X-1 at the Cosmosphere

 The Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, KS is a top notch air and space museum. Worth a visit, if you've never been. 

 

Astronaut Show

 This was so long ago I don't know when it was. Just remember it was at one of the hotel's by Giants Stadium, NJ.   I had to park them somewhere to use in forums.;)

Col. Aleixi Leonov

Dick Gordon, me, Al Bean Apollo 12

Bean and Gordon

Project Vanguard Satellite

 Wow have times changed.  I don't remember what I did as a kid, but knowing what I know now about correct assembly, making seam lines vanish, smooth painting etc... this kit drove me crazy, and it fought me all the second half of the build. 

The biggest problem was that there are a lot of labels as decals, and oddly only every 4th or 5th decal didn't disintegrate, but broke into a few chunks. Some I was able to slide into place, others I just couldn't. The worst was the one where it said Meteorite something or other. That one disintegrated, and as can be seen was only left with "Met."  Each label only had one copy, so that was that. But luck enough the whole core assembly goes inside the sphere, and can barely be seen. 

Then there was my superglue. I super glued the core to the bottom of the clear dome, and the core did everything but stick. It left me with a couple of glue marks on the clear part - no fogging so that's a plus.  The worst of my decals was the large title "Project Vanguard." The "P" broke apart as did the "G" in Vanguard. Bad enough that I had to get paint to fill in the letters.  It was enough to take the wind out of my sails. While I had other things I wanted to do, including adding Faux wiring to the core, I just put the top cover on and called it a day.  

Here are two shots of the finished satellite. Thanks for looking

Project Vanguard Satellite

 This kit brings me WAY back in time. The original was the first model kit I ever got. I was probably 7 or 8 at the time, and talked my Mom into getting it for me at a little Mom & Pop store - DeVita's Dept. Store. 

  The model is a re-pop from Round 2, and is in a copy of the original Hawk box. There was a sticker on the plastic I saved saying "Available for the first time since 1966."Knowing what the real Vanguard looked like, I wondered why the kit was done this way. It only too me 50+ years to read the box where it says 

" The model represents the first of these larger (20 in. diameter)operational Vanguard satellites that was launched on  April 28, 1958. However it failed to achieve orbit..."

So what we know of the successful satellite was the "minimal 6.3" satellite. And by doing the math the scale of this model is 1:3 scale.

I started the assembly with the central core, and then not sure of the opening size, I started painting the different parts up separately.

I was trying to put this part off as the center curved section was very flimsy, but had to go for it./ I had to add my own tabs from little bits of styrene ti firm up the joint. Some can be seen inside.

While the glued sections were setting up I started painting the little experiment stripes on the center core.

  

With the seam glued up, I sanded and sanded to get the smoothest transition I could. I was about 75% successful, so I taped a little border and then added Tamiya putty to get rid of the seam line.  

On the bottom you can see I added the clear dome, and glued that in place. I taped over the clear plastic, so I don't scratch it up.  It's sitting on its provided base. 

In the back I added a few more colors to the core. All I need there are two stripes of yellow. But that's for next time. Thanks for looking.

Mars Rover Air Bags

 This is definitely in the "And now for something completely different" file comes the Australian Scale Solutions model kit of the Mars Rover airbags. Scale Solutions was very prolific with their kits in the early 2000s, but *IIRC* the Australian Post Office raised international mailing rates a lot. He complained that it would ruin his shop, and it didn't take long for him to stop posting his kits on sci-fi boards. 

This is a simple 1:40th scale kit in 4 parts of VERY hard tan resin. 

Around each set of airbags is this definite seam that needed to be ground away.

The kit even comes with a few rubber bands which is called for in the instructions. This kit has to be 10+ years old and I was surprised the bands weren't deteriorated.

Once super-glued and epoxied together together - including an aluminum tube for the stand - I glued the 4th side on. The fit was loose and all the seams needed some Aves to fill the gaps. 

All images showed this white tan airbags. Some images showed a gray strapping around the bags. I mixed up some white tan paint and then some light gray for the straps. They looked too dark. After adding some "Mars dirt" to the bags from bouncing, I gave it a mist coat of the white tan. That seemed to even everything out. I added a small Mars base and I was done. Thanks for looking.

LLRV Finale

Go to Part 3

Looking toward the cockpit section, again each variation had different features. I "think" I'm still close to the example I'm using. 
here the pilot is in his seat. There was a wide variation of what they wore - from a flame proof suit, to the orange "suit". I found a few with the pilot wearing a sort of light colored olive, that's the one I chose. In the pic it also looks like he was wearing regular brown leather work gloves. So I added that even tho the color makes it looks like he's got bare hands. Between his knees you can barely make out the yellow and black of the ejector seat ring. There was a few images where there was foot pedals - so with some bent wire, I included them.

In the rear, additional wiring and plumbing were added. I added drips of super glue where needed to get rid of the wood grain that came thru the paint. These boxes are supposed to be metal, not wood. ;)   
One oops is that I added glue to the 4 stubs where the engine attaches to the ring. As I pushed the engine into place the glue stuck before I got the whole thing in. The engine is supposed to be below that top frame work. Oh well.

The last step, was creating a little base for it. I took a square piece of foam, and covered the top with Free Form Air clay. This product is super light weight, and air dries in a few hours. It is sticky, but somehow is less so when you use a little at a time. Adding water really lets you smooth things out. A cut some balsa sheet to act as a frame.

Once dry, I sanded it as smooth as possible and then I found a VIDEO of a flight from Edwards, and it shows a regular gray concrete with some black "tar" lining some of the sections. There was also white lines and dots painted on the concrete. I tried to mimic this. 

 

So with that, I was done. Thanks for looking. 

 

LLRV part 3

(Go here for Part 2)
 Continuing on with a fresh outlook, And finding this image of a museum model -

I went about to mimic what I see, including some wiring. I had no intention to try and get every wire, but it needed some.

I also noticed 2 framework pieces that needed to be added

Taking a break from that part of the build, I added some paint to the engine. The end is V. Metallics Silver, and the center part is the old M.C. Steel to get a little variation. I also washed in a black to bring out the details. - 

Getting close to the end I primed it all in gloss primer.

Then when that was dry to the touch I couldn't help myself and painted the entire craft in V. Metallics  Aluminum. I just placed the seat in its spot for the pic. 
Check back for the finale, and thanks for looking.

LLRV part 2

(Go here for Part 1) 
Finally back with another session. Most of my down time has been investigating additional details for the vehicle.  I did receive the CD from the model producer, and it concentrated on the one on display at the Air and Space Museum. While a good walk-around for something hanging from the ceiling, I was really looking for any and all details that was on that rear deck - which of course was plastered up against the ceiling.

I even downloaded a LLRV MONOGRAPH, and bought a BOOK from Amazon. All to no avail. I finally came close to what I wanted in the form of master modeler Ben Guenther's scratchbuilt LLRV in 1:48 scale. 

As mentioned Ben's is 1:48, and the build from "crackerjazz" on the ARC Forums is 1:18; mine is only 1:72!  So I have to know my limits.

Getting to work, the first part I needed to add was the altimeter. It is two lenticular shapes on a triangular base. What I did was take some of my blue stuff, and guesstimated the size, and pressed 2 tiny beads into the BLUE STUFF. Once hardened I mixed some MILLIPUT (Aves doesn't work with Blue Stuff), and pressed it onto the depressions. While that was drying I created the triangular base with more Milliput.

After cutting free the rounded shapes all that was left was to gently sand the base to shape. 

Next was the landing struts. Somewhere early on, wheels were switched out for posts. According to one account, a strong wind was getting the LLRV rolling along.  The kit parts were 4 rectangles, and 4 rods of styrene. Since they were supposed to be  shock absorbers. I found a tube in my stock that the rod fit into and used that. It was to thick, but if you want "something" there, beggars can't be choosers. 

The other thing I did was hold the end of the styrene rod close to heat. My plan was to get it hot and then press it, to get a flare at the end. But as the heat approached the rod, it started mushrooming on it's own. Perfect! 

Finally in one of the A&S Museum pics it shows what I'm taking as an oxygen cylinder (because it was green) under the pilots seat.  The two red arrows show the cylinder and the altimeter. It was at this point where I realized that the altimeter and that mystery box locations were swapped. %#*&* !!  But luckily with slight pressure with an Xacto blade the 2 parts popped right off. I put them in their correct positions, and then decided to quit for today while I was ahead. Check back for more details. Thanks for looking.

LLRV

The LLRV (Lunar Landing Research Vehicle) was a Project Apollo era program to build a simulator for the moon landings. 

From Astronautix.com :

The LLRV could take off and land under its own power, reaching an altitude of about 1,220 meters, hover, and fly horizontally. A fan turbojet engine provided a constant upward push of five-sixths the weight of the vehicle to simulate the one-sixth gravity of the lunar surface.

  This LLRV is a 1:72 model from 3 Stooges Productions.  The kit comes with a fret of photo etch, and a bag of about 10 resin pieces, and detailed instructions. It was sold through Tag Team Hobbies, and went through 2 editions, before I heard it went Out of Production. I guess the kit can be found on eBay, if you keep a look out. 

 
Having been intimidated with the PE, I was hesitant to start this one. But once started the metal was fairly thick so folding was fairly simple.

The first step I made was also a mistake. It calls for the enclosure of the pilot to be folded. Only until a short time later, when things were all super glued, did I see the text (over the picture obscuring it partially) to fold away from the groove, which is opposite of what I had done.  Ok, I guess I'm not using that part. The next few parts went a lot easier.

It wasn't long before the main assembly was built - 

Being that is craft is all metallic, I started off by painting the model a gloss black after adding the spherical tanks. The engine and the pilot seat is off to the side. The pilot is elsewhere drying. 

It was here that it was evident the craft looked rather sparse.  It was time to do some additional investigating.  Looking through the images it seems there was more than one vehicle. It turns out that there was a least four, with four vehicles made for each version. 
Being I messed up the enclosure, I couldn't use that one. But so far they all had attitude adjustment jets. scratching them in 1:72 was tough, but I did my best. Here you can see them in the white styrene. There are also two more spherical tanks by the rear one. Those were added using 8mm beads. 

Clear images was difficult to find. I could see there was a lot of wiring and plumbing, where they could be made out here and there, but extremely hard to follow any distance.- 

I was here that I decided it was time to buy the accompanying CD from Tag Team. I also found a modeler on the ARC forums, that was scratch building one in 1:18 scale! 
Be back soon with the next session. Thanks for looking. 
 

Real Space Vanguard and Explorer 1

I was given this brand new kit, from Rob Schorry, the creator of the models, that was produced by Real Space Models.  Sometimes 1/24 scale probes gives you giant vehicles and sometimes, especially the early ones are rather tiny. This is the case with Vanguard and Explorer 1. 
Vanguard comes in two resin sphere halves, with 6 pieces of wire. Explorer 1 comes in 3 resin pieces and 4 wires.

Vanguard was first and consisted of sanding down the halves to make them spherical - I supposed I could have given it a little more sanding - but didn't want to ruin it. The two halves were glued together, and then it was ready to paint. I didn't have any gloss black primer, so I used regular black and then a separate coat of gloss. Once that was dry I used the Molotow Chrome paint pen and painted it chrome. The solar cells were left black.  When all of that was dry I glued in the 5 wires in, and I was done.

Check back for the explorer 1 build. Thanks for looking.  

EDIT (3/5)
Posting this on social media, there were a lot of comments on how small it is. To help visualize, I'm adding this pic - 

 

Little Joe II Finale

As a recap the decaling went fair.  The good point about them was they were thin and went on easily. The bad point about them is that they were thin, and if I slid too much off the backing paper, it wanted to curl on itself.  If you look at the marks in rows, all the rows were one decal. I learned to late in the game to cut them up to prevent the loss of the decal.
Anyway Having messed up a few, it was time to get out the masking tape and paint them on - 

Again things came out fair. Despite being careful, some of them could have been done better -

After  a few satin clear coats I was calling this one done. It's been years since I built a launch vehicle and in some places it shows. All in all I'm happy with it, and my next one will be a little better. Thanks for looking.