Ima Penin Diaz

You know-w-w Tzulscha ... how about some company?? Adding some details in styrene ... and adding the styrene tube to mount the stand ... On orbit photo of another Gemini spacecraft. In order to add the PE to the interior much sanding and adjusting is needed ... The LVM PE is pretty thick stuff ... but here's an Ejection Seat back ... I don't use a lot of PE and this complex folding is ... interesting! I glued the seats ... I haven't soldered brass, but will give it a try later ... The hatch interiors will get some attention too ... That'll do ... for now. Till next post! IPD

I picked up a pre-built Revell Gemini kit off of eBay a few years ago and wanted to build a Gemini spacecraft to accompany my scratchbuilt ATDA which was part of it's flight. I also used Real Space's update set as well as LVM's photo etch interior The date on the bottom. When I was a kid, I bought this as a new kit, put it together in an afternoon, and played with it in the tub that night ... The parts ... The AF parts from Real Space ... Replace the kit window cove with the AF piece ... dry fit ... Drilling out the RCS holes to be replaced with either brass or styrene tubing. The kit's nose needed to be cut off so that the Real Space radar piece would fit ... The hole for the kit's stand was plugged with a scrap of styrene and will be filed and sanded ... The kit's seats were removed to be replaced with PE from LVM Kit and AF thrusters for comparison Clamping the thrusters onto the adapter I've also added some access panels ... And a dry fit Still a lot of scratch built details to add. I l'll also be including a scratch built AMU tucked into the aft section with Capt. Gene Cernan back there too.

Thanx TimB ... I just had my artistic license renewed If I had done it to scale, the diorama would have been close to 16 feet long. Even at this size, 4' x 4', a few model contests struggled to make space for it! And thanks to you too Eric Mc!

Thanx janneman36 ... not so much effort as time ... but it was a lotta fun ... ! the US Space program from the '60's and 70's is a BIG hobby of mine and to get to read more about it and then put all that new info into a small model is ... bliss! But the eyes are getting any younger! Here's the completed diorama ... the reference image first ... and a few more pix ... Thanx for looking in, Gents! IPD

This was built a few years ago and was an exercise in the joys of scratch building. Really! This was a lot of fun! Using the Monogram 1/48 Lunar Module, I cut a Rendezvous window into the top of the crew cabin I used the New Ware update set for this kit. Nice resin bits and the PE is nice too! Ascent stage left and right sides ... Modifying the Descent stage ... Starting to wrap it using candy bar wrappers The MESA is PE from New Ware ... The deployed RTG ... built from scratch Ascent and Descent stages. Notice the Antennae on the Ascent stage ... mostly New Ware products ... and the open hatch. ... with deployed MESA A real photo of Apollo 12 and Surveyor ... ... so I get to building the Surveyor. Styrene bits, Metal rod, homemade decals for the solar panels and lots of poring over reference photos! ... and together. The little assembly at the lower left-centre is the tool 'box' Pete and Al used. Photos of the completed diorama will follow. IPD

I used good old CA glue

Thanx Eric Mc! For the struts I used Piano wire and the deflectors themselves were made from Aluminium sheet from a used printing press plate.

A few pix of the completed model. This is depicting Apollo 16 and I've also added Plume deflectors, added or modified the Antennae, as well as added the vent hoods on the Ascent stage. And that'll do it for this one! This was fun for me too, to revisit this build! IPD

I built this a few years ago ... but just revisited the build. This is, as every other Lunar Module kit out there, inaccurate. I really enjoy making my models a little more accurate and luckily, I really enjoy building items from scratch! I've removed the inaccurate panels, and re-built 'em, and have already cut out the rendezvous window on top. The windows are too small so I cut 'em out and will enlarge them. As well, I removed the 'things' between the 'eyes'. I also removed the webbing on the lower right side ... I also cut out the front hatch I've rebuilt some support structure inside the two halves of the Ascent stage. A dry fit of the new panels The Ascent Stage primed and going through it's first sanding The Descent Stage needs some attention too. I cut it apart and will remove a quad panel ... The porch is the kit's and is quite outta scale, plus the legs are splayed a tad too much, but I also like to keep some inaccuracies of the kit visible too. I'm not a rivet-counter ... well, maybe to a small degree, but not pathological! ... building the open MESA ... the underside ... the landing radar and shield were made out of styrene The RTG cask and LRV pallets were not part of the kit either ... ... looking into the LRV quad ... The LRV will be semi-deployed and this is the dry fit ... with the completed LRV That's a lot of images for this posting ... the completed model will be next ...

Thanx Kushan ... I won't necessarily be posing this as the Box art, but I do like to show these winged vehicles with their Payload Bay doors open ... there's a lotta detail in those Payload Bays! Onto the the PB doors ... this is the instruction sheet for the PE radiator panels. The little plastic nubs on the styrene door need to be removed so the PE can sit flush ... I taped 'em in order to glue 'em down ... the tape acts only as a hinge because placement of the Rad panels is pretty tight. The PE is nice and are thin sheets of brass. I had painted them Model Master Chrome First coat of paint ... more of a primer coat Masking for the RCC panels on the wing leading edge Starting to add the belly decals ... they haven't settled yet, but you can see the number of pieces involved. These are Black decals ... and ... ... these are White decals Nice wing decal I didn't realize that I needed to paint the hinge 'black' ... I assumed the decal would cover the tail ... The decals don't meet on top, I will assume this was my error ... Elevon undersides ... Now, I've hit a snag. I'm wondering if ARK Model has printed the decals or the instructions incorrectly ... Elevon Decals are #30, 32, 35, 37 and #30, 32 don't fit ... at least, I hope it's not my mistake. You can see that decals 30 and 32 aren't configured correctly, or are my eyes and brain not working right? I've contacted ARK Model a couple of times, one to find out how to order another sheet of decals, because I ruined a Wing decal and then ... when I went to apply these Elevon decals and noticed that they're incorrect, contacted them again, this time to 'Andrey' , to let him know and ask for a free sheet, and have gotten no results. Where I'm not certain, is decals will go through a process of test fits and I just can't understand how this could have got through their QA checks ... but I also can't see where it's my error ... So, I've this build has stalled ... is anybody else building this kit? i'll keep you all posted! IPD

This is my first thread on BM and I shall soon find out how many images I can post in one shot ... I was browsing Britmodeler a few months ago and saw a thread about this new kit ... and as I've built quite a few Shuttles in all scales, I wanted this one too. Bought it from eBay and received it 3 weeks later ... So, over Christmas 2019, I started it ... The fit isn't too bad at all ... Nice set of decals ... no Black belly decals but they're on the sheet, in White. Assembling the Payload Bay ... the instructions are not all that clear, but with a little thought, it goes together nice and snugly. The landing gear doors are, well ... I guess they're designed to be displayed open. I also bought the PE for this kit and it looks pretty good. There's a gap between wing and fuselage, but I'm thinking it was my error. I glued and clamped the Payload Bay to the fuselage sides and shouldn't have. This is where the instructions were weak. But, I placed some .005" styrene scraps in the gap and will trim and sand later ... more patching ... First sanding of the belly ... The wing patches will need just a little filler ... PE on the RMS ( Remote Manipulator System ). In the background you can see an RMS that I've modified PE for the window. I had glued the kit's clear windows and THEN put on the PE frames. The PE stands proud of the surface and I suppose, I wasn't to use the kit's clear windows ... But I shimmed the height difference and will sand and file and make it look ... well, we'll see. After a lot of sanding and priming and sanding, it'll look fine under a coat of paint. 20 images ... now let's see if this gets posted! IPD

Many Thanx Gents! Such a warm welcome! I think my first thread will be the 1/144 Buran from ARK Model ... I've hit a snag and may need another point of view ... See you all soon on the Real Space Forum!

I've been in this hobby for about 12 years and build mostly US Space program hardware, early US Space program. I've noticed in the Sci-Fi and Real Space forum that there's a dearth of Real Space threads. But there is a lot of kiddie fiction stuff ... kiddie fiction because there's no "Science" in Star Wars or Gundam, for instance ... So I hope to include a lot more Space hardware ... real ... designed, engineered, flight-tested and flown hardware. We've gotta put the Real Space back into that forum. I'll see ya around! ... oh ... and it's nice to be here! IPD