Vince Hoffmann

Spaceman, I'm very impressed by your plastic bending skills, there is such a fine line between too much heat and not enough, you did a fantastic job on those pipes!

Coming along nicely, keep up the work!

Holy Hopping Bedsteads! That's a fantastic model! I'm looking forward to seeing this complete

Hey Hotdog, Any updates?

Thanks for the support guys, onward and upward!!

I have the model mothballed in a safe place... I needed some time to get my head out of the crazy obsessiveness I found myself in... :wacko:/> This model is not unlike chasing a rabbit!

My beanie arrived in the mail yesterday, thanks Gil! The casting is fabulous, I'm very impressed! I'm going to use it in my shuttle re-build. :D

Oh boy, this is going to be good! Maybe your model will get me enthusiastic about finishing mine !

Wow, looks great !!

I recommend the Fantastic Plastic kit. Allen Ury is great guy to do business with and he doesn't belittle the competition.

Ah, you want clear resin. Unfortunately, you're not going to find a clear casting resin that will give you truly crystal clear without using a pressure pot. If your goal is to make the canopy windows glass clear, you will need to polish the pieces to a mirror finish, otherwise any surface irregularities will be magnified a thousand times by the simple fact that they are clear. I would recommend making the canopy glass separate pieces that can be clear cast then glued in place afterward. Here are some photos of the canopy of a model I helped pattern 2 years ago. The frame and 'glass' are s

Beautiful!

Are you mixing the resin by weight, or by volume? This is VERY important and is likely the reason why your parts are not curing properly. Also, consider temperature. If you are casting in ambient air temperature of 60 or below, it will take twice as long for the resin to fully set. Look around your area for Smooth Cast 305. They sell very good polyurethane resin that is 1-1 mix by volume and sets up very nicely. Most large art supply stores stock it and it is reasonably priced.

Gil, any update on availability?

mriccio, thank you for the compliments! I'm hoping the final product turns out as good as the bay :)

Pete, this model is looking absolutely fabulous! I hope to see this at the IPMS Nationals in Colorado next year :)

Beautiful!

Catfan, if you can hold out for a month or two, there are a couple of folks here who are making decals and may be willing to share :)

Actually, RSM still has their decals available, but only in one scale at 1:144. It's unfortunate that RSM has fallen so far behind in their leadership role in the real space modelling community. http://realspacemodels.com/html/decals.htm

Krazy glue is fine, but the tip is not meant for fine applications. Squirt a small puddle on a piece of plastic (or anything non-porous) and use a small wire or pin to pick up and apply the CA. Otherwise, I recommend you pay a visit to your local hobby shop and buy a bottle of thin and medium viscosity CA and a spare package of applicator tips.

Wow, I'm spending a lot of time on these tile decals. Here's my latest rendering, and I still have other markings to apply, but this is a good start for the side images, I still need to complete the forward RCS section. This also includes the black tile sections on the back of the orbiter at the wing level. Bill, your work is coming in very handy :), I'll post the updates later as things progress.

Oh wow, talk about the worst seam on the model to have to fix! I don't know what could have caused such a failure, especially since you reinforced the joint. I don't know if plastic cement would solve the problme, and it may cause more troulbe with the paint. I would run a fine line of thin CA in the joint, then hold it until it cures.

It is a lot of work to measure and piece the images together, but its coming along nicely. 6 hours in front of the computer translates to 1/2 hour at the work bench :) The nose decals are coming along, I have the nose RCS module and a few odd shaped pieces around the nose RCC left to work on then I can start printing again.

(flash forward 6 months) :) After a HUGE amount of work tracking down photos good enough to use, I have completed and applied the underside decals. The decals are printed on white paper which allows the lighter areas to show properly. The white paper is considerably thicker than the clear, and they don't bend or conform nearly as easy without liberal applications of decal softener. For those who are interested... Papilio makes the BEST paper and fixative I have ever used. The decals are put on in three parts: left, right and forward. There is a small amount of variation in color becaus