♪ [rock music intro] ♪
Hello ladies and gentlemen of YouTube.
I'm back again with another Metal Earth kit build
and this time it's something that's a little bit hard to get a hold of.
I have..
Due to a generous donation..
received the Halo Guardian.
And it's not in a box. It's basically in a cd case
and it's a couple of sheet
I had to actually
go online and do some hunting to find the instructions but, I've got it
I got the instructions printed out.
And I'm ready to build it, so
as we can already tell, it's two sheets.
Let's take a quick peek at the instructions.
Talk a little bit about tools.
And see if we can't build this thing.
I've got the two sheets of metal
with all the different parts to the Guardian.
And I've go online
found the instructions and printed them off.
Several pieces of paper here.
So that I can know how to put all these parts together
but it's very much like the instructions you would get with any kit.
We have the line drawing,
we have a diagram with all the different parts with numbers.
I've actually blown that up for my own benefit
so it's easier to see.
I can set this to the side and always have it available which is nice.
[paper rusting]
You'll notice some of the parts have the same color, some parts have no colors
The ones with the same are identical parts.
And they're..
We've got the two pieces of the backbone here
basically each side is the same.
So rather than having them two different numbers and two different labels they just
number it once and color the part so you can find both sides.
We have one warning down here in several languages
be careful of pointy parts
and they can be a problem.
A little bit here about the folds lines, insertion slots, tabs and how to bend and twist them.
The blue circle means to bend the tab over, the green circle means to twist
and the usual pliers are helpful for assembly.
We have something new to me, notable symbols
e for engraved side, ne for non engraved and a little
red hand for, bend do not twist.
And other than that we just have the usual flow chart.
Start at part one and just kind of..
follow the arrows.
As best you can.
And it's pretty well assembled in part number.
With a few exceptions where parts are repeated
the numbers may jump back a moment.
That's page one, two, three, so on and so forth.
And in the end
you've got an option to either hang it,  or put it on a stand.
Tools that I use.
Pliers, pliers are very good. Long needle nose pliers are excellent
for a great many things. Flat nose pliers are
great for certain bends.
And it's essential to have some sort of clippers
to be able to easily and cleanly remove the parts from the sheets.
Tweezers are very helpful. They're very small and easy to manage.
They're great for holding on to small parts
great for making small bends
great for bending and twisting some of the tabs.
I like to have an assortment of different kinds.
I have a fairly normal set of tweezers,
a thinner set
and a couple of sets with very pointed ends for getting into very small areas.
Round nose, or ring pliers are very useful for shaping some of the curved parts.
You can just get the metal in between there and just slowly
bend it and curve it,
For all of the odd shaped areas of your kit.
There are many different things you can use to form the circles and curves of these kits.
I have a very inexpensive drill bit set with a
selection of different sizes to chose from.
I have a couple of step mandrels
that also have a selection of rounded sizes to chose from.
I have a couple of dowel rods that have been sharpened on the end
which are great for shaping and forming cones.
And I also find it very useful to have marbles and beads
for making some of the rounder and done shaped parts.
We've got instructions, we've got out two sheets and some tools to get started,
let's put this together.
♪ [rhythmic music] ♪
The camera did not start recording when I started building.
I was a few steps in before I noticed.
I had parts 1 through 6 or r3, r4, and r5 finished.
These are parts on the right side of the model.
Soon I will get to the left side of the model.
All of these parts come together the same, just mirrored.
I used the flat nose pliers for some of the longer side pieces to keep from warping them.
Usually I bend tabs with my fingernails
but with these winged type parts
The first time I tried to do that it started to warp the part.
I suggest carefully bending over the tabs with some sort of tweezers trying not to bend the flaps or the sides.
I initially bend the sides of part 12 in too far and had to separate them just a little.
Now I begin work on the left side.
These first few parts are just like the ones I missed in the recording of the right side.
They fold and come together just the same, just mirrored.
Be especially careful bending over the sides of the narrow end.
Hold the pliers or tweezers firm at the bend and push firmly against the other side with your finger.
It's easy to bend the tips the wrong way.
♪ [piano music] ♪
It sometimes took a few adjustments to line up the tabs with the slots properly.
The center part is curved so attaching the two larger side parts is a tad tricky.
I first secured the center tab. Then the tabs on the front.
And then pressed the final tabs into place and secured them.
It is not real clear in the instructions but the sides of part 23 do not bend at a complete 90 degrees.
The sides are spread just a little.
♪ [upbeat music] ♪
Once again I have to spread the sides a little to fit the part.
What might be easy to miss on the instructions for part 30 and 31
is that you need to bend the tabs down at 90 degrees to line them up with the slots.
The next several parts have a lot of little sides to bend down much like the first few parts.
I'm going to skip a lot of the folding sides down
unless there is something I think you should note.
♪ [slower music] ♪
The connecting parts have tabs near the sides on the inner part.
You will need to decide weather to fold up the sides
and then twist the tabs in the narrow tight area
or attach and twist the tabs then try to fold up the sides.
That may depend on what kind of tools you have.
This video has been edited down.
I have not shown all the different attempts, adjustments or retries of this build.
I also clip out parts where I am studying the directions, searching for and clipping parts,
and some repetitive steps.
It may make it look like this kit came together easier than it did,
but there is a lot of bending and adjusting of parts to make things fit.
Work slowly,
be patient,
and take your time.
Because I decided to attach the part and twist the tabs before folding the sides
the tabs were now in my way of folding the sides.
I had a lot of trouble getting my big fingers under the connection to hold it steady
while I applied pressure to secure and twist the tabs.
I used a drill bit to help apply pressure on one side,
where on the other, it occurred to me to open the bend up a little
to allow more room for my finger.
♪ [gentle pop music] ♪
When bending over the long sides of the base, I often push the sides against the table to bend them over.
It is quick, bends evenly, and keeps from scratching the base up with tools.
This is by far the most difficult part of the kit for me.
I struggled for quite a while trying to get the top part to fit.
I made all sorts of adjustments to line up the tabs,
I kept bending the tops parts more,
I kept adjusting the tabs, folding the part in, folding the part out
and there is a little pointed down part of the front that I had to open back up
because it was keeping things from setting properly.
It took quite a bit of work and some of the tabs are just barely through their slots.
I bent and twisted these last three tabs as best I could in such a tight spot.
The part seems to be holding on pretty good.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Halo Guardian.
Very, very floppy kit.
I'm going to put this down now.
To start off with, the kit was not difficult. It was just a lot of bending over side pieces,
putting things together,
it was cumbersome
a bit tedious but not difficult.
It wasn't till towards the end when it came time to put some of the larger pieces together
when it came time to put that top of the sort of head piece on
that was extremely difficult.
And then to try and squeeze the other large sort of backbone ish piece in there...
was difficult. I finally got it done.
It's one of those things I kind of look back and I'm like how in the world did I manage that.
But it's done.
In the beginning
in the, tools that I use, portion of the video, I showed some tweezers
That I use, I actually have a much larger set.I normally only use the ones that I showed.
But I pulled out another set part way through this kit and kind of ground the tip down so it wasn't as pointy
and made a flatter tip, a little bit thicker, just the right size for grabbing and twisting the tabs.
So I ended up using that during part of the video.
And I'm going to make a video about that coming up.
About those tools and a few other things.
I want to give a big thank you to
Little Katie for providing me this kit so that I could build it.
She has her own YouTube channel and I will put a link to it down below.
She has built some of her own kits.
She's made her own video on tips and tricks which is a good watch.
And she's even made these little bases
that you can use to put these kits on so some of the ones fall over so easy
don't fall over so easy.
She'd actually sent me base
and I wanted to put it in this video
but I can't find it..
So, I'm sorry.
Hopefully it will turn up soon.
But at any rate
if you have any questions or comments please leave them down below.
Thank you for watching.
And keep on keeping on.
♪ [eerie music] ♪
