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Thank you for the responses, gentlemen!   John, as always, much obliged to your tips and tricks. I should clarify, the 'mesh' you refer to in my photos is actually the front 3d printed wall piece, the diamond formation is done just so I can still see out, but there's enough structure to keep the actual mesh and cloth in place. I do have both a sort of flywire mesh, and some thin 'blackout' fabric that will wrap the bin, which will be much more accurate to the actual props. And I'll keep in mind what you've said about the struts, more than happy to paint it black when the time comes, but at the very least I've started off white and can only go darker, so all is good.   Drew, very much agree, I've lost track of how many hours I've spent looking at those photos, taking notes of every idiosyncrasy I can find, as well as tracking the history of the prop on 6388 too try and get other measurements and details. Good spot on the mesh washer, I hadn't picked up on that, and I've done some test drills with a countersink decking drill bit to try and match the recess on the gunbox screws. Any other details you spot, please do pass them along!

When looking at v/5, I typically find these two images to be the most helpful in terms of understanding how it’s put together.  With the Butler’s Wharf photo, you can really see just how fine the neck mesh is compared to 6/ex.  There’s also a very prominent set of washers and rivets right at the front join of the shoulder mesh. The mesh at the bottom seems to have remnants of a previous red livery The gunboxes each have four inset holes for what look to be large flathead screws to my eyes. I believe these are to retain the ball joints. The barrel of the gun has slid quite a bit further down the length of the cage, extending out at the tip. This carries over into studio.    

Looking really good, you're making most of the choices I'd make if I were you!   Re the neck bin, the original was, I think, a "Planet of the Daleks" neck bin. These seemed to be skinned in some kind of fine mesh, like a fine or medium modelling mesh, rather than the coarse mesh you've got fitted in your pictures above. Then a voile or speaker cloth is added inside the neckbin. If you did it this way, you won't need to highlight the neckbin struts in any lighter colour unless you're using a very, very fine mesh - it'll easily be visible, as per the originals, in black.   Re the paint, I would strongly suggest brushable oil based paint, with a suitable paint conditioner. Bit more effort on clean up and takes longer to dry, but more authentic.

Been a few months, most of my days have been occupied with a separate NSD build for someone else, but I've made little snippets of progress here and there in the interim.   The biggest of course being that I've now got a dome. Audrey2 worked his magic and provided me with a 3d printed plug. Four separate pieces, which I then bolted together, filled, and sanded. I also made sure, given as I had the 90° angle provided by the nature of the print, to go at with a hole punch, and make a few markings that would transfer onto both the mould and cast, as reference points for holes and cuts, for the lights, eye pivot, and, in the case of this build, the central A-frame rod     The dome mould and cast is honestly the cleanest job of fibreglassing I've ever done (wish I knew what I did right tbh, I didn't expect it to be as clean as it was with my relatively little experience), but then it was a case of just trimming off the excess flange, drilling out the holes, and I had a dome ready to go.     Because I'm not using an actual A-frame for the dome, but still wanted the look, I designed and printed a little stump that slides up through the top, and that will be painted in a dark steel look and fully glued in after the dome is painted, but for the time being it's just held on with some tape.     For the neck cage, I took John Kelly's advice and shifted the holes further out, cutting some spare dowels and glueing them into the existing holes, and then filling and sanding them smooth before completely redrilling, now they sit about 3.5mm in from the edge.     The cage was a tricky one to approach, not really having a single correct solution to how to go about it. As stated, my plan for this was to make the build look like the prop did when filming, and the neck rings are very clearly battered even by their appearance in Destiny, let alone into the 80s.     I drilled the holes for the dowels slightly wider than needed, to make tipping and repositioning easier, but then had another issue: V-5's cage looks to have been either rotated, or smacked around into a new formation between multiple different filming sequences. As a result, there's no consistent look.   This also dovetailed with another issue I had: much and all as I was keen to recreate the look of the prop as precisely as possible, the crooked rings did bug me, and I'm not sure I'd want them on the end result, given the plan to show it off at conventions and other events. So, I struck a balance (literally!) and decided not to add the tilt, but instead just try to find the median height of each ring, and unevenly space them apart to get a similar effect.     After the cage was done, I could measure up for the bin, as I wanted to get the height of that exact so I'd get the look of the dome rising above the top of the cage struts. After a bit of maths, I got my result, put together with some scrap MDF from work, and voila!     Two other details with the bin, too. For the upright struts, I got some satin white board (usually used for 2pac painted cabinetry, anyone else in the industry will be very familiar I'm sure), because multiple shots show the bin struts being slightly visible under the mesh, so they'll be left white to achieve the same effect. Also I designed and printed some bin walls, around 2-3mm thick, to fit in and keep the cylindrical shape, so that when I fit the mesh and cloth, there'll be none of that elastic warping effect as it squeezes into the bin without a backing.     The last feature of the neck/dome assembly at this stage is the eye, which is only half-finished until I fit the holder bracket for the pivot, and cut the discs from some white acrylic. As temporary placeholders I've got some printed discs in place, and the whole assembly fits over a length of M6 allthread, with the eye printed to hold a nut inside, so I can screw and unscrew as necessary.     Moving further down there's been little progress at this stage, but I have cut the ply for the gunboxes, again making sure that I've got the end-grain folding over the correct way to match the original, and spending far too much time pausing Destiny on my TV to measure up the exact placement of screws and rivets.     I've got a card sample of RAL 7024 coming in the mail, so when that arrives I can get a pot mixed up, and now that the weather is improving I'm hoping soon to put together some moulds for the shoulder and skirt, but pretty happy with how he's looking so far!