Preparations are on

I decided, that the next thing I build, will be Sheepo’s GT500. It has had a lot of praise on Eurobricks and every other site that featured it. In the meantime, instructions are available as well and some people already have built it themselves.

There are two versions available. One remote controlled and one manual. Whilst the remote controlled version uses several motors and remotes and has a linear transmission, the manual version has a regular transmission, no motors, but features a handbrake. Also there is a substantial difference in the amount of parts. The remote version sports over 4000 (!) parts, where the manual version only needs only nearly 3600 parts.

I decided to build the manual version. Not only because of the lack of motors or because the manual edition is cheaper, but because this will be mostly a display model. If you are interested in buying the building instructions, you can find them on Sheepo’s website.

So there are several stages in the preparation process. They are mostly complete and I hope to be able to begin building next week, when my vacation starts. So here are the steps that I went through:

• Determine, which sets or MOCs I have on display currently and decide which can be disassembled
• Disassemble those chosen sets/MOCs and sort the pieces
• Get the parts list and compile a list of missing parts
• Transform the list of missing parts into a Bricklink wishlist
• Go back and forth between shops to see how missing parts can be ordered most effectily
• And of course: Order these missing parts

This is a rather crude description of the process that I have gone through. And I am not yet finished. I still need to finish all the tasks. Currently I still have the Vampire GT to disassemble and sort the parts. Missing parts are all ordered and I am waiting for the last packages to arrive.

Contrary to past orders, this time I really had to order from quite a few shops. All in all I did eleven orders on BrickLink. I am ok with that, but I would have wished to cut a little on postage cost. Also I did my first orders from outside germany, which is a rather interesting thing as I have no clue how long it will take for them to arrive. The biggest problem was, that I waited too long. When I first looked for the availability of parts, it was pretty good. Now when I ordered, several parts where rather seldom available from within Germany. Most crucial were the flex axles, because this model requires some rather rare parts. But in the end, I found all the pieces. And even if this was quite an investment, I would guess that I came out of it rather cheap.

So far, I am pretty satisfied with my progress and I can’t wait to start building. But before that, more sorting, more preparing of pieces and of course sorting out the pieces for building.

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