John Levine

Hi Jim! I know, this is old, And I’ve been tearing my hair out with this, between out of stock parts, and incorrect parts being shipped, but I’m really having a problem applying the shoe polish, and getting it to stay in the engraved areas. Help me please! Thanks, John.

Sent, Grant.

Great! Thank you. I thought about it before including my email addy, but I hadn’t found the PM feature yet. I’m still new here! 😉

Hi Grant, I got a shipment today, and they skipped 2 issues: #19 and #21 were not included. I contacted Eaglemoss, and they assured me they will be coming soon (out of stock). Meanwhile, I have a bunch of parts I not quite sure of. Building the main gears is pretty straightforward, but there are some new parts I haven’t seen yer, and I’m curious as to how much I can pre-build while waiting for the missing issues/parts. If you have a PDF of the complete set of instructions, I’d LOVE to have a copy. I enjoy reading through them before actually starting a build, anyway, so it would be greatly appreciated if you could send that file. My email address is: EMAIL ADDY REMOVED Thank you so much! 👍👍 John John, I removed your email addy. MSW gets crawled by a ton of "bots" and you email will fast end up with spammers and other miscreants. Send Grant a PM with your email in it which is the safest way.

BINGO! Thank you, LH! That’s EXACTLY what happened!

Thanks folks! I discovered my mistake several days ago, before I got to see your suggestions. I appreciate all of the responses!👍👍

An imbecile, I am! 😜 I decided to review all of the assembly steps from the beginning, and in the process I discovered on Instruction spread #3 parts list is a 47-tooth gear disk (Part #38, Item #2), which is part of the Earth gear set assembly, and had used THAT, instead of the 41-tooth gear disk (Part #28, Item #2, on instruction spread #2). No wonder it wouldn’t engage properly! I was certain I had counted the teeth on all the gear disks. There’s a real quirk in the way the issues and parts are distributed: They give you parts before you need them, and make you wait for the next shipment. You always have parts for future use laying around… Anyway. I think I’ve got it Sussed!

Photo #10

Photo #9

Photo #8

Photo #7

Photo #6

Photo #5

Photo #4

Photo #3

Photo #2

Hi Folks, Thanks again for looking, and your responses thus far! I have taken new, correctly oriented photos, which I hope will articulate the problem I’m having a bit better. Photos #1, #2, and #3 are the spreads of the instructions provided in issues #1, #5, and #8. I am stuck at Step #2 in photo #2. If you peruse the illustrations on that spread, and photo #4 (“Detail of Sun, Mercury, Venus & Earth”), you can see that the larger 41-tooth gear disk of the Venus gear set is supposed to engage with the small 19-tooth gear disk on the underside of the Mercury gear arm (above it). Photos #5 through #9 are just different views of my assembly, with the Venus gear set placed correctly on the central column. The Venus gear set has been placed upside down on the central column in Photo #10, simply to show the peculiarity of the smaller 39-tooth gear disk’s ability to mesh perfectly with the 19-tooth gear disk. The first three pics are the only instructions I’ve gotten with the parts of the Orrery (Issues #1, #5, and #8) Do you have other, more complete PDF instructions, gjdale? I really don’t see how more detailed directions would help. I’ve counted the teeth on all the gear disks. It’s quite baffling! <shrug> Lastly, I just wanted to give Jim a “thumbs up” for the shoe polish suggestion, to colour the etched markings on the base plate. I’m going to use Kiwi Cordovan, since burgundy is a favorite colour of mine, and will nicely compliment the bright brass finish of the engraved plates! So, there it is! I apologize for this being a bit long-winded! Again, any thoughts and/or advice would be greatly appreciated! I’m really quite excited to just “get on with it!” Jim’s finished piece is beautiful! I can’t wait to have my own! Thanks again, all! John Photo #1

That’s the thing. In the top picture, the “gear sandwich” is upside down. The larger of the two gears is what is supposed to mesh with the smaller gear above it. Please understand that the photos were taken with the entire unit upside down. Perhaps that clears it up? Or makes it more confusing? 😉 In the second two pictures, the gear sandwich is placed on the central shaft correctly, and, as you can see, they do not mesh. I have checked with other photos of the assembled orrery, and rechecked the instructions and all of the steps to get to this stage, and I can’t figure it out. Very frustrating. I’m going to contact Eaglemoss, I think. Thanks for having a look and replying.

Hi Jim, I know This is an old topic here, but I found it when Googling for help with a problem I’m having in the first stages: It seems I’ve gotten things assembled properly, but there is NO WAY to get the Venus gear “sandwich” to go on as directed. If I turn it upside down, it engages with the gear above it. You can see what I mean in the attached photos. Any help would be greatly appreciated! thank you, John