James Bond DB5 (10262) - License to Build

I received a follow-up parcel from Lego yesterday (no, not with the missing pieces) that held a plastic card - apparently, my License to Build.

The front of the card has blank areas where you write your name and then sign. The serial number at the bottom left of the card is unique, which adds to the collectability of this set. Also on the front is a picture of the Lego model and the 007 and Aston Martin logos.

The back gives details of the set, including the set number, name and piece count. The set is again pictured, this time with a front view.

James Bond DB5 (10262) - Missing Parts!

So we sat down to start Chapter 2 last night only to discover ON THE VERY FIRST STEP that there were FOUR missing pieces!!! As always, Lego's customer service was very pleasant and easy to deal with but that doesn't make the 2 week wait for replacement parts any easier.

I don't know what the percentage of sets with missing pieces is but quite a few of our latest builds seem to have had a few pieces missing. I guess that isn't too surprising considering how many thousands of pieces there are scattered over the hundreds of sets in circulation.

We toyed with the idea of starting a different build until the pieces arrive for this one but we haven't got enough space to do that, so we decided we would just use the 2 weeks as a bit of a break from Lego. It will make it that much more enjoyable when we get back into it.

James Bond DB5 (10262) - Laying Down The Chassis

We started the DB5 over the weekend and finished off the first chapter. I think the chassis and some of the gearing is all done but it still doesn't look too much like a car yet. As with any of the builds that involve a lot of mechanical components and gearing, it was pretty challenging to make sure everything was aligned and (of course) put into the correct place.

Below is what the car looks like at the end of the first chapter. The front of the vehicle is to the left (I think!!).

You can see the gear shift lever in the middle of the car, connected to the drive shaft. The section towards the rear of the vehicle contains the gearing for the ejection seat.

We nearly had a crisis moment when we discovered that mom had put the front wheel drive axles in backwards (they kept sliding out because she had inserted them with the lodging plate facing outwards instead of inwards where subsequent parts would pin them in place). Luckily, we were able to correct the error without having to disassemble and reassemble everything.

I believe that Chapter 2 does start on some of the body panels, so this will begin looking much more like a car soon!