationale for calling it 1/350 was.


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## Trek Ace (Jul 8, 2001)

We could always call it midway at 1/450 scale.

It's too bad that it turned out that way. But, I am very glad to see this kit out in the mass market, nevertheless. Just have to scale down any accessories and structures to match it.


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## cozmo (Nov 29, 2004)

Is the ship's hatch represented on the kit?

In defense of the kit, it looks good and I prefer it to no kit.

And when the drawing is on the screen, they describe it as "rough" while proposing it to recruits. Heck, it might not even have been the final design they were describing, just bits and pieces of different proposals. Having watched the movie recently, I don't think there is anything that can be used to determine the size. I don't even remember the door being represented on the model.

The guys designing the kit probably had some information in their heads and stayed with it.


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## Paulbo (Sep 16, 2004)

About the only thing I think scale can be taken from is some of the Life Magazine photos that show the construction area with railroad equipment around. If one knew what scale the equipment is (HO?), then with a lot of work one could determine the actual scale of the kit.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the scale were off and in the ranges stated above, though I decided to stay with the stated box scale of 1:350 for the people (and wheelchair  )


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## Frank2056 (Mar 23, 2007)

cozmo said:


> Is the ship's hatch represented on the kit?


No, just some spurious panel lines around the top and nose area.



cozmo said:


> In defense of the kit, it looks good and I prefer it to no kit.
> The guys designing the kit probably had some information in their heads and stayed with it.


I agree that it's great to have a kit (there's apaper model available that can be rescaled to 1/350 for the purists).
However, unlike many ships from that period, there are plenty of on-screen pictures that can be used to get an accurate size of the ship. You have Dave Randall & Dr. Hendron talking in front of the booster sled, plus many shots of people going into the cargo area as well as milling about the ship (or at least the set built to represent that area). So even ignoring the blackboard numbers, it wouldn't have been too difficult to come up with a bigger model.

I'm going with 1/350, since it matches some equipment that I have. It's funny that it's almost in scale with the Leif Ericson, though.


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## cozmo (Nov 29, 2004)

Frank2056 said:


> However, unlike many ships from that period, there are plenty of on-screen pictures that can be used to get an accurate size of the ship. You have Dave Randall & Dr. Hendron talking in front of the booster sled, plus many shots of people going into the cargo area as well as milling about the ship (or at least the set built to represent that area). So even ignoring the blackboard numbers, it wouldn't have been too difficult to come up with a bigger model.


I don't remember them by the sled, just a wall that represents an abutment for the launch rail near the main hatch. And the hatch is the only thing I can use to scale the ship, but I have never seen a hatch on the model.



Frank2056 said:


> I'm going with 1/350, since it matches some equipment that I have. It's funny that it's almost in scale with the Leif Ericson, though.


Not funny...karma. I have uses for the Pegasus kit.



Paulbo said:


> About the only thing I think scale can be taken from is some of the Life Magazine photos that show the construction area with railroad equipment around. If one knew what scale the equipment is (HO?), then with a lot of work one could determine the actual scale of the kit.


I've seen that picture, and the equipment, trains and track are too far from the spacecraft to make comparisons. No ladders, or railing or scale people are next to the ship during construction. And I was looking.


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## Frank2056 (Mar 23, 2007)

cozmo said:


> I don't remember them by the sled, just a wall that represents an abutment for the launch rail near the main hatch. And the hatch is the only thing I can use to scale the ship, but I have never seen a hatch on the model.


Here's a progression of images that make it easy to calculate the scale.
hatch & ramp on model:









people on ramp with boosters visible:









Doc & future son-in-law talking about chicks:









More than enough images to get a good idea of the size of the ship, and scale accordingly. Even without this detailed drawing:









A quick and dirty estimate of the ratio of hatch to visible ship length in the first picture is 37.
In the second image, the hatch appears to be about 11 feet high.

11 * 37 = 413 feet. If the ratio is 40, then it's 440 feet.
If the hatch is 12 feet, the ship is 12 * 37 = 444 feet or 12 * 40 = 480 feet.

That's without accounting for parallax and just off two images, in under 2 minutes. The model matches the blackboard which matches the length of 445 feet.


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## Paulbo (Sep 16, 2004)

THIS is why I love the boards: it's always fun to read through the analyses. Nice work Frank - I haven't double-checked it, but it definitely makes for a good read.


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## cozmo (Nov 29, 2004)

Hmmm...
Using your screen caps, and accounting for the skew (using the diagram you posted earlier), I get 43 door heights to ship length. And anywhere from 10 to 12' for a door height.

This is getting interesting.

Screen capturing has gotten much easier, now I'm going to have to watch the flick again, on the computer (watching a movie on a computer, who'd a thunk it). There has to be a decent profile in there somewhere. And a good door perspective.

Dang you Frank, this is addictive.

If this works, it will be good practice to for tackling Silent Running with all this new fangled technology.

Whoa, the fist capture was with the train cars, using that, the ship is less than 300'. So they are out as a comparison.


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## cozmo (Nov 29, 2004)

This is the best screencap I could find of a man in the doorway. At this point some assumptions have to be made; average height of man, 6'? He is slightly slouched though, do we keep the 6' height? If we stretch him to fix his posture, the correction could throw off all kinds of calculations.

This is why I both love and loathe statistics. You can make them do anything.

Using this height, dividing by 6 to get a one foot scale that can be used at the same place in the screencap. Draw a parallel along the bottom of the door and skew the scale to vertical at the point where the man is in the screencap. Then add one foot increments to get the door opening.

This makes the doorway, at most, 11' high (I came up with 10' 8"). And that's with a close up not taking into account the shortening effect with a good profile picture of the ship showing the door (due to the door being in a cylinder. Or difference between the set and the model.

The slouching and a profile shot will make this number larger than it really is when using it to calculate size.

Or, did I get things wrong?


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## Frank2056 (Mar 23, 2007)

Jay, I use VLC, which is an excellent, *free* program to watch DVDs and almost any type of video file on my computer. It does screen caps, among other things. They also have a non-linear video editor.

I picked the image I did for the hatch because the guy walking through is going through the middle of the opening, and he's standing right on the threshold; this will minimize any perspective issues. I think your estimates and mine are good enough as a "sanity check" on the ship length. Obviously the producers did more than just jot down a number on a blackboard. They made an effort to keep the full scale set in scale with the filming miniature. This also verifies that the values in "The Spaceship Handbook" are correct. They spent a lot more time on this than we did, and we've put more time into it already than Pegasus did... unless there was a file or translation issue between their designers and the Chinese factory that made the molds.

Frank


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## cozmo (Nov 29, 2004)

I was fun anyway. I'll have to try viewer even though I don't know what a non-linear video editor is. The one I have doesn't have an integral screecap function.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much thought the movie folks put into authenticity to a fictional craft.

Hull diameter looks to be about 60'. How does that compare to the stats in the book?



The drawing you posted is a full diameter longer than a profile screencap.

I still haven't found the kit around here to play with for myself. I guess this is the next best thing. But, it has me eying an old Airfix 2001 Orion, or lengthening a Pegasus WotW Martian War Machine as something to do for fleet additions.


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## Frank2056 (Mar 23, 2007)

cozmo said:


> I was pleasantly surprised at how much thought the movie folks put into authenticity to a fictional craft.


Yeah, too bad they don't do that anymore!



cozmo said:


> Hull diameter looks to be about 60'. How does that compare to the stats in the book?


The max diameter is listed as 52 feet. Close enough! The hatch is listed as 12 feet high.

"The Spaceship Handbook" is just great; they did a fantastic job at producing accurate drawings (as well as historical backgrounds) for many of these old movie spaceships. well worth the price if you're into these old designs.


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## stargazer (Oct 13, 2001)

Cozmo said "The drawing you posted is a full diameter longer than a profile screencap".


I agree ... The model seems proportionaly ok....I think the drawing is too long.


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

Haggerty's book calls the hull diameter 52', and the wingspan 208'. He calls the hatch 10' H x 12' L.

How tall is the goat?


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## Frank2056 (Mar 23, 2007)

I don't see where you guys are seeing an issue between the drawings and the screen images. It's hard to get a screen cap of the ship directly from the side, but these two while not perpendicular to the ship, show that the Spaceship Handbook hull lines are very accurate :



















The ship is turned slightly towards the camera, so the wings and tail don't quite line up.


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## m jamieson (Dec 18, 2008)

John P said:


> Haggerty's book calls the hull diameter 52', and the wingspan 208'. He calls the hatch 10' H x 12' L.
> 
> How tall is the goat?


That's exactly what the guy asked whose girlfriend didn't make it to the ship on time!


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## cozmo (Nov 29, 2004)

Well, you didn't upload that drawing earlier! The overhead drawing is skinnier.

That would have saved some work


Yeah, I know the hatch is on the wrong side. I want them all to point the same way on the comparison chart.

The engine cover on the Orion my make for a nifty hangar. Give it some Nimrod, or Victor-like engines to give it a British look. The important thing is that it is the right size.


That book wouldn't happen to have drawings of the George Pal Martian War Machine, would it?

Or, other neat one's?


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## jbond (Aug 29, 2002)

The WOTW ships are in the companion book, "The Saucer Fleet."


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## Frank2056 (Mar 23, 2007)

Jay,
I'm surprised you don't have one or both of these books. They're what I've used as a reference for 3D printing ships.
Here's the Spaceship Handbook table of contents.

Here's the Saucer Fleet table of contents.

They're both great, but the Spaceship Handbook has more drawings. For price vs enjoyment, they've both been bargains.

Jon Rogers has many of the drawings in the books available as prints:

Rogers Rocketships. I have a couple of them framed and they're not expensive.

Frank


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## cozmo (Nov 29, 2004)

I wish, I have boxes of books that I don't have room for. 

And that's a nice little spaceship ya' got over there.

I have dozens of pictures I either found, or folks sent me, that are close to what I'm looking for. I'll have a tough time getting them all done, so I am working on the easier one's first. Or the one's that already have a role to play.

Lately, I've been trying to find more information on some animated show, Japanese I think, that has a bunch of submarine looking spaceships.


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## Magesblood (May 12, 2008)

Out of scale? I don't care.
Does it matter to me? No.
Do I want one? Yes.


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## GKvfx (May 30, 2008)

Magesblood said:


> Out of scale? I don't care.
> Does it matter to me? No.
> Do I want one? Yes.



Or, simply put - scale, schmale....... :hat:

Gene


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## falcondesigns (Oct 30, 2002)

This whole thread is a non issue........


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## Frank2056 (Mar 23, 2007)

falcondesigns said:


> This whole thread is a non issue........


To you, obviously. 

The kit was advertised as 1/350. It would have been great to be able to compare it to other ships (real and imagined) at that scale, as well as using in-scale PE and resin bits to build up the launch area.

The fact that it _isn't_ in scale is annoying. If they had just come out with a box scale kit that would have been fine. This is more like buying a chocolate bar labeled "dark chocolate" and finding a milk chocolate bar instead.


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## cozmo (Nov 29, 2004)

falcondesigns said:


> This whole thread is a non issue........


Dang, you're right, what was I thinkin'. Who should care what the scale written on the box says. Just accept it no matter how odd it looks next to items that the creator took great pains to get everything right.

Producers would never use acceptance of this to try other shortcuts later.

On a completely different note, does anyone know where these came from? As much as I try, I cannot find any information on them.


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## m jamieson (Dec 18, 2008)

The top drawing looks heavily influenced by Gerry Anderson's "Stingray"


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

m jamieson said:


> The top drawing looks heavily influenced by Gerry Anderson's "Stingray"


Indeed!


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## Trek Ace (Jul 8, 2001)

Looks as if only a single German made it off the planet.


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## m jamieson (Dec 18, 2008)

Let's just hope it was only David Hasselhoff!


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## Frank2056 (Mar 23, 2007)

Jay,
Are those screencaps you made or edited versions of images you found on the web? If they're off the web - and you still have the originals - run them through Tin Eye and it'll do a reverse image search. It'll find the web pages hosting the original image and maybe they'll have info on the series. They look vaguely like they came out of some Japanese anime.

Frank


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## miniature sun (May 1, 2005)

I understand some peoples frustration over the scale and I've no problem with the discussions here which are both informative and entertaining.
All I can say is that I choose SF and fantasy modelling over aircraft or tanks for the simple reason that I don't get rivet counters coming up to me complaining that something is not right. I have freedom to do pretty much whatever I like with my models.
Still...it doesn't necessarily mean I'm right!


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## GKvfx (May 30, 2008)

Frank2056 said:


> To you, obviously.
> 
> The kit was advertised as 1/350. It would have been great to be able to compare it to other ships (real and imagined) at that scale, as well as using in-scale PE and resin bits to build up the launch area.
> 
> The fact that it _isn't_ in scale is annoying. If they had just come out with a box scale kit that would have been fine. This is more like buying a chocolate bar labeled "dark chocolate" and finding a milk chocolate bar instead.


I'm willing to bet any 1/350th (or 1/700th for that matter) PE cranes and junk like that will look just fine with the kit. Since the movie people seem to have used commercially available railroad cars, I'd like to see if they followed the scale logic.


Gene


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## cozmo (Nov 29, 2004)

Whats with that horizontal stabilizer anyway. It always made the ship look like an earth scraper to me.

I bookmarked that Tin Eye link Frank, thanks.

But it couldn't find them.

Here are the original pics

Picture is titled "OskaII"


Andro Tiger

Neat little kits. It looks like the pictures came from ebay (little camera watermark in the corner), but I don't know when. I might have had them sent to me. I'm sure I would have bid on them if I had seen them. Tried every kind of search I could think of but haven't found anything close. I agree that they are some kind of Japanese anime, but what show?

Some more neat pics that I don't know the origin:






Since I cannot draw worth a darn on the computer, I have to do them in pencil then scan them. Once scanned they can be traced and the parts can be manipulated before cutting plastic.


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## Krel (Jun 7, 2000)

The red ship on the pole is from the "Buck Rogers" tv series. Here is a page on it: http://www.universalhartland.com/code/buck116s.shtml

It's name is the Shark. I wonder why. :jest:

David.


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## Frank2056 (Mar 23, 2007)

GKvfx said:


> I'm willing to bet any 1/350th (or 1/700th for that matter) PE cranes and junk like that will look just fine with the kit. Since the movie people seem to have used commercially available railroad cars, I'd like to see if they followed the scale logic.
> Gene


From this picture from this Google search

I rotated the image slightly, to measure the track gauge (distance between the inwards facing rails) as referenced here.

Here's a closeup:










I get a width of 0.03" (0.76mm) for the tracks. The nearest part of the Ark that is easy to measure is the tail end of the fuselage. It measures 0.17" (4.3mm) in diameter. The ratio (fuselage end/track gauge) is 5.67. Since the standard rail gauge is 56.5" wide (1435mm), that puts the fuselage end at around 56.5" x 5.67 = 320.4" in diameter. That's about 26.7 feet.
From page 222 of "The Spaceship Handbook", the fuselage end has a diameter of 26 feet. So not only did the special effects folk use in-scale train equipment, they built the ship to HO scale. They were no slackers.

I'm sure 1/350 scale equipment will look OK next to this model, but that's not really the point; Pegasus promoted this kit as 1/350, which would have made the ship a little over 15" long. The ship is nowhere near that. It's like buying a 1/25 scale car kit, opening the box and finding a 1/32 scale car inside.

Frank


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## cozmo (Nov 29, 2004)

I don't mean to throw a wrench into your work, but the rails are the least accurate part of model railroading. It was a trade-off between accuracy and actually being able to operate.

A better gauge would be the width of the cars 10'8" In the 50's the standard freight car was 40' long. Just looking at the rail cars showed them to be too big. There was also a scene early in the movie, when the Ark was first onscreen, where a truck drives in front of the hatch that looks wrong too.

The width of a rail car is 2/3rds to 3/4 the diameter of the fuselage opening. And a quick guesstimate (I went smaller if anything) added to your picture its even bigger.


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## Frank2056 (Mar 23, 2007)

Jay, the red & dark blue "WPL 3" ship is by Paul Lloyd; I think I sent you that one.


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## cozmo (Nov 29, 2004)

Really neat pictures at that Life search.


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## cozmo (Nov 29, 2004)

There is something bigger than just the scale problem.

Have y'all noticed the concrete walls, or abutments, on either side of the sled? They are about 8' tall. The lower horizontal stabilizer is only about 4' above the launching platform. Looking at the "Life" pictures and stills from the movie, the pods connecting the lower horizontal stabilizer to the tail fins ride the outer rails.

If those walls are in place when the Ark launches, and they are, there is going to be quite an impact before the Ark even has a chance to save humanity.

Yeah, sometimes I do get caught up in the little things.


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## Joe Brown (Nov 16, 1999)

cozmo said:


> On a completely different note, does anyone know where these came from? As much as I try, I cannot find any information on them.



Here's the only data on those that I could locate - anyone read Japanese? Google translator and Yahoo translators really don't help much here... 

Stingray knock-off (Kore II?):
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/nandemoplamo/51404096.html
Variant:
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/nandemoplamo/38909558.html

(Androtiger sub spaceship?)
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/nandemoplamo/51384731.html
Variant:
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/nandemoplamo/38949615.html


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## rkoenn (Dec 18, 2007)

Well I've started my Space Ark and it is a pretty decent kit. The rocket is very easy to assemble with a good fit of the parts. I did minimal sanding on the lengthwise seam and no puttying at all. At the fin/wing joints, which were very tight, I simply flowed in an excess of Plastruct liquid glue which sealed the seam up nicely and even the lower tail nodules sealed up the seams nicely using the liquid glue. I have one coat or primer on it and of course the final coat will be using one of the rattle can metallic paints, Krylon or Rustoleum. I think they will work fine rather than going to the trouble of air brushing Alclad although that would probably be the ultimate finish. I think the most work will go into the track system as I want to get a good concrete stand effect and then the rails themselves in a metal finish. I plan on adding brush and such using model railroad accessories to the base. My biggest complaint is the vacuum formed base, it looks good but is flimsy. I am thinking of filling it with expanding spray in foam just to beef it up a bit. But it is a nice looking kit so far and should look great completed and on the shelf. I've been doing mainly figure models recently so needed to get into my stash of scifi kits as well so I decided to pick a fairly easy but nice looking one to start. The moonbus and Jupiter 2 are next in line for scifi builds and Spock is on the bench now. Too little time, too many models, but I am having a ball.

Bob K.


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## cozmo (Nov 29, 2004)

Joe Brown said:


> Here's the only data on those that I could locate - anyone read Japanese? Google translator and Yahoo translators really don't help much here...


Thanks, I sent them to folks I know who do know Japanese. Maybe they can translate.


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