Dear all
So it came to adding the shoulders to Neil. But before starting on the shoulders I added disks to where the mission patches holes were (the same method as for the umbilical holes). Then after this was done it was onto the left shoulder.
Blimey! This turned out to be a glue and a half! First of all the parts were continuously changing from valley to mountain. Then they were flopping all over the place. Getting a start seemed hard, as well as deciding what order to add the parts was best. Everything seemed to need something that was not added to anchor it (if you follow what I mean). In the end I went for a bit of some part then a bit of another and so on, as what seemed best. Anyway I got there as you can see below
And here is the finished left shoulder
However what was the hardest thing about doing the shoulders (and I had never thought about this until now) was having to hold the torso in one hand in such a way that I could both see and reach the tabs I was gluing at that moment.
To give you a feel, here a photo of the position I used for part of the right shoulder.
As you can see my head is quite a way from where I am gluing and it is a bit of a reach. I would get a couple of tabs done and then it was readjusting to find another position to do the next few tabs. Anyway, eventually managed both shoulders so the torso looked like this
So next was to join the back panel to the shoulders. Since the "ends" had to finish at a very precise point on the shoulders, I joined those tabs first and then "worked back". I took this slow to be as accurate as possible, since this would set the size of the neck hole and the curve of the back, which for the Apollo astronauts is a very characteristic and particular shape. Here is the result
So next up is the neck ring, which needs to be exactly the same size as the neck hole otherwise it will not join properly. It is looking okay but I will only know once I cut out the neck ring and try to join it. So onto that next.
Regards and take care
Kevin