Lego Saturn V

[GordonD]

As I said in a previous post this was my Christmas present to myself:

Although it was delivered on 9 November (the fiftieth anniversary of its maiden flight!) I resisted the temptation to open it until Christmas Day itself. This is what the very heavy box contains:

 

 

Nearly two thousand pieces (actually Lego have worked things so that there are 1,969 pieces to mark the year of the first Moon landing). To make it easier to find the pieces you are looking for they are divided into twelve plastic bags and you use all the bits in Bag #1 before opening Bag #2 - so you're not going to get a picture of all the pieces in one huge pile. But here are the contents of Bag #1:

 

(The big orange thing at top right is a tool for separating bricks, a most ingenious creation. And speaking of ingenuity, I take my hat off to the Lego designers, who have done a fantastic job in creating a model that even approaches being in scale while ensuring that all the parts are compatible with the rest of the system. Apparently a brick produced in 1958 will fit perfectly with one that was manufactured yesterday, so they have not sacrificed this compatibility to get a better model.)

 

Here's the build part of the way through Bag #1 - this represents the RP-1 Kerosene tank, the area where the USA markings appear. The reason there are no markings here is that this is just the internal core and all of this will be hidden as the build progresses.

 

The parts with studs facing outwards will hold the actual outer skin when that comes along, and this design makes it all very strong.

 

Internal core complete:

 

And with the upper part

 

Those struts also provide inner strength (something we could all do with at this time of year!). Oh, and the vertical black and white parts to the left are the first parts of the external skin.

 

The upper section represents the liquid oxygen tank and this completes Bag #1:

 

... except for the modeller's nightmare: two parts left over!

 

However I've double checked the instruction manual and I'm certain I haven't left anything out so these appear to be extra pieces that slipped through the net.

 

 

I'm working on one bag per day, beginning on Christmas Day (it's just occurred to me that it's the Twelve Days of Christmas!) and had intended to post daily as the build went along but the site has been down for a couple of days so I'm playing catch-up. I will post Day Two a little later on this afternoon, then possibly Day Three (today) this evening.

[Gorby]

Excellent - I'll be following this one.

[Mike]

It's a monster of a kit isn't it? I still haven't done mine/Christopher's, but as there's now more in the queue ahead of it from Santa's recent delivery, I'll just watch your's

[GordonD]

Lego are considering an LUT to go with it...

[spfparker]

There are always a few bits extra in most kits

 

[Gorby]

40 minutes ago, GordonD said:

Lego are considering an LUT to go with it...

That would be good, but I'd prefer this...

 

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/0f8efc2a-ce0a-4285-9f2b-036bf3eb9f38

 

[GordonD]

Well, we really need both, don't we?

[GordonD]

On the Second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

 

Bag #2 of the Saturn V.

 

We're still working on the S-IC first stage - in fact the first six bags are taken up to build this, showing how large a part of the Saturn V it actually was. Lots of external skin parts here, including the USA markings, which are printed onto the parts and not supplied as stickers. An embarrassing thing happened when I was lining up the U S A parts for the photo - the one with the 'S' was sloping the wrong way, which made no sense at all. Then I realised it was upside-down...  

 

The skin sections fit onto a central spine like so:

 

The grid-like parts above the black and white section represent the 'stringers' which added strength to the intertank structure. You shouldn't be able to see through them but as I said before Lego are working with what they have here so I'm not concerned about that. Anyway, the assembly shown above is repeated three times. (The pedants among you--hi there, Enzo!--will be aware that if you build something, then repeat it once, you have two objects. If therefore you repeat it three times, you have four of them, which is indeed the case here.)

 

And in place.

 

It's now starting to look like the actual rocket. As I said earlier about those struts, they provide inner support to the vertical panels and make the whole thing very strong. Here's a view of how they do that.

 

 

And that's it for Bag #2. This is, however, Day Three of the build so I'll post again later today to bring us up to date. Expect lots more skin panels to make it look even more like the real thing.

 

 

[GordonD]

Right, Day Three and Bag #3.

 

 

A lot of skin panels as I said, four of them with the American flag. These form the outer surface of the LOX tank...

 

... and there are four of them as before:

 

... and in place.

 

Note that these parts are only attached at the bottom, which is why they appear to be hanging outwards. Once they're secured at the top, they will be perfectly aligned.

 

 

See? Also added to the model at this point is the inner framework of the very top of the stage. Actually it's the interstage that connected the S-IC and S-II, which isn't detachable here, but that would have weakened the model. 

 

A close-up of the inner framework showing how everything locks solidly together:

 

And that's it for Bag #3. But one more thing - I'm aware that if you're not familiar with Lego you won't really have an idea of the size of this thing. So here it is alongside a can of Pringles to give a sense of scale.

 

 

 

[Gorby]

It looks amazingly well engineered. I should imagine that it's quite heavy. 

[GordonD]

2.4kg according to Amazon (who want £150 for it!)

[Enzo the Magnificent]

1 hour ago, GordonD said:

2.4kg according to Amazon (who want £150 for it!)

   Not as expensive as I would have thought.  I've kust paid 110 quid for a resin HMS Victorious and there seems to be a lot more in this.

[GordonD]

48 minutes ago, Enzo Matrix said:

   Not as expensive as I would have thought.  I've kust paid 110 quid for a resin HMS Victorious and there seems to be a lot more in this.

Well, the Saturn V was cheaper than that - by a penny. That was directly from Lego themselves, which was why I was so surprised at what Amazon are charging.

[fatfingers]

I built one of these earlier this year. Really well engineered and looks the part when finished. Would love the crawler and launch tower if they are released 

 

Recently done Tower Bridge and the Houses of Parliament too. I like to build lego when I've had a crappy day at work and need to switch my head off for a while 

 

Regards 

 

Steve 

Edited December 27, 2017 by fatfingers

[glueman]

Wow ... lucky lucky man.  I was hoping to snag one of these for Christmas but didn't get one 

 

However ... I did get a Yoda space ship Lego kit ...

 

and ... a 1/144 scale Bandai AT AT ... my first ever Star Wars kit 

 

Will be following this build

 

Pete

[cati]

i was a bit naughty and picked up the lepin one while i was in china for sixty quid - it is a big thing when finished and would love the launch tower if it comes to pass

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 28, 2017 by cati

[GordonD]

2 hours ago, cati said:

i was a bit naughty and picked up the lepin one while i was in china for sixty quid - it is a big thing when finished and would love the launch tower if it comes to pass

Is that the pirated version? There's a facebook group dedicated to this model and somebody mentioned it.

[GordonD]

Day Four in the Big Brother House of the build, and things are still proceeding smoothly.

 

Contents of Bag #4:

 

 

 

First off, more skin panels. The red parts are clips to which the second stage will be attached - they are designed to hold it securely in place but allow it to be detached if you're demonstrating the Apollo flight profile.

 

 

Those parts now in place.

 

More skin panels with clips at the top. At the bottom of each is part of the external tunnel which carried electrical cabling down the side of the vehicle.

 

Two more clips, then everything in place:

 

The cable tunnels:

 

... in place

 

And finally some more skin panels to complete the top:

 

The things that look like small fins represent the posigrade rockets that would fire as the second stage separated, providing a brief acceleration that made sure the propellant was properly settled at the bottom of the tanks, where the pumps were located. Originally there were eight of these, but as time went on it was realised that not all of them were required, so some were removed to save weight.

 

And that ends the build from Bag #4: this is what the model looks like now.

 

Still two bags to go on the first stage: tomorrow's instalment will close all those gaps, while the day after builds the engines. I'm really looking forward to that one as there is some amazing detail.

 

[cati]

for the bits you still have to add  on this stage and the next stage it is worth putting some elastic bands around the structure - bits kept popping kept popping off.... mind you it might have been lepin quality - but on the whole it has been very good ( so far built Lepin 911 GT3, small GT40 and GT, Catherham and technic tracked excavator - and quality and parts have been very good) 

 

 

Edited December 28, 2017 by cati

[GordonD]

Thanks for the heads-up. No problems so far but I'll keep an eye on things.

[colinlp]

The Lego kit looks the part with lots of internal parts that can be revealed or explained to a youngster during assembly. I'd love one if I could afford it but for now I'll have to be content with the Airfix version I got for Christmas.

 

I bet that LUT will cost a chunk too but can you really have a Saturn V without one? It's like having a model railway without track to me

[GordonD]

1 hour ago, colinlp said:

It's like having a model railway without track to me

Just build it and call it "Beeching's Folly"...

[GordonD]

DAY FIVE

 

And Bag #5. When I took it out of the box my initial thought was that there weren't a lot of pieces in it, but I was wrong - there were quite a lot of very small bits.

 

Most of them were the parts Lego have used as the external stringers, as seen at top right. The rest of the pieces are to hold them in place.

 

Here are three of the subassemblies completed, with the parts that make up each one to the left.

 

The white bar on the assembly attaches to the yellow clip inside:

 

Like so:

 

And seen from the outside:

 

All that remains is to fill in that last gap, plus one out of sight next to the cable tunnel (on both sides):

 

And done.

 

The main body of the S-IC is now complete - tomorrow sees the construction of the engines and filling in the remaining gaps at the base. Then on Day Seven it starts all over again with the second stage!

 

 

 

[fatfingers]

I was really impressed by how the engines went together when I built mine. They're a real work of art.

 

Regards 

 

Steve 

[GordonD]

10 minutes ago, fatfingers said:

I was really impressed by how the engines went together when I built mine. They're a real work of art.

 

Regards 

 

Steve 

That's what I thought when I was reading the instructions. I am really impressed by this whole model.