WonderWoman

Range finders and he first 15cm gun On the deck I added the two rangefinders first and then six search light directors in the remaining holes, you need to look quite closely to the instruction photo to check which way round all o these go as they can be inserted facing either way.: This Pack is the first time I have struggled a little with bending the laser cut metal detailing (in this stage and then in stage 60). The difficulty was bending the really tiny tabs by 90 degrees. On looking further ahead, these are all little pegs simply to go into a hole on the deck to align the platforms and get them to hold in place better, so they didn't need to be a perfect right angle, just enough to fit in the receiving holes. I found the best technique was to push the peg against the rim of my cutting mat which had a little 'give' in the material which enabled it to grip. I found that trying with tweezers was hopeless as the part is just too small. The antennas when attached look really cool because they give some delicate detail coming off the main structure - though they are going to be prone to being snapped off as the build progresses. Then on to the first of the 15 cm guns. these are pretty straightforward. The hidden mechanics are simple to install and then its nice to have a second gun on the deck - starts to show the scale of the main gun! Then it's on to testing the electrics. I didn't read the instructions properly and blew one of the LEDs MAKE SURE YOU CHANGE THE CIRCUIT BOARD OVER AS IT OBVIOUSLY HAS SOME SORT OF RESISTOR/TRANSFORMER TO LOWER THE POWER!

The final stage of this pack is a rather large piece of bottom hull. ...which gives me the opportunity to try an arty photo of the hull so far, fading into the distance....:

adding the motor to the second gun turret. A

not even halfway on the hull yet!

Completing the second gun and turret.. Before putting it all together, firstly I added the two barbettes to deck: and then the two range finder hoods and the two metal ladderson either side and of the gun housing As mentioned in Stage 51 diary I put the red wire on the wrong way up, you can see in this next image that the wire is too far inside the based has to bend back to get out of the circular base, this caused some jamming in the movement of the guns, The solution was to disassemble everything and turn the circuit board and wires 180 degrees so they they fit like this: Allowing free movement of the guns: Here is the nearly-final construction.... ..but then I noticed I had forgotten to add the two small black periscopes to either side:

Keep on adding to that hull!

Our eagle-eyed Leopard builders have spotted an oversight in the Pack 2 build instructions. This has been corrected and there is now a revised pdf in the Downloads Centre. A spring (10-2) was supplied with Stage 10. This must be fixed in Stage 11 as shown in picture 9 on page 13. We have introduced a new symbol to indicate when parts are supplied but are to be used in a later stage: A number next to the symbol indicates which stage the part will be required in: Finally, please make sure you keep ALL track parts supplied in each stage as they will be required throughout your build for joining up the tracks.

The main thing here is to avoid the mistake I made. It is to do with the way you attach the red wire to the guns. The wire comes off the circuit board from one side, you can just about see in the images below that the way I attached it has the wire facing down on the cutting mat; this turns out to be 'upside-down' What I found in Stage 53 is that this orientation means that the wire does not sit well in the turret base and gets a little snagged with movement. So at Stage 53 I had to dismantle everything and reverse the orientation of the circuit board wires (jump down to last pic to see correct orientation). The correct orientation of the circuit board wires so that they do not hit the turret base when moving:

Extending the hull

After the detail of 47, I now have a couple of stages of light relief! This stage is extending the main deck Three screws underneath does the trick

Progressing the superstructure. Life raft and compasses in place: And then more rail bending! Like last time the bend grooves are quite hard to see but they are there and will help het the correct final shape. They all fitted in place very accurately with minimal glue needed. You can see here that the amount of railings completed continues to grow. Take note on the semi circle railings, the lower one has a slightly different finish on one side so that it goes over the ladder. I didn't need to use glue on either of these two rails as the shape meant that they snapped into place and held. Two more rails added on the diagonal... And the tower gets taller! At this point I noticed I still had a small rail left on the spare, part B-5. It was supposed to go on the side in step 8, but it was easy to add on now: I didn't use glue when fitting the upper decks to the main structure as it was tight enough to push together, however the difficulty is not damaging any of the detail as you press it into place. The step ladders looked a bit daunting, however once the railings are bent into place it is simply a case of gluing them together. I found that it was easiest to lay one piece flat on the table, put some glue on it and then lower the adjoining section onto it with tweezers. Once in place, they add a smart piece of detail! Last section was to a glue on the three pipes to the rear of the admirals deck. you can see in this photo that once of them didn't fit all the way in so I need to take it off and get a better fit. Stage complete!

A bit more of the hull, You can see the size compared to Lou's Shelby Cobra build just behind it..

Forward superstructure Firstly I added the two range finders and searchlights that are on the admiral's deck. Then, even smaller (!) the two loudspeakers that go on the side of the upper mask deck. Back to the Admiral's deck, firstly I bent the railings. The bending-grove of these is quite hard to see but it is there! I put a spot of glue on the underside of the deck so that when the railing passed through it would hold from underneath, in an attempt to avoid glue splurge marks - seems to work! Note- its easier to position the railing with tweezers. The two cages bent and positioned: When adding the antennas (stages 401, 02 03) make sure they fit the holes before gluing, I needed to widen a hole first to get the fit. The two ladders 'hang' in space but attach to the deck above when out together. Definitely worth doing a trial run on the final step to make sure the two assemblies fit together well and you get the idea of how to push it all into place.

please keep in mind that the images are of the prototype not the final production version. For the door-pull handles mentioned by Tezza43 these were not actually in the early versions of the car and were introduced bit later, so won't be on ours which is 1961. You did get us worried though so we had to go back and double check with the original car that we '3D scanned' in the Jaguar collection and also some old photos of the interiors of the first cars. However the windows do actually wind up on our model if you turn the handles! 😃

Upper mast deck Mast deck all fitted together easily enough. The next bit is super-fiddly! I needed a lot of delicate work with tweezers and also use only the tiniest bit of glue to prevent it showing. Once in place its a great bit of detail! More lockers attached around the conning tower and then the railings. With all the railings I placed them in position in the holding holes prior to gluing them to ensure that I had got the bend angles correct. Once the rail has been bent correctly then I added a drop of glue to hold it in place. So that is Pack 4 completed, and the model is already looking immense!