Nurse! Scalpel. . .erm. . .make that a hammer!

Yes, he's on an operating table of sorts. We did some "manipulation" before laying him down . . . it was too hair raising for me to consider stopping to take photos though. Essentially, we used an icepick and the tip of a steel file to pry apart that big crack on his shoulder and then pounded on the uneven surface with a combination of my Father's fist and a leather mallet until the edges were butted against each other instead of overlapping. Before we even started that, we had to remove a couple of large chunks that were just getting in the way. They weren't really attached anymore so they would have caused more trouble than they were worth.

*Plus* it gave the opportunity for the second photo which shows the inner fiberglass mesh. I think I saw something that looked a whole lot like that in Alien. . . except it was throbbing and one of those face hugger critters leaped out of it as soon as the camera got this close. . .

But yeah, that's fiberglass in there. Little chopped up strands of glass. The top layer is resin. Probably Polyester resin judging from the powerful aroma whenever it's sanded, or drilled, or heated slightly above room temperature. *blargh!*

Once we got things a bit straightened out, we could finally lay him down and get to work putting ol' Humpty Dumpty back together again.

A lot of people will think it looks like we're filling the gaps and cracks here with cocaine and spit, but the model horse folks will recognize it as the ever popular baking soda/superglue mix. Awesome stuff for working on repairing resins, but, are we pushing the envelope a little by trying it on a horse *this* size?

We were throwing caution to the wind and plugging on ahead. We were determined to see it through and nothing was going to stop us from using as many cheesy cliche's as possible! I'm not exactly sure why the "wound" looks pink in this photo. it's most definitely *not* blood though. I think there was something on the brush that was being used to dust things off.