Countdown

Photo from www.botchthecrab.com

Man, this is a long time coming.  Countdown was perhaps one of my favorite later era Transformers, and I was happy as a little girl when I found him in parents' attic a decade ago.  That excitement was tempered when I realized that I was missing a few parts.  Missing were: the base arm, the long ramp, and I needed a new gunner pod because the post had somehow broken.  Every part was readily available, save for the long ramp.  Without that ramp, this reconstruction project would be a waste of time, so I was constantly contemplating whether or not I should just start over with a whole new one.  However, the allure of restoring a set that I had as a kid was just too powerful.  Finally, my patience was rewarded.

I put off actually getting any parts until I locate the large ramp, which I finally did a couple of months ago.  As a matter of fact, I wound up winning a parts auction that also included the mechanical arm, an extra helipad, the long ramp, and three small ramps.  Score.  I think I paid $20 for the entire lot, which was great since the only other long ramp I had run across was running $30 by itself!  I quickly sold off the helipad and ramps and set upon looking for a new gunner pod.  Then I realized that I couldn't find my helipad!  After a month of searching, I found it in the garage, of all places.  I think that one of my kids took it in there to play with without my knowledge.  Kids.  The gunner pod, I bought from Flywheels on eBay.  At the time, I didn't even realize that was who I had bought it from, I was just impressed with the price.  By the way, visit his eBay store for some great deals!

Once I had the pieces in place, I decided that a decal overhaul was in order.  The parts all worked, but the decals were in various states.  Some were good, others were utterly obliterated.  A quick trip to Reprolabels, and I was in business.  That is, until I tried to remove the old ones.  Trying to remove 20 year old stickers is next to impossible, it seems.  I've never encountered anything so hard to take off.  Luckily, Brr-Icy had contacted me on Facebook and was able to offer a great tip.  Using Zippo lighter fluid really helped speed things along.  After that came a quick wipe down with a magic eraser and then a few washes with warm soapy water. 

Voila!  Behold the fruits of my labor!

The decals from Reprolabels are great.  I was worried that the colors would be off color as they were with Gnaw, but that wasn't the case. 

Now that this project is complete, I can focus on adding some additions.  Check out who's next on Friday!  Here's a hint - it's Transformer.