Little Joe II

After doing a number of figures, I figure it's time again for another nice rocket. This one is the 1:144 scale resin kit of Little Joe II by New Ware Models. A number of dealers sell New ware kits, but I've never had a problem buying directly from Tomas in the Czech Republic.

From a website: 

Little Joe II was an American rocket used from 1963–66 for five unmanned tests of the Apollo spacecraft launch escape system (LES), and to verify the performance of the command module parachute recovery system in abort mode. It was named after a similar design from  Project Mercury. Launched from Whit sands Missile Rangein New Mexico, it was the smallest of four launch rockets used in the Apollo Program.

This is another nice kit from New Ware. The main part is the rocket itself, with a number of parts for the engine part, fins, a fret of PE and two pages of decals.It may be hard to tell but there is quite a resin plug at the bottom of the rocket. See below for how I take care of it.

The building starts with 4 main engines and lots of smaller ones sitting on a piece of PE - 

Nearly all of New Ware's parts come with a big block of resin.  I used to use the regular ball type Dremel bits. But I found that it was quite easy to slip with those. Then I found this one that had the flat top. After sawing off the majority of the block, I can then go in with the flat top and grind out the extra material almost right to the part itself.  For a lot of my rockets where it's difficult to get it perfect flat across a one or two inch surface, this flat top will allow me to dig out the center, and I only need to be careful around a cm or so of material where the gluing edge will be. 

 The engines are on, as are the vanes - all quite easy. Below the rocket are the attitude adjustment jets. There was only 1 on each block that was intact. But because I only needed 4 I could canibalize the others to make up complete ones.

 I wasn't looking fwd to folding the tower struts, but this one went quite painlessly.

Here the tower is complete with the engines of the escape rocket applied. I did lose one to the carpet monster, but there were extras. All the pieces are primed and the call out for the attitude adjustment jets said they should be steel color, which is what I did.  Check back for the final assembly, painting and decaling. Thanks for looking.