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Pete: Thanks. The NewWare enhancements helped a lot. The additional brass parts on the SM and the High Gain dishes came from them. But all in all, the SM is much easier to make look good than the LM. I forgot to mention in the update that the SM had to be painted twice. I was removing the masking on the white areas and noticed that I was rubbing off the Alclad Stainless Steel paint. I had to re-mask and re-paint it and then applied Alclad clear coat over that. That worked, plus I was much more careful in my handling the second time around. Southwestforests: Oh ye

I've got my pre-order in. It can go in the stash next to the AMT 1/200 Man in Space set and the Hasegawa 1/200 Shuttle Stack. I guess I need to see if I can find a 3D model of the Dragon/Falcon 9 that I can print at 1/200. Then I can have the complete US manned rockets. I'm figuring on NASA flying Artemis II manned by the time I get around to building the set. 🤞

With the Descent Stage presenting me with some problems, I decided to finish the CSM. I started by applying Micro Kristal Klear to the the CM windows. Once dried they were very transparent. I then painted a couple of small gray circles on the CM that represented two of the areas that had omnidirectional antennas behind them. I then glued the CM shell to the heat shield. I had to do some scraping and test fitting to get the parts to slide smoothly together. I needed that because I had glued the heat shield to the SM first. I did that so I could be sure of a firm attachment that woul

Thanks Pete, Yeah, I'm still scratchin' my head on the folded landing gear. I've moved on to assembling the CSM while I contemplate my options. 🤔

It's been a while since I posted on this build. My mother died near the end of January, so there have been a lot of other things that have taken me away from the hobby. Things have calmed down a bit and as a distraction I finally picked the build back up. It helps to have something else to think about that gives me pleasure. It's one of the things I like about modeling. You have a chance to relax and let your mind tackle a puzzle instead of dwelling on other things. So, here is what I've done in the last few weeks. Since I had the Ascent Stage complete except for the antennas and

Those look amazing. That is going to be one good looking S-1C! Was the access panel than fits over the corrugations on the intertank a separate part or was it modeled as part of the whole?

Same here. They produce some good kits. I think I have almost all of them. I'd hate to see them stop.

Thanks, I've got a Mach 2 Soyuz launcher in my stash that I might get to in the future. From what I've been able to tell, It could be even more challenging than the Apex kit was.

Well, it's pretty well known that it is a bit too small, but for this build I may not do anything about it. The texture on the descent stage is over done and makes it harder to correct errors. Since I'm about to the paint and detail parts on the ascent stage, I guess I'll have to start thinking about what I want to do with the descent stage. Randy

With the major modification of the Ascent Stage complete I glued the Ascent Stage together. I then spent some time filling and smoothing the modified under side of the Ascent Stage. The face is not glued in place. I’ll have to wait until the painting is done because of the windows in it. I was happy that all the pieces of the Ascent Stage fit together very well and will need little to no filler. Here is a photo that shows some of the panel lines. I haven't check but I'm sure that some of the facets are not at quite the right angle, but I'm not going to fix t

Pete, I'm not sure what TangoPapa coats his decals with, but the ones I've used I didn't overcoat them with anything. However, if I'm working with old decals I'll apply a layer of Microscale Decal Film just in case. When I print my Alps decals I apply a layer of the Microscale Decal Film and they hold up quite well. I hope you can save the decals. Randy

The Alclad chrome paint was not curing properly. It couldn’t be touched without leaving prints or damaging the paint surface. So I’m going to have to clean the Command Module up and re-spray it. Part of it may have been me. I painted it at 20psi and it is recommended to use 15psi. I also was painting it during a cold snap and the garage was much colder than it is when I usually paint. Hopefully, this next time it will cure properly. I will also be applying a clear gloss coat over it before trying to handle the model. Anyway, while I get ready to redo all that, I decided to start on

While the paint was curing I started on the Steerable High Gain Antenna. I painted the PE dishes NATO Black. The mast was painted Vallejo Silver and the rest was left primer white. I took some 32 gauge wire and cut some to the length needed and bent them to run from the SM/SLA Electrical Umbilical Disconnect to the holes that I had previously drilled in the back of the Service Module. I painted them Tamiya Flat White. When they were dry I glued them on with some CA. You can also see that I painted the SPS engine curtain yellow. I also finis

I took a bit of a detour before continuing on with the SM. I decided to go ahead and build the docking probe. It consists of four parts. In the photo below the parts are assembled from left to right. After assembling them you get a pretty nice representation of the Apollo docking probe. I dry fitted it to the Command Module to see how it looks. I’ll keep it around if I ever decide to display the CSM alone. I then went back to prepare for painting the CM and SM. Here I have already primed the CM and the SM nozzle and then sprayed

Nice job Pete! It's always great to finish one of those builds that have been stalled for so long. Randy