INTRODUCTION

Over 10 years ago I purchased one of the (relatively) cheap vinyl copies of the T800 Endo Skull and set about building and painting it with cheap silver car paint. The end results were passable, and so I put it in a glass case, displayed it for a short time, and then stored it away and forgot about it for a decade. This is how it turned out all that time ago:

OLD VERSION of the Endo Skull on which the paint unfortunately melted.

I had no experience with soft vinyl kits before (or since) and was surprised recently when I unearthed the skull (still in its display case) in the attic, to find that the silver paint was now tacky; almost sticky to the touch. Simple light touches resulted in fingerprint marks in the surface - it was ruined. After searching around on the internet it appears that this is a common trait of vinyl kits (something I was completely unaware of); painting directly onto the vinyl either never really dries, or appears to dry and then over time (especially if heat is involved, such as a warm attic) the vinyl starts to react with the paint making it sticky.

So, in a nutshell, I ended up with an un-displayable T800 skull. I decided I'd try and strip it back down to the vinyl, see how much I can tidy it up, hopefully learn from my mistakes, and perhaps do a better job of it than the first time around. And so that's where this little side project started. 

Over the last few weeks I realised I'd built up a stack of useful information regarding the re-build, and so decided to document it as I presumed there may be someone out there who may find some of it useful.

And so it begins....