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Happy Anniversary Skylab 50 years ago today Skylab, America's first space station, was launched. I'm not going to discuss Skylab's history in detail right now, there will time for that later but suffice to say that this programme set numerous records for human occupancy in outer space, gathered an enormous amount of scientific data regarding both planet Earth and the Sun and was involved in a couple of episodes of aerospace drama that sometimes tested NASA’s ingenuity and determination to the limit. It was also - in its own way - rather beautiful. Skylab is well remembered here in Western Australia because on the evening of 11 July 1979 as it disintegrated in the Earth's upper atmosphere it scatteried debris over a large elliptical area to the North-East of the small W.A. town of Esperance. No one was hurt and no damage was caused. For a brief period the eyes of the world were on Western Australia and a flurry of activity followed as numerous folks went out in search of souvenirs. Surprisingly I have only ever seen one model of Skylab in W.A. It was given to the Shire of Esperance by NASA and is on display, along with various pieces of debris, in the Esperance community museum. I'm going to have a crack at building my own model and hopefully - despite this early start - will be able to join into @bianfuxia's upcoming 'Beyond the Karman Line' group build. Here are my main references. And the principal drawings that I will be working from. It turns out that 70mm PVC piping from Bunnings is freakishly - exactly - the correct diameter for the main orbital workshop. and that 25mm electrical conduit is also - exactly - the correct diameter for the multiple docking adaptor module. So, earlier tonight, on the evening of the 50th anniversary of the launch, I made the first cut in this project. Followed by marking up and cutting out two bulkheads from MDF. That sit snugly in the workshop like so... and then have a central hole cut in them so that the central 'axis' of the model (the aforementioned conduit) can slip through the centre of the orbital workshop . Leaving this... Which is a pretty good start I think. Unfortunately I now have four projects on the go, which is not ideal. Top priority stays with finishing the PZH-2000. I'm giving myself plenty of time for this one - about 6 years in fact - as I want it finished in time for the re-entry anniversary! 🙂 Best Regards, Bandsaw Steve

This is the 1/24-scale RealSpace Mariner 9. It includes resin, styrene, and PE parts, and wire. Rather than use the full solar panel decals provided, I cut out the individual blue solar cells and affixed them to gold-painted panels. I also "upholstered" the main probe body in LDPE plastic wrapping to better simulate the sheet material covering the actual probe. Painted with Alclad, Tamiya, and Mr. Color. Light black enamel wash on vents on the octagonal bus. Not complicated but still a challenging, but fun, build. Thanks for looking!

This is the RealSpace 1/144 Atlas V - 500 series rocket kit. It comes in 17 resin parts, three of which make up the main rocket body. The main tube and fairing are both cast resin; the rest of the pieces are 3D printed. There were some serious mold issues with the main rocket body which would have prevented proper alignment of the final construction; when I reached out to Glenn he quickly sent me a new 3D-printed version of the part. (He said that later versions of this kit would be fully 3D-printed, but for now I'd be building a hybrid of sorts.) Considerable surface prep, a few fit issues, but everything came together in the end. Tamiya and Alclad paints, and a light enamel wash in places for contrast. I added some plasticard strip "embellishments" on the SRBs and fairing. The final model is a good size: 16" tall and top-heavy with the solid resin "grenade" perched on top. But, the model balances (metastably) on its boosters, avoiding strict need of a mount. Thanks for looking! And together with a Delta II and Atlas-Centaur:

Skylab Hi Karman line team. As promised on the chat I'm switching my Skylab project, currently on the Science Fiction and Realspace forum, into this groupbuild. I'm well below the 25% threshold at least in terms of time to finish this project and @bianfuxia (who I understand is the boss around here) seems to think it's OK for me to pop across here for a bit, so here I am. This is my first group-build BTW so it's all very exciting! Anyhow, here's a link to the story so far... I have not achieved a huge amount just yet but that's mostly because my spare time was being sunk into finishing my PzH 2000 so hopefully being in this group might cause me to focus on Skylab a bit more. Here's something like what I want to make...(mine won’t have the big rocket-bit sticking out the back of the workshop because it was not there on the final deployed version). and here's where I'm up to. Doesn't look like much yet but hopefully it's on the right track. I'm very much looking forward to being a space groupie! Hopefully I'll make some progress over the next few months. See you all soon, Bandsaw Steve

Just finished this monster. Lots of fun with files, wire cutters, knives, and even a metal saw. Really impressed with this kit. Thanks for looking!

I've been woefully inactive in my chosen hobby this year for various reasons, but with the end of the year looming large, I wanted to try and get one finished before 2021 hits us square in the face. I ordered this little resin kit after seeing it on these here forums, so made an order on eBay and have been waiting for the Russian and British Post Office to deliver it until yesterday. I couldn't resist, as it is just such a simple little kit. There are six resin parts and a resin base, plus a roll of copper wire for the aerials, and a thicker length to connect the finished model to the base. The parts were a piece of cake to remove from their casting blocks, as they were 3D printed, so the orb halves had a myriad of tiny little legs that I cut off with nippers then scraped them away. The antennae bases were similarly easy, but the base needed a good sand with my Dremel with repeated tests to check it was sitting flat to the floor. Whenever I have a butt-joint between two cylindrical or hemispherical parts, I always trim away the majority of the centres, which leads to easier fitting and less chance of the parts wobbling or fitting at a funny angle. I joined the two halves with CA, taking care to align the three dots and the larger access hatch between the two halves. it went well, and I ended up with a nice sphere. I drilled out the attachment point to the base with a 0.8mm drill, and the antenna bases with a 0.35mm drill, as I was replacing the copper wire with 0.3mm carbon fibre rod, as it's deadly straight, resilient and very flexible, while springing back to shape unlike the copper, which will bend and probably need straightening all the time during construction. Then I cleaned the parts in a bath of IPA (not beer), and squirted some primer on it, letting it dry overnight. Next job is to decide which type of metallic paint I'm going to use, and whether I'll need to prime it again in black. The base is going to be gloss black with white or silver lettering, so I'll need to deal with that slight wobble on the bottom of the front, which I couldn't see until I'd taken the picture above. I've got a lot on my plate at the moment with the site misbehaving, plus my dear old mum having just having had a serious op last Sunday, but I'm still hoping I can get it done before the end of the year, which at time of writing is a fortnight. Will I make it?

Chinese Spaceship No.10 Item No.: 01671 Scale: 1:72 Trumpeter new release for all real space modellers

1/72 Mercury from Horizon Models a new real-space plastic kit producer from Australia http://www.horizon-models.com/1-72-mercury review: http://www.scalemodelnews.com/2016/01/mercury-rising-from-down-under-space.htm http://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/kits/hor/kit_hor_2003.shtml source: cybermodeller: