I'm a little behind with my updates, thanks to some unexpected time to dalek, then a forgotten deadline biting me in the behind that meant two late nights at the keyboard. Anyway, I got round to the neck cage at last.
The manual lays it out: Eight supports, resting on the bottom ring, supporting the other two rings with a few inches to spare out the top. Nowhere does it say how the heck you're supposed to hold the whole thing together while you glue it. I used my tried and true method of waiting until I was tired and a little bit beered up, then trying to do it all by myself. None of my clamps were big enough to go around the support and the rings, so I tried dry-fitting the bottom ring with the supports. I could only get three out of the six I'd cut to stay. Add any more and the whole thing fell down. Then I realised I would have to slide the second ring down over the top of the supports that were in place. They fell down too.
I tried adding glue to the first set of supports. They fell down, and now my workbench and my hands were covered in glue.
I honestly can't explain how it worked in the end. I think I got three supports wedged/glued in place on the first ring, added the second and caught them before they could fall, then taped them in place with painter's tape (also no mean feat if you want to hold the supports AND the rings while you tear off your strip of tape...) But look:
Ha! The old "Sideways upload"! I still have to cut two more supports and glue them in place, but the cage is pretty solid now. I have only dull jobs to do for the next few stages - I have to cut out more neck blocks - I did two tonight, but I still have to drill their holes:
I still have the spacers to cut for the second collar, and when that collar is in place, I have to be brave and cut holes for the gun boxes. I have to finish the filler on the dome and get it sanded. Then we have to cut into the dome to prepare the ground for the eyestalk.
When I think about all that, I get a bit queasy. The Vancouver Fan Expo date has been moved forward to October this year, instead of November. I have less time to get this finished, and more work than ever before (which is good, because food and mortgage and shiny things for the wife) and I haven't even thought about the builds for the other two kids. Or me.
On the positive side, this is as tall as the thing is going to get, and it LOOKS like a dalek now.