Here's One I Did Earlier

[Nomore Shelfspace]

(Note - I've probably put this is  the wrong section, it should have been in Ready for Inspection, but I'm not sure if I can move it easily....)

Welcome to one of my now infrequent postings, as the title suggests, here's a Revell 1/48 Lunar Module I did earlier, about 39 years earlier in fact... this is my oldest surviving model of any kind. For some reason it's just always been there! First, a little history...

Yup, that's me - No-more Shelf-space Junior, from Scale Models August 1978. (thanks to Jinxman for the pdf copy!) Note the financial confidence, quite unfounded as I was on a student grant at that time, if anyone remembers those. (I am no longer at that address). From that ad I got an Aurora Land of the Giants Spindrift (orange and bright green plastic, uuh), a Lindbergh wheel type space station, and a nice Revell 1/48 Apollo stack in all its totally inaccurate glory. The CSM and other parts did not survive the decades, and the other two got sold on. And I never got the Saturn and Vostok...

Anyway here's the Lunar Module;

I detailed it up from photos of the mockup then in the Science Museum. The landing legs were mostly rebuilt from EMA/Plastruct tubing, plume deflectors were toothpaste tube and straightened paperclip wire (stuck with Evo-Stik when it was actually glue), and foil - rather faded now - off a Cadbury's Caramac, another one of those things that isn't quite the same nowadays.

Here's a photo round the back, where they kept the bins. Most of the details were rebuilt with plastic rod, and by some miracle nothing has ever got broken off! I had no airbrush then apart from one of those horrible Humbrol squirt-brushes so it was all hand painted in silver 11 and matt black.

The windows were acetate, and now very yellowed, although you can't see this against the black interior. When I examined the interior with a torch I could see some attempt to stick something inside, although what I was intending to do I don't remember. Reference at that time was very hard to come by unless you were a smart alec and wrote to NASA. The base I made quite recently - it's the base you have seen in my aircraft photos, cut into a circle shape with "moon" built up with lumpy Tetrion and painted with tube acrylic. The placard is mounting board with lettering via a technical lettering stencil and rOtring pen - sort of in keeping with the era I made it in - I could have done something on the PC but, nah. Keep it 1978!

 

Edited March 15, 2017 by Nomore Shelfspace
wrong section...

[Eric Mc]

Not bad for almost 4 decades

 

Funilly enough, my oldest surviving built model is the Airfix Lunar Module I built in 1979. .I'm thinking of building a replacement some time this year.

[Nomore Shelfspace]

8 hours ago, Eric Mc said:

Not bad for almost 4 decades

 

Funilly enough, my oldest surviving built model is the Airfix Lunar Module I built in 1979. .I'm thinking of building a replacement some time this year.

I also built a slightly accurized Airfix LM at the time. I also did one some years ago which I think I posted here, based on a nice article from the IPMS magazine I found online. Main problem now is sourcing decent gold foil...!

[Eric Mc]

I used an article from a 1979 edition of Scale Models which gave advice on how to improve the accuracy of the Airfix kit and also featured side elevation of the LM showing the proper colour scheme and foil placement. I still have that magazine  and will use it again the next time I build the kit - although the new Airfix colour instructions are much closer to the real thing compared to the original release.

 

When I built the model back in 1979, I found that the best gold foil was to be found in Rolos. Much to my delight, I have recently found that Rolos still come with the same foil

 

The 2009 release of the Airfix LM comes with a gold foil sheet.

Edited March 20, 2017 by Eric Mc

[Mick4350]

45 minutes ago, Eric Mc said:

 

 

The 2009 release of the Airfix LM comes with a gold foil sheet.

 

Additionally when released in 2009, the mail US Flag only had 41 stars and was missing 9 of the other stars on the US flag at the time. I did let Airfix know their mistake when I bought the kit back in 2011 and they had the main flag reprinted by Cartograf Decals that included the correct amount of stars on the main flag. The smaller US flag wasn't corrected when they updated the larger flag.

[GordonD]

On 20/03/2017 at 8:08 AM, Eric Mc said:

I used an article from a 1979 edition of Scale Models which gave advice on how to improve the accuracy of the Airfix kit and also featured side elevation of the LM showing the proper colour scheme and foil placement. I still have that magazine  and will use it again the next time I build the kit - although the new Airfix colour instructions are much closer to the real thing compared to the original release.

 

The instructions for the 2009 reissue were written by Mat Irvine, former model builder for shows like the original Doctor Who and Blake's 7. It was he who persuaded Airfix to create new parts for the Apollo Service Module and LM Adapter on the Saturn V and IB kits. He tried to get them to produce new parts for the Soyuz kit as well, with proper vanes on the payload shroud replacing the vague bumps on the original (because nobody knew what they were at the time of the original release) but they rejected that request.