Pegasus mercury 9 rocket

[S5 modeller]

Hi chaps.

I'm nearing the end of my current build,so have turned my mind to my next build. 

Ed-209 is on hold, at the moment, kinda burned out with sorting his legs, so I'm trying some new things.

May I present the pegasus mercury 9 rocket kit.....

 

I've had this kit for a bit now, so thought I would pull it out of the stash and dust it off.

Going try some new things, to me, as the kit comes with out buildings I'm going to try a diorama! 

Now I think this kit has been designed with lighting in mind. 

It is a 3 engined rocket, and each "nacel" contains a clear dome on it's tip....

 

As you can see, there is a central pin that locates the part in the top of the engine, and I'm looking at attaching a flashing led to each one. Once painted clear red, I think it will look rather good.

Wiring the rocket for power is incorporated into the kit too.

There is a fueling tower and hose in the kit.

This is what pegasus supply for the fuel hose, two core power cable!

It even runs to a small fuel tank kinda thing, which looks suitable to conceal the batteries. 

Shouldn't be too hard to run some thin wire through the pylons holding the engines so I can power the leds.

Looking at illuminating the command centre too. Plus, if possible, the spot light on the roof.

Hoping to paint the rocket in a polished nmf finish.

 

So a lot of firsts for me:-

Add lighting to a build.

Paint a polished nmf finish, maybe alclad. 

Create a diorama.

 

The kit is suppesed to be 1/350 scale, so might look for some suitable vehicles too.

 

Work might not start for a couple of weeks, so please excuse me if I don't update it yet.

Will try to get some sprue shots up soon.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Matt

[Gimme Shelter]

wow - your build will look better than the box art if you pull this off Matt - nice plans and will look forward to watching them to life

[S5 modeller]

Thanks gimme. Can't say it'll actually work out how I want it, but I'll try. 

I do have a tendency of punching above my skill set, but it'll be a learning curve, and I'm sure it won't be able to hold a candle to your awesome builds. Your phantom was a sublime work of art.

 

Matt 

Edited May 8, 2017 by S5 modeller

[S5 modeller]

Right.

Decided I couldn't wait for the end of my current build, can't get good enough weather to spray paint, so made a start on this build.

Seeing as I have yet to sort out my lighting there's only so much I can actually work on.

To start off, I've cleaned up and assembled the launch pad the rocket sits on. 

There's only a couple of parts to this, so only took 5 mins. There's some nice little details on there, that hopefully will look good, when painted up.

Fitted the roof to the control tower building. 

This is how it sits, with the rest of the command centre. It's not fixed together yet, as you will see why next.

 

Come payday I intend to get this set. It contains an extensive set of decals, plus a transparent film for the command centre. 

 

So with that in mind, I took my trusty drill set out, and attacked the plastic in preparation. 

Now have see through windows! Not sure about having the little round windows lit up though.

Did some dry fitting on some of the major components, and so far I'm rather impressed with this kit.

Main body fits together nicely, and this is minimal clean up. The panel lines all join up too, which is a bonus.

There were a few stupidly placed sprue connection points which will need some careful attention though.

Again with minimal clean up, the first of the 3 fins fits lovely. 

Me thinks minimal filler will be required. 

Side pod,that sits between the engines, loosely fitted. Minimal finger pressure reqired. The vents go through into the pod, and I'm thinking of a nice blue glow from a led would look good shining out of here.

Lastly, this is the only part of the kit that lets it down. Supposed to be the tubular tower that holds the spot light up. It looks rather pants like this, so I might have to try and replace it. There is a photoetch set available, but I'm loathed to pay for it, as I only want the support, and I'm not bothered about the rest of it.

 

So that's where I'm up to. Just looking into lighting options, and various shiny metal finishes.

I have alclad chrome, and polished aluminium. Might need to find some others too, for panel variations. 

 

Hope you like it so far.

Toodles.

Matt

[Hunter Rose]

Will be watching with interest Matt, like the sound of what your planning