Blue Gemini Part 2

I managed a few more hours in the hobby room and continued with the Blue Gemini. Taking a good look at the clear parts that are the Gemini doors, I decided they needed a dip in Future.

Anigrand's Blue Gemini

Finishing the X-19, and still having some free time I picked out another kit that I thought would go quickly. So I chose Anigrand's 1/72 Blue Gemini. 

From Anigrand's site:   In 1961, after success of the Mercury spacecraft launch, NASA contracted McDonnell to design a larger two-man Mercury mark II for longer periods in orbit. This bigger spacecraft which soon renamed Gemini that require a larger launch vehicle, a Titan II missile. The Titan II was Air Force missile and naturally required close coordination with the Air Force. The Air Force was interested in the Gemini program because it would be ready much earlier than the Dyna-Soar space plane while Russians already had men in orbit possibly carrying nuclear bombs. In 1962, the Air Force had designated the spacecraft as Blue Gemini. It would essentially be an off-the-shelf NASA Gemini vehicle. In January 1963, Air Force and NASA officials went to Pentagon to propose DoD participation in Blue Gemini, but was rejected and cancelled by Secretary of Defense. 

X-19 Done

I finally got around to putting the decals on the X-19 and I'm calling this one done. The decals didn't line up exactly with the drawing on the directions. I don't know if some of the decals were too big or the guy drawing the illustration was doing so out of scale. But they went mostly where they belong. ;)

One thing I learned was that I should have left the nacelles with the propellers OFF until the decals were complete ...

One other thing I learned is that I put some of the decals over the windows to get them in place before cutting them.  These windows was the Microscale Kristal Clear. Once the wet decal went over the window, the moisture instantly re-wetted the glue and turned it White.  OH NO! But not to fear as the water dried that "glass turned clear again.  Here's the pics - -  

 

Rocketship XM Finished

This time will be a short post, The only thing that had to be completed was the decal. I ruined two of them but the third time was the charm. 
This time I started with the same image, but instead of just changing the color of the text from gray to an orange color,  I also made the black - blacker. 
After printing I let dry and gave it two coats of Krylon Crystal Clear Gloss allowing 24 hrs drying between each coat. 
I had no problems this time. Here it is - 

The decal looks a little wavy especially on top, but somehow that's an optical illusion. It's perfectly flat.  Thanks for lookin'.

Finishing up The Rocketship XM

I already had two tries at the decal. The first problem was my fault, the second one... I don't know what happened. As soon as I put the decal in place there was a little chunk taken out of it where the "e" is in Rocketship. Not noticing it right away I went to move the decal into place and where it bent it cracked, and a crack that couldn't be hidden. :(
I'm gong to give the home made decal one more shot before ordering a real one from Fantastic Plastic.

But I moved on to painting the ship itself. I had previous given it a coat of V's black gloss primer. Then today, not having the Titanium color that is called for in the directions, and Vallejo not having that in their inventory, I decided to use the color DurAluminum.  It's darker than Aluminum, but not as dark as the Steel appears to be. 

Here's the almost final image. I'll be back with just a finished image when I get the decal sorted out. Thanks for lookin' - -

Tried a Decal

Having never made a decal before, I was a little nervous to try. Then thinking "Hey, it's only a piece of paper and some ink." I decided to give it a shot.
I found an image of the "Rocketship XM logo" and brought it into my favorite viewer - Irfanview. 
There I changed the black and white image by bringing in some color to the letters, close to what the original decal looked like. I sharpened a little and after finding out the size of the decal I needed, I told Irfanview to print the logo out 2.2cm X 4.4cm, and voila, I had a decal.

It's not perfect as the black background as a few flaws, but I think because the part of the base where the decal will be is painted black - it'll be all right. I sprayed the decal with a clear coat and tomorrow will give it a shot putting it on the base.  Thanks for lookin'.

 

While I was waiting - RocketShip XM

As the title says - while I was waiting for the clear coat on the X-19 to dry I was looking thru my stack of kits. Part of a stack started to fall and when I straightened things up I discovered I had two stacks, one in front of another. I looked thru the kits that I haven't seen in a while and rediscovered Fantastic Plastic's Rocketship XM.  This looks to be a super simple build being only 8 parts, plus the base, plus the decal. 

From IMDB's entry on Rocketship XM : Astronauts (Lloyd Bridges, Osa Massen, John Emery, Noah Beery, Jr., and Hugh O'Brien) blast off to explore the moon. Because of craft malfunction and some fuel calculations, they end up landing on Mars. On Mars, evidence of a once powerful civilization is found. The scientists determine that an atomic war destroyed most of the Martians (who surprisingly look like humans). Those that survived reverted to a caveman-like existence. 

On to the kit. As I mentioned a super simple build. It took only a few minutes to rid the side fins of little pour stubs and a tiny amount of flash. Then it was already time to start gluing the parts together - -