31-10-2024

Donner und Blitzen.

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Oh Deer, Deer!

As we reported on the Santa's Grotto write up reindeer Donner and Blitzen suffered damage during storage from last years appearance. Suggestions of “where is the glue gun?” were very quickly discarded as the antlers on Donner were broken to the extent there was no way they were going to be repaired on site. Blitzen had damage to the seating of the antlers and one of his legs was completely fractured, so both were carefully loaded into 2 cars and taken back to our workshop to be repaired.

If you look at the picture of Blitzen sprawled across the bench look at Thomo's rocking horse in the background. A new ankle socket needed to be prepared on the 3D printer and you can see Donner's antlers now fully repaired just waiting for the glue to set before being reunited with the rest of his body!

Just in case you think Jon was taking it a bit far by wearing a face mask while working on Blitzen, it wasn't him being hygienic while operating, but as he was using fibre glass for the repair it is a requirement to do so!

You can see in the pictures that both Reindeer are looking the part once more. Well done to Jon, Steve and John for their efforts. You will all soon get you part on All Creatures Great and Small!!!

Did you know - all of Santa's reindeer are hinds, yes, even Rudolph. Not too sure if that was a mix-up at birth but male reindeer apparently shed their antlers in about October. Probably the stags knocked themselves silly fighting over their harem that it is to give their heads a chance to recover. Perhaps they ought to start non-contact sports.

Author:Chris Hodgson