Lindberg/Round2 Moon Ship adaptation

[Hamiltonian]

This is the old 1/200 Lindberg moonship from 1958, reissued by Round2 and relabelled as 1/96 scale - which makes the included astronaut figures 5 feet tall instead of 10 feet tall!

The original kit was based on an early-50s a von Braun concept for a round-the-moon exploratory flight (without landing). The ship was to be built in Earth orbit:

 

Bonestell made a famous painting of it for a series of Collier's articles in the early 1950s:

 

Lindberg, for reasons best known to themselves, stuck a set of landing legs on it, and removed the crew access, producing a vehicle in which the crew were trapped inside the habitat at the top of the ship, with no evident way of getting out, let alone down to the lunar surface.

 

I wanted to restore it at least partially towards the original von Braun concept, so I removed the legs, added the toroidal hydrogen peroxide tank, scratch-built the crew access from 20mm tube, and chucked away the odd transparent red domes over all the portholes. I adapted one of the standing astronaut figures to become an EVA figure. Decals are mainly from my stash, trying to give the thing an appropriate period feel (a 48-star flag, for instance), mixed with a few decals from the kit that I repurposed. The stand is an old Airfix stand.

 

(The toroidal tank at the base of the stack started life as a plastic curtain ring, which turned out to be exactly the right size.)

 

It's not a great kit, and it has some horrible seams, but it was fun for a quick build.

Edited March 28, 2018 by Hamiltonian
Newer and better photos

[bhouse]

I do like those 1950's space designs. 

 

Did Glencoe reissue that kit at some stage? I really like what you've done with it by taking it closer to Von Braun's original. What scale would you put it at? 1:120???

[Hamiltonian]

2 hours ago, bhouse said:

I do like those 1950's space designs. 

 

Did Glencoe reissue that kit at some stage? I really like what you've done with it by taking it closer to Von Braun's original. What scale would you put it at? 1:120???

Yes, Glencoe produced a version with (I think) different decals.

The diagram I reproduced above (from von Braun's book, Across The Space Frontier) would make the spaceship 86ft long, if the human figure is 5'10". The model is about 9" long, from rocket nozzles to observation dome, so that would be 1:115. And that's consistent with the 5/8" astronaut figure, equivalent to six feet tall in his suit.

[Jeddahbill]

Very nice!  Excellent work with this old Lindberg kit.  You have really captured the feel of the original Von Braun design.

 

Respect!

[Gimme Shelter]

true classic plastic and a brilliant modelling job - you have made some very old plastic look like it has just fallen out a modern day mould - top marks - something nice and spacey

[Pete in Lincs]

Fabulous work.

There's life in the old kit yet!

[Hamiltonian]

5 hours ago, Jeddahbill said:

Very nice!  Excellent work with this old Lindberg kit.  You have really captured the feel of the original Von Braun design.

 

Respect!

 

5 hours ago, Gimme Shelter said:

true classic plastic and a brilliant modelling job - you have made some very old plastic look like it has just fallen out a modern day mould - top marks - something nice and spacey

 

2 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Fabulous work.

There's life in the old kit yet!

 

Thanks, all.

[Kallisti]

Lovely, I've got this kit in the stash with thoughts of one day 'tarting it up' a bit

This is a handy reference as to what it actually looks like built!