Hi Smartgunners!
I am having a rare day off without anything to do, so I wanted to do a deep dive into a detail of the Smartgun that is currently driving me nuts.
There has been a recent post on whether the "yellow" marked part in the image of the Kawasaki struts needs to be cut off or not. That was originally a question I posted here several years ago (I made the image with the colored parts from my own AR125 hangers), but I never got a definitive answer. Well, the red parts definitely need to be cut off, but it seems that both options have merit with the yellow parts...
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Struts.jpg [ 342.26 KiB | Viewed 37 times ]
First off, on the screen-used Smartgun that was recently auctioned off by Propstore, the yellow part was not cut off. However, it is a known fact that this Smartgun has been restored in the past, and the Kawasaki struts are not original, so that does provide a solution to my question - except that it is possible to leave the yellow part on and attach the struts.
Deep dive:
These screenshots show the "Vasquez" Smartgun, where the yellow part seems to have been cut off, and the "Drake" Smartgun, where the yellow part seems to have been left untouched.
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Vasquez1.png [ 1.36 MiB | Viewed 37 times ]
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Drake.png [ 1.7 MiB | Viewed 37 times ]
However:
1. The two Smartguns were definitely used by both actors: the writing on the Propstore Smartgun shows both the "ADIOS" writing of the Vasquez Smartgun and the "My B****" writing of the Drake gun on top of each other.
2. The Smartguns seem to switch from scene to scene when you go through the movies, so it's very hard to confirm this.
3. Furthermore, the positioning of the Kawasaki struts changes on the Smartguns during the movies. My guess is that the Kawasaki struts started shifting and had to be reattached during filming.
The last item above can be especially seen in this image: An image of Vasquez holding her Smartun, a rare shot from the left hand side.
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IMG_1082.JPG [ 144.03 KiB | Viewed 37 times ]
Do you see the silver screw nut with washer on the AR125 struts? And now, look at any screenshot of the Smartgun and you will see a corresponding hole on the right-hand strut, but only a hole (no screw, no screw nut). Also, these holes are in a different place on each Smartgun.
I think there's no 100% correct way of attaching the AR125 struts, and no definitive answer whether the yellow part needs to be cut down or not.
Cheers!
Roman