The four shoulder pods had minor physical damage but a number of the surface panels were coming off and had to be reattached. The pods comprise of a wooden core covered in thin Perspex sheets. The attachment arm, that plugs into a slot in the brass framework, is also just a wooden piece and on this front left pod the arm has been trimmed slightly, possibly for when it was fitted to Eagle 2 in the episode 'The Exiles'. As a result it now has masking tape wrapped around it to help it fit back into its proper place but it's still loose, as are the rest to different degrees, and care has to be taken when holding the model that the four pods don't just slide out and smash on the floor.

The pods were given a gentle clean with very fine wet & dry paper to remove the outer rougher layers of paint and dirt. The model had around nine layers of paint on it, one of which wasn't very stable and seemed to consist of a greasy dirt. My intention here was not to remove all the paint but just get a good surface to apply the new paint to and in the process uncover the original details that had been lost 20+ years ago.

One hole is for the grab arm attachment - the others?

This pod had numerous burn marks on the front & top panels

Rectanguler panel on rear angle was missing in the 2nd series

There is only one Gemini kit part on the rear pods

The four undercarriage assemblies are self contained units that simply push into holes in the bottom of the pods and can be easily pulled out - as required for all those crash scenes. This pieces were not repainted or altered in any way. Note the footpads are solid Perspex and not the original 1973 first versions that were thinner and made from mulitiple layers of Plasticard.

The aluminium attitude thrusters were lightly glued into Perspex blocks which have brass tubes protruding from the rear - the purpose of which is unclear, possibly to allow the units to swivel or feed freon gas through to make them appear to work.

The passenger pod looked to be in very bad condition, however most of the damage was actually lumps chipped out of the many layers of paint most of which simply disappeared when it was all rubbed down with wet & dry paper. The process was made easier by removing some kit parts and the thin plasticard rectangular panels around the windows - luckily these were only glued on with a rubbery contact adhesive and they came away with little resistance. Various original paint details were uncovered, including this 1st Season Alpha decal, that were carefully masked off so that they could be incorporated into the final paint finish. One bit of damage that had to be fixed was the missing section above the door, although the hole in the door (filled with modelling clay) was left untouched. Note a lot of panel lines on the pod and command module are cut into the surface not just drawn on.

One strange bit of detailing done to the Eagle models over the years is that someone has gone around 'highlighting' areas with a thin felt tip pen. This was very noticeable on the ends of this pod and the sides of the Eagle 2 pod.

Whilst the legs of the passenger pod were seen in the extended down position during the series this is not a working feature on the models and would require some additional parts. The pipes on the bottom of this pod (and most others) are brass but later pods also featured steel and plastic piping. The construction of these pods is mostly Perspex and Plasticard sheeting with the bottom side edges being wood.

The roof of the pod has numerous holes in it, including one large area remade in filler.

All the detailing that was uncovered was marked and photographed so that it could be recreated later.

The inside of the pod with the supports for the freon gas canisters and some of the connecting pipes.

The inside of the pod is painted black however in very early publicity photographs the windows in the top of the pod are still clear.

The finished pod now displaying the original decal and door panel detail. Many of the panels on the original model are light blue not grey. Grey panels were added later possibly because the blue didn't register on film as easily.

Coloured bands are Letraset tapes or paint detail. New alpha decals and replacement letraset rubdown transfers supplied by Chris Trice.

The model still shows a lot of the scars from the last thirty years and there are areas that are still unrepairable (without resorting to total replacement) but this just adds to the interest.

Overall the model is in good condition and should have a long life ahead of it.

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All photographs by David Sisson