Pickles

Yes, I'm in a bit of a pickle.

It has taken a lot of mental energy to figure out what is wrong and how to fix it.

Apparently, the picture on the box is correct.

The model is not.

 This is how the spleen actually fits while under the diaphragm (the spleen is that triangular shaped piece that's supposed to attach to the two magnets on the stomach. The picture above is how the stomach actually sits when attached to the liver and the diaphragm). 

But that's not the main problem.

The skeleton is.

Oddly enough, the legs were very straight - which is not anatomically correct.

After figuring out the problem with the legs, I ended up threading the leg bones together with a double strand of wire and glued the joints together. After the glue was dry, I added Apoxie for better support. That was on Wednesday.

Yesterday, I went over to my grandparents house because I needed help from my grandfather with figuring out how to get the ribcage to stay on. It took most of the afternoon to find a solution, but we did find one.

It involved drilling with tiny hand drills, filing with tiny files......everything on a tiny level. (My grandfather builds model airplanes and trucks, so he has ALL the right tools for this kind of stuff!!)

 Success didn't last long though. I had set this last night...and it doesn't match with the clear case.

 And this piece didn't fix either. This morning that rib broke off!

 I am trying not to get discouraged. It is a frustrating project - and NOT one to do in crunch time! I am still going to go back to my grandparents house this afternoon to primer the rest of the pieces, so that I could at least start painting those for starters. I just hope I get the skeleton fixed and painted by the end of NaMoPaiMo.