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SpaceX Falcon 9 (1-72nd)


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Mission CRS-11 Launch Date 3rd June 2017

 

The model was purchased from Buzz Media Labs 2017 and is a resin 3d print. I originally bought it to be displayed alongside a commemorative patch that was planned to be transported to the ISS on the CRS-11 flight. Part of the payload was rescheduled and the patch was eventually transported to the ISS aboard a later flight by an Antares/Cygnus.

 

The flight was significant in that it marked the first time that a Dragon capsule was being reused

 

The kit as supplied, all laid out. All resin parts apart from the main section of the first stage which is a PVC tube, and a half round section of styrene for a cable duct. The kit ids also supplied with small magnets and engineered so that the second stage is detachable

 

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The detail is very good, and from what I have seen so far and the parts fit together really well with a minimum of clean up

 

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The grid fins are nicely detailed, they are the older aluminium type, and I think this was the penultimate time they were used. They were replaced by one made from a titanium alloy on later flights

 

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The kit supplied decals, and an AB Emblems mission patch

 

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A quick check on the orientation and fit of the second stage aft bulkhead, engine and bell. 

 

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The pusher mechanism that is used for stage separation

 

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The trunk, second stage and top section of the first stage

 

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One of the grid fins with the supports removed and trial fitted

 

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Overall, I am very impressed with the quality and level of detail on the kit. A couple of the cable ducts and the stage pusher are a little warped and will require a bit of persuasion. I am not sure if they were like it when supplied, or as a result of being stored away in the stash for three and a half years.

The kit does not come with any instructions, but most of it is straightforward, and there are some good reference photos to be found.

 

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To get familiar with the location of the parts I taped them to the stage

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Then it was time to set about making everything fit nicely. The vast majority of the model will be white with the exception of a few parts. Bearing this in mind I am going to attempt to make those parts fit as good as possible and fit them together after they have been painted.

The first parts attacked were the Dragon Cargo capsule and its heatshield. The heatshield will be a silver finish.

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The nose fairing was cleaned up as well

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The capsule to trunk fit check

 

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The capsule did not sit down snug to the trunk, so a session with the Dremel remedied that.

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The aft bulkhead of the second stage was fettled up and fitted

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Second stage engine and bell cleaned and trial fitted

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The Octoweb that houses the Merlin engines will be painted black. To make the fit to the stage as good as possible a hole was cut in a piece of emery sheet. This was fitted over the flange of the Octoweb and placed into the first stage tube and then the Octoweb was rotated to sand it flush to the tube

 

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A nice fit was achieved, which should allow the two parts to be painted and then fitted without the need for filling

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The mating faces of the 1st stage and interstage received the same treatment

 

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There was a slight difference in the two mating diameters, some small pieces of styrene were cut to make it a tighter fit, and to centralise the two parts

 

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The two sections fitted together

 

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Next up was the fitment of the trunk to the interstage, and as can be seen form the next two images the profiles of the two sections of the fairings were mismatched.

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The were no locators to line up the two parts, and the inner diameter of the trunk was smaller than the interstage.

To overcome this a styrene guide was made

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Then the sides of the guide were slowly shaved away until the trunk fitted nicely, and was also centred correctly

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All the way home successfully

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The excess material was filed away, this left some gaps to be accounted for

Small pieces of styrene taped into place and epoxy glue poured in from the top to form and fill to the correct profile

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Whilst the glue was setting the landing leg assemblies were cleaned up. They have a small fairing at the top which is supplied as a separate part. The small fairings required a clean-up with the Dremel to make them a nice fit.

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All four completed

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Some more steady progress made, the reprofiling of the fairings on the trunk turned out well. Looking at photos of the Falcon on the pad shows there is a lip in the fairing where I have made the repair. So just to finish a small strip of styrene will be added, that should tidy things up nicely.

 

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I was at a bit of a loss in how to straighten up the sections of the cable tunnel that were warped. Then I recalled somewhere some one saying that resin parts can be straightened by warming them in hot water so I thought let’s give it a shot. It worked like a dream, boiled the kettle, dunked them in the hot water and pushed them into the corner of a mitre box, held in place for a minute or so and straight as you like.

 

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The temporary packing between the two pieces of the first stage was removed and a permanent packer was glued in place

 

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A marking out tool was lashed up to mark the centre line along the length of the tube

 

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Centre lines marked, and the position of the locator peg for cable duct marked

 

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Cable duct trial fitted again

 

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Whilst looking through photos of the launch vehicle to find out where stuff fits, I noticed that the cable duct has a flange which is not present on the kit. I think what I may do is make a flange from thin styrene.

A shot of the cable duct

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Did I mention what a beast this model is, when stacked it weighs in at just over a metre tall !!!

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I decided with going for the flange on the cable duct, so the outline was traced on to some 0.2mm styrene sheet and cut out. Got it right at the fourth attempt, was having one of those off days, nearly thought about binning the idea at one stage.

 

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After it was cut and laid on the tube it dawned on me that basically I was laying a flat piece on a curved surface and there would be a gap along the sides. This also nearly made me ditch the idea. After a quick cuppa a plan was made.

The styrene was securely taped and clamped between two steel rules and gently folded to give a Vee section

 

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The styrene then had a small rod glued to it to help line up and the sections of duct were added one by one. At this stage the ducts are glued to the styrene only. Folding the styrene worked a treat and it is a snug fit against the tube and cable ducts

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All the ducts in place. The whole assembly is in two pieces

 

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The smaller cable duct was then added to the opposite side

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Flanges were added to the landing led leading edge fairings. The fairings need scalloping on the back face, and the styrene required a fold to make everything a snug fit. I had a bit of brain fade when scalloping them out. I thought why not trap them on the mat between some pieces of styrene to hold them whilst the Dremel was in action. The first one promptly disappeared across the room at a rate of knots, took me half an hour to find it. Lesson learnt and then they were held in place with some double-sided tape!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

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All the parts are now identified and the locations known. The only outstanding thing was the orientation of the second stage engine relative to the bulkhead. That was determined after watching a few videos from Oli Braun about the models.

 

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Whilst searching through images of the CRS-11 flight to determine positions of things, and any mission specific markings I also saw some small hatches at the base (the ones either side of the 35 on the top left image. They don’t look as if they are a flush fit, so they are a prime candidate for a thin styrene cut-out stuck to the tube. I did cut a couple, and although they were close in shape to each other the slight differences were noticeable to my eye. This has given me the last nudge towards buying a Cricut or Cameo machine, an idea I have been toying with for a while as I fancy cutting masks. I should also be ideal for cutting out shapes in thin styrene as well.

 

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On 15/03/2021 at 10:11, Norman said:

Wow im liking this build ! pity the supplier has ceased taking orders ! keep posting !

Yes it is a pity as I fancy doing a block 5 as Demo 1. He is trying to clear the backlog of orders, a victim of his own success. Unfortunately real life has got in the way of my model making for a while due to work commitments, but will definitely be back with more 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Just a small update, still tied up with work so unfortunately no bench time

As mentioned above my aim is to build models that compliment my space memorabilia collecting. Due to circumstance the piece that was to relate to the Falcon did not happen.

I cooked up an alternative plan.

The second stage engine above the bell is wrapped in what appears to be silver Mylar insulation

 

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This area is depicted on the model  as a contoured area that I intended to paint a “chrome” colour

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The plan now is to clad it with a piece of Mylar insulation, and I have managed to get hold of a piece of mylar that was flown aboard the ISS. The Mylar was used to package items that were then placed outside the station and remained there for  11 months before being returned to earth aboard a Dragon capsule

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  • 2 months later...

After about three months I finally managed to snatch a bit of bench time.

First job was to tidy up the landing leg leading edge fairings. One of my go to fillers is now Holts Cataloy knifing putty. Dirt cheap, sticks really well, dries quickly without cracking or crazing, and sands up nicely. I found a neat little trick with it today, if you mix a bit of it with Isopropyl Alcohol it can be brushed into small gaps and smoothed nicely

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The kit is engineered so that the second stage is detachable, and is held together with small magnets. The locating recess required cleaning a little so that they were a snug fit and didn’t protrude.

 

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Now at the stage where most of the trial fitting and cleaning up is done, so its time to think about getting some primer applied, but before that I thought I would have s play with the Mylar insulation.

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The Mylar was wrapped around the engine, and the piece was just the right size. When it comes to finally fitting it a small dab of superglue will be used to hold the seam together

 

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As I was gathering all the pieces together to decide on priming colours, I found a couple of jobs that needed doing.

One job being the pusher mechanism that had been straightened before had now become warped again. I tried to realign it and managed to snap one of the struts off. So nothing for it but to build a new one

 

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The finished item was then trial fitted in the stage and measured to ensure that it didn’t clash with the engine

 

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The second job was to install a small strip around the bottom of the trunk fairing

 

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Strip installed, & a first coat of primer applied

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As expected, the prime coat showed up all kinds of nasties, a bit of elbow grease some wet and dry and the odd dab of filler were pressed into action.

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I decided to spray the inside of the interstage with a Zinc Chromate colour, partly due to the fact I wanted to try out some SMS paints. So far, I am really impressed, straight out of the bottle and spray very well. Minimal fuss to clean up the airbrush after use as well.

 

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The interstage painted on the inside

 

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Another toy I invested in recently is a Vortex mixer, I got it from Ali Express at half the price they are sold on Amazon. There is a definite knack to using it, and combined with a small stainless ball bearing in the bottle the results are very good. I would say though that I didn’t put a ball in the glass bottle that the SMS paints come in.

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The second stage stacked

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Landing legs and fairings finish primed, engine bells painted and the pusher assembly sits on the fuel tank bulkhead

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The second Stage engine, engine bell and bulkhead painted up and dry fitted, the insulation placed loosely in place to see how it would all look.

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The assembly was then placed into the second stage

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Seeing it like that made me further think a little about how I will finally display the model. Overall, the model including the stand stacks up to just over a metre tall. I had already thought about having a hole cut in a Perspex shelf in the display cabinet to accommodate it. The new idea will be to display the second stage separate from the first. As I wouldn’t want to just stand the whole of the second stage on the engine bell, I thought a nice stand would be in order. Fusion 360 was pressed into action and a stand was drawn up and is being printed.

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Next job was to get the sizes and a drawing done for the access hatches at the base of the first stage

They are seen on these two images

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67B

 

 

A sketch was made by tracing the profile of the kit landing leg to give some dimensions

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The profile was then drawn in fusion 360, and the hatch was drawn up.

 

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I am using the “free” version of Fusion, and at the beginning of the year some of the functions in the free version were removed and are only accessible by having a paid subscription.

One of these functions was being able to save a drawing as an SVG file type. With this now gone from the free version a bit of faffing about is required.

The hatch was given a nominal thickness of 0.2mm, and the profile resulted in this image. Then a “Snip” was created using Microsoft snipping tool, this is saved as a JPEG file

 

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 The Jpeg is then converted to an SVG file using a free online converter.

This result in an SVG file that can then be imported into Inkscape, and appears as just an outline.

The imported image can then be tweaked by adjusting the height and width

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The image is printed off and checked against the landing leg

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All looks good with that and six are required so the file in Inkscape now looks like this.

The file is now ready for use with a Silhouette Cameo which I intend to invest in. They will be cut from thin sheet styrene

 

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  • 2 months later...

Another long break away from the bench due to work commitments, nearly three months this time.

It did give me a chance to save up and buy the Cameo 4 though. So after a bit of faffing about and getting to learn the ropes I loaded up the drawing of the hatches and hit the button

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Very impressed, they came out a treat

 

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Whilst I was away the stand for the second stage came from the printers

 

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The Insulation was glued into place and the engine attached to the bulkhead

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And then a trial fit onto the stand

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Due to the nature of my job I have been spending a fair amount of time “locked” up in hotel rooms in quarantine, so whilst I was kicking my heels I have been beefing up my fusion 360 knowledge, and decided to sketch up a design for the display base.

 

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Time to put ideas into reality. Instead of a thick base I plumped for a sheet of 2mm thick styrene, this meant I could drill and tap into it to secure the support frames. The support frame for the first stage came with the kit, and is now held in place with some small cap screws

 

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Then the second stage frame was attached to the base in the same manner

 

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Finally, a support for the mission patch was put in place, and some stiffening packers glued under the base set back from the edges so it gives the base a “floating” effect

Still very undecided about a colour scheme for the base

 

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Then the whole shooting match was set up

 

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I had a look at a few you tube tutorials on the Cameo, grabbed some Oramask 813 online and had a bash at creating some spray masks. Absolutely blown away with the quality of the end result, the machine is an impressive bit of kit. The trick is to scan the decals at a high resolution and manually trace the image in the software. The small masks at the bottom of the image are only 3mm high, this was a first attempt, and guessed settings and the outcome can be improved. But all in all, not too shabby for a first go

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I was not happy with the join line of the nose fairing, so over a few days the ragged areas were slowly built up with Mr Surfacer 1300 applied with a brush and sanded down

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That was the start of a torrid few days, where if it could go wrong, it did

Last time I used my airbrush was about three months ago, I had done what I thought was a thorough clean up job, so silly me just grabbed it and slung some UMP white primer in the cup, pulled the trigger…………and a stuck needle. Finally got the brush cleaned up and started painting, then it spluttered, and then tip dried, then there were lumps everywhere. After a root around on a few facebook pages the consensus of opinion appeared to be that it needs straining before use. Some paint strainers duly obtained and this seems to have helped the situation.

The only downside with the polyurethane type primers is that if you don’t get them cleaned out of the brush straight away, they are an absolute nightmare to clean up later down the line. What I have found with the UMP ones is when you are ready to clean up the first thing to do is to flush, backflush and flush again using only distilled water for a start, and only when you think the brush is clean then use a sparing amount of airbrush cleaner or Isopropanol.

I use an Ultimate Apex brush for these primers, but as I was having problems, I decided to try using the Eclipse to see if it was the airbrush that was the root cause. This then led to another bout of problems as again after I thought I had cleaned the brush thoroughly of the UMP I tried spraying some lacquer-based SMS paints. This highlights another problem area; UMP primer turns to a stringy gooey mess when exposed to lacquer-based paints/thinners. Needless to say, another frustrating session of failures and tedious cleaning ensued.

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So, I thought enough of this I need to do something constructive. Now that I had the access hatches made for the base of the first stage my attention was directed at placing them, and the landing legs. I had already toyed with the idea of pre-painting and attaching the legs after the stage was painted-this was plan was adopted. The positions were marked and the legs were held in place and holed drilled through and into the tube. 2mm dia styrene dowels were then glued into place with epoxy. They sit there nicely, and will not need gluing at final assembly

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The dowel holes were drilled through at a place where there was a small access hatch, so this was ideal as a punched-out disc of styrene was glued in place to cover the hole. During the preparation and sanding there was another hatch cover that was lost on each leg, these were reinstated with styrene discs as well. A reference image included to the right

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Next it was time to go back and try and get some things painted. First up was the second stage display frame. This is a PLA print, and for the want of a better description the finish was about as good as a ploughed field. I was musing about how to deal with it, and then dimly remembered buying a tin of automotive spray putty a long while back (probably at the time thinking well this may come in handy for something). Bingo, result, two coats later and most of the craters are filled. I will treat it to another coat tomorrow, then prime it.

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As the display base is a reasonably large area, I decided to go down the rattle can route. I have heard a lot of good reports about Halfords primer so decided to give it a shot. It went on really nicely with a good finish. Whilst I was at the shop, I grabbed myself a tin of the Satin Black, and also a white that is called “Polar White”.

The landing legs were treated to another coat of UMP primer, no dramas this time round. The support for the first stage was primed with UMP black, this sprays like a dream.

Lastly the image to the right is of a few test pieces of UPVC tube of the same type as the first stage. As I have never painted, decaled or finished this type of material before, and it will be my first foray into spraying details using Oramask I thought some testing would be prudent. They are being painted up with sections of different combinations of primer and topcoats.

As well as Oramask I have been advised to try using Artool Ultramask, of which I have some to hand, and will further make some masks cut from Tamiya masking sheet

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Then the last job of the day was to glue the large cable duct into place

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  • 2 weeks later...

The display based was primed with Halfords primer, and top coated with their Satin Black. Really easy to use with impressive results. The first stage support was primed, and then top coated with Vallejo Dull Aluminium

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In the absence of any references, I had previously painted the interior of the interstage with a zinc chromate colour.

Well, that idea was shown to be totally wrong when I happened upon a video on you tube that give a rare glimpse into the inside of the interstage. On a Starlink launch mission early in 2020 the booster “missed” its landing on the barge and ended up in the Ocean. It was towed back to port and some still shots and videos were taken.

Well, that has opened a can of worms as I now can’t unsee what’s in there……………….

Firstly, the interior has been repainted white and some scratching has started.

Here are a couple of images with markups of some of the interior items

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An Engine bell skirt support was made by cutting a disc of styrene, then adding an upstand. The position of the supports marked out and 1mm support rods added. The bulkhead was drilled to accept them

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As I didn’t want to commit to gluing the pusher into place yet out came the drills and taps and the centre rod tapped out 3mm.

 

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Now it’s time for a rummage in the leftovers box to see what we can find to make some eye candy out of.

The rummaging turned up these bits and bobs

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A design for a baseplate to hold the gridfin actuators was drawn up in fusion 360, then imported into the Cameo software and cut from 0.020 styrene

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The base cut out and trial fitted

 

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 Then the assembly was built up with odds and ends

 

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None of the assemblies are glued as it has to be assembled after the bare bulkhead is inserted into the interstage. The finished assembly will then be glued into the interstage and the gridfins inserted.

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The display base was finished off and is ready to go

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Then it was time to do some testing with mask cutting and spraying. Never having created and used masks I decided to do a fair bit of testing to find my feet with it.

I am pleased I did as I learnt a few valuable lessons, and picked up some helpful tips from a mask cutting group on Facebook. I tried using Oramask 813 and Artool Ultramask. They both perform extremely well, but I prefer the Ultramask. It is thinner, and the adhesive is a lot less aggressive, but although not as “Sticky” I had no bleed through under the mask. The Oramask would not be for the fain hearted as it would peel off paint that is not very well adhered to the model, I am sure it probably could be detacked prior to use, but all in all I wouldn’t want to go through doing that when I could use another product that I was comfortable with and not have to do that. Another tip was that of using a transfer tape. The transfer tape is placed over the top of the mask and holds everything in place (for example the centre portions of letters). The mask is removed from its backing and turned over, the unwanted sections are removed, then the mask applied to the work piece. The transfer tape is removed and spraying can commence. A bit of thought is needed if there are multiple colours and more than one mask is required as the colours are applied. I did make two stage masks and used them, I also cut a single mask and applied making tape over the mask. Both methods worked for my simple designs. I am highly impressed with the finished articles  

In this method the first mask was applied and the blue painted, to the right is the second mask for the grey portion of the x

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Then when the blue was dried off the mask removed and the second mask placed

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In this case a single mask was used, and the blue area was painted first with the area to be painted grey masked off, and then visa versa.

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Then the end results

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Then another design was tested out, I went for double masks and single masks. I found that the single masks will suffice, it’s a bit quicker and less work inasmuch as you are not having to accurately place the second mask. Its just a case of apply one mask, paint one colour, mask over that, then paint the second colour, all done.

Two examples done using the two different masking media

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  • 5 months later...

After another long trip away at work and working on displays for some space memorabilia I thought the time was right for the last push to get the F9 finished. I had also got a bit side-tracked with starting another build, something I don’t normally do.

The booster section was too big for the spray booth so had to make a temporary extension

111 (2)

 

 

 

The booster, interstage, second stage, trunk, and capsule were all primed with UMP primer and top coated with white SMS paint. This caused me some trouble as I think unconsciously I was worried about spraying a lacquer paint onto an Acrylic undercoat. The result was that I sprayed the topcoats too dry. The finish was Ok but appeared a bit dusty, I buffed them up with some micromesh cloth and at the time thought I had “got away” with it

 

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Time to apply the masks for the logo’s to be sprayed

Here I was laying out the guides for the masks on the booster section. I have learnt a short sharp lesson here that when designing, cutting and using your own masks a lot of thought and planning is needed for the placement and subsequent masking

 

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Masks applied to the Interstage, and paint sprayed

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Then as I started to remove the mask I noticed it was removing some of the top coat, and the newly applied paint as well

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So, it was time to go back to the drawing board with the interstage first. This was to be the first time I had tried to strip paint from a 3d printed resin item, I looked around in the forum and saw that someone had used Dettol antiseptic to successfully strip paint from 3d resin prints. I can report that yes it does work, the only downside is the smell is overpowering, and despite a lot of cold water rinses the parts still have a bit of a whiff to them.

 

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I also saw that Tesco’s own brand all-purpose cleaner had been used, I couldn’t get any in our local shop, its only a small Metro style but did notice some Dettol all surface cleaner on offer, no bleach, no odour. Didn’t know if it would work, but grabbed a bottle on the off chance.

Time for the long suffering Zebra Lightning to be abused again. It works like a dream, there was just a couple of places where it did not lift off the decals. They were removed with a Q-tip and some isopropyl alcohol

 

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119 (3)

 

 

The trunk section was Ok, bit whilst repositioning a mask on the capsule I saw that the same thing was happening with paint removal. But as I had some paint in the gun and the masks were in place, I thought I would paint it any way. That was when I noticed that the SpaceX lettering was “curved” due to the face it was in a straight line on a mask that was then applied to a conical surface. The top hatch mask was a separate one to the SpaceX logo and required lining up and was really close to the hatch profile so a fix was in order. I also noticed some not very nice looking “craters” at the capsule nose cone split line that needed filling as well. So in the bath went the capsule. With the exception of the booster, all the stripped items were repainted, this time they were primed with a coat of Mr Finishing Surfacer 1500 White, that was thinned 50/50 with Mr Levelling thinner. Top coated with Mr Hobby white.

 

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The masks came of the booster and the dreaded curse of non-sticky paint reared it’s ugly head again. Down at the bottom in the masked area, and s small chip near the E

This time though a couple of spot repairs worked out OK

 

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I was pleased with how the 35 lettering turned out considering how small they are

 

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The Logo on the other side came out with no issues

 

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Capsule all stripped and refilling the joint line underway

 

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Back to the drawing bord with the mask design. The masks for the Falcon 9 on the booster had the outside profile modified so that the notch at the bottom straddled a vent, this was to centre them and set the height correctly. The capsule top hatch & SpaceX lettering were incorporated into one mask. The SpaceX lettering was adjusted so that it was curved so that when applied it would appear straight

 

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Painting the interstage again, this shot shows how the mask profile was used to line it up with the vent, and the grid fin cut outs

 

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The capsule all masked up and the SpaceX painting underway

 

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Painted and ready for mask removal, again lessons learnt in that patience is required and it is best to leave well alone at least until the next day to ensure the paint has cured properly

 

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Masks removed from the interstage & capsule, and this is when it shows that the time and extra effort over decaling is really worth it. No silvering to worry about or hoping that the clear coat will cover the carrier film

 

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With all the painting successfully completed all that was left was to assemble the pusher and gridfin actuator assemblies and glue the booster engine bells into place.

 

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The finished model can be seen here

 

 

 

 

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