James H

That really looks like it's coming along very well, and your adjustments have nailed it with the bulwark to deck fit.

STAGE 69: ADDING A HEEL DETAIL AND ASSEMBLING FOOT PARTS

Every foot needs a heel, and this is now fitted, with a single screw locking things into position. 

Now it's the turn of the toes. Some of these parts are angled, but if you follow the manual, you'll see the toe parts have an indent on one side with a part number on them. I used these ass reference to make sure I got the toes correctly positioned. The grub screw also has a little thread lock to stop it coming part later.

The toe tip and other toe part are fitted using a plastic bush insert and ridged pin to lock into position.

STAGE 68: FITTING THE ANKLE JOINT TO THE RIGHT LEG 

All three pistons are removed from their sprue and the two shorter ones fitted with the rubber end caps with a black, flanged screw. The knuckle joint is also assembled and pushed into the lower leg.

I do have to say these pistons are way too sloppy. There's zero traction with the piston bodies and they wobble around like mad. I'll think of something to correct this...maybe a plasticard tube wrap for the shorter pistons. As the longer one has no rubber cap, that can't be changed, but it shouldn't matter with the other two being more sturdy 

The foot is now pushed into position. 

STAGE 67: ADDING ANOTHER PART TO THE LOWER RIGHT LEG 

And now the right foot is started. The three ball joints are snipped from their sprue and fitted to the foot part using screws. 

Two more screws are used to fit the lower foot part to this...

STAGE 66: ADDING ANOTHER PART TO THE LOWER RIGHT LEG

Onto another piston fits two end caps. These can only fit specifically to the correct ends, and they are simply a push fit.

Another screw and bush fitting are used to fit to the lower leg assembly.

Small details are fitted using a small drop or two of CA.

A single screw and spring washer is fitted, connecting the lower right leg to the T-800. This can be posed in any position, but I left it neutral. I don't know how easy it will be to loosen that screw when complete.

STAGE 65: ADDING ANOTHER PART TO THE LOWER RIGHT LEG 

Another piston is fitted in the same way as the previous. 

The lower leg outer casing is now fitted. This also has a keyed system that stops it being incorrectly placed. 

The shin is now fitted. A few spots of CA are needed at the top and bottom, and once in position, a screw fastens it to the stationary piston.

STAGE 64: ADDING ANOTHER PART TO THE LOWER RIGHT LEG 

Even though the shin is supplied here, you'll need to wait until the next stage to use it. For the moment, a lower leg piston is fitted to the to top of the lower leg, via a screw and bush that allows the piston to move.

STAGE 63: STARTING WORK ON THE LOWER RIGHT LEG 

Work now begins on the lower leg as this is slid onto the main leg part and CA'd into position. The groove means it will only fit in one position.

The upper leg joint is now fitted.

STAGE 62: FITTING THE KNEE CAP AND KNEE JOINT

Another ratchet disc is installed, and along with the knee cap that's assembled with CA, both assemblies now fit to the one in the previous stage.

The knee is now fitted to the leg. A hex key is used to tighten the joint. This can later be loosened so the model can be specifically posed.

Pack 7

Pack 7 is finally done, and the T-800 is definitely growing in stature, even if he still doesn't have a leg to stand on. 😆 

I am a little wary of now just picking it up via the chest cage, so grab by the pelvis now too. I don't want to put too much strain in one area.

2 minutes ago, captain_hook said:

I‘m going to a endocrine surgery tomorrow, so I will be off modeling for some days but hopefully will continue the build before Christmas. 

Hope all goes well. Kidneys can be tricky things at times.

VM website back online at of 8.30pm GMT tonight.

Chris has just asked me to say that his website is just migrating to a new server and it's currently offline.

Told it won't be too long now, so hold tight!

I thought you'd gone quiet 😆

The memories are flooding back 👌

I do like the black uppers.

That looks real good. I'm a little concerned about some of the parts of my jig being warped. I'll need to screw them down dead flat to make the keel fit like you have.

STAGE 90: REAR LIGHTS, LED WIRES, GAS CAP, GAS PIPE, CABLE HOLDERS

Before I can start the wiring, the gas cap and gas cap base are fastened together using the small hinge and shortest small screws. This is then pushed into position and secured with a screw. The gas pipe holder is then also fastened into position, using screws from the outside rear.

The right rear light is pushed into position...

...and the rear right LED strip popped into place. I did find that before I could fit the light holder, that I needed to clip down the LED tails on the soldered joints as they protruded a little too far and stopped the holder fitting snugly.

With the holder in place, the cable is run in its channel and the cable clips used to hold it down. Again, a spot of CA was used to make sure these didn't eventually come loose when everything is finally assembled.

Things really are getting close to finish now. Here's where Pack 11 leaves us.

One more to go. I'm really hoping I see that pack before year end!

STAGE 89: LOWER REAR BODY SECTION, TRUNK HINGES AND BRACKETS

The lower rear body part is now offered up to the rear of the main body and secured with six screws. 

Both trunk hinges are fitted to the lid and the trunk led fitted to the main body, using the hinge brackets to hold in position. These are metal, so no chance of them being bent with any force.

STAGE 88: TRUNK LID, LOCK AND SHELBY EMBLEM

The trunk lock and Shelby emblem are now fitted to the trunk lid.

STAGE 87: CENTER LIGHT BRACKET, HORNS, HOOD PINS, FOG LIGHT LENSES, LED SYSTEM, WIRE HOLDERS

The centre light bracket and holds are fastened to the front bracket. The hood pins are now pushed into place and the hood closed to ensure they located through the holes in the forward hood. I found the hood would then snag them and pull them out again, so I used a little CA to fasten the pins.

Now the headlights can be wired up, with wire 07 to the left, and 08 to the right. A cable tidy helps hold the wires in place when installed. 

Some white glue (PVA) is used to fit the fit lights. I didn't use CA here as it can fog clear plastic. 

The front is then offered up to the main body and screwed into position, making sure the headlight cables fit neatly through the holes in the front bracket. The cables are then run through the. body channels and held into position with wire clips. I wasn't very confident that those clips wouldn't later come loose so I used a tiny spot of CA to hold them in place.

The hood pin plates are now pushed into position and the lanyards/Lynch pins attached. 

STAGE 86: HOOD HINGES

The hood hinges are now fitted to the hood. There are three different types of screw used for this, so care needs to be taken to get this right. There's quite a lot of tension in these when built, and it's a good idea not to keep operating these until fitted to the car as the slider won't cleanly operate until then.

Four screws now secure the hood to the main body. The hood needs to be inserted an an angle and then slid upwards at the rear to locate it. I had to move the hinged slightly to get this into position. I also noticed that the hood wasn't even to the fenders on each side, so the fenders needed to be slackened off and realigned to the hood.

STAGE 85: HOOD, FRONT GRILLE, HIGH-BEAM HEADLIGHTS

To attach the Shelby logo to the front grille, two little tabs need to be bent inwards. These then snag onto the badge locating pins, holding it in place.

The other tags now need to be bent inwards, fully. The grille can then be fitted to the grille surround, and the tags then bent backwards to lock the grille into its surround. The surround is then screwed to the front Cobra assembly.

The next thing to fit are the headlights which just push into the grille surround from the front. The screw position needs to be pointing upwards so they are angled correctly. 

STAGE 84: UPPER & LOWER SIDE SCOOPS

Another simple stage now as the air vents/scoop are fastened to the exterior. There's no way you can get these wrong due to the shapes involved and the recesses for the lower scoops. These actually look real nice and add some extra character to the main body.

Pack 11 - almost there!

By far the LARGEST box to yet arrive from Agora, but hardly surprising when you consider it contains the GT500's main body. This is also a heavy box too as the largest components are metal, such as the body, hood and trunk etc (bonnet and boot, to us Brits!). There's no worry about this arriving in one piece either as the main body is contained inside a secondary bod, packed into dense polystyrene. The other packs are sat on top of this, with some of them now being blister packs again, and not just sleeves. Here's how things look when it arrives: