A while ago I hatched a plan to get the AoE movie display stand from the local cinema. Sadly my plan did not come to fruition as the cinema said they intended to auction it off.

Anyway due to them not advertising it propely on the FB page, they recieved zero bids. I was informed by the cinema that it had not been auctioned off but a request before mine had come in for it. It turned out to be the parent of one of the students in my class at the Specialist School I work at.

When I queried the parent (who is head of the parents club and on the school council) about it and to what use the Parents Club intended to put it to for the school she laughed and said "Yeah, I put the request in so we could give it to you! Go and grab it!" Needless to say that much thanking and grovelling on my part took place


Anyway, after two visits with various tools and vehicles and friends we realised it was just too big and too fragile to take in the back of a ute. The cinema manager said we couldn't really dismantle it as it is held together with a million tabs and that it would be too frustrating for us as well as taking up his whole foyer. So in the end this is how we got Big Grim:



Borrowed a horse float from one of my wifes friend and went in today. Naturally when loading him up and driving him through town at 30kph we got a few stares and raised eyebrows








Even with a horse float, given the huge dimensions of the display we had to remove the tail, remove Optimus and then tip it up on a severe angle





The stand survived the trip pretty well until we hit a pothole in my driveway and then the main cardboard strut gave way though was still fairly intact. Sadly, while we were returning the horse float my cat decided to jump up on it which meant the main strut gave way completely and nearly tore in half. However we were able to string up Big Grim to some crossbeams in the shed so that he still looks pretty much like he did in the cinema.








It is in the shed he will remain until we finally do our house extension and I have a collectors room to put it up in. It will require a new supporting brace but sure I can build something suitable.


I'm a very lucky and very happy lad