as205

Not bad at all. My experience has always been that large decals are just looking for a way to screw you over and the only way to defeat them is to cut them up. I get the frustration with the spray adhesive accident. I've not done that one, but I assure you I've made similar mistakes that make you want to pound your head against the wall. A few deep breaths and a break from the workbench has always helped. Keep up the good work, it's looking very good.

Thanks. Usually conversions end up more involved than you think when you first get started. But, with some extra work the end result is worth the time.

I've got the Atomic 1/12 Mercury capsule in the stash. It may be a bit before I get to it, but it is a nice kit.

Yep, I caught that. I have several AMT Man In Space kits so I have donor parts.

This is the final part of my Mercury Redstone build. It is the 1/200 scale Mercury Redstone kit which is part of the AMT Man In Space kit. The other two parts are the 1/48 Mercury Redstone (featuring the Glencoe Jupiter-C, Revell Mercury capsule, and New-Ware conversion set) and the 1/72 Horizon Mercury Redstone kit. It is a very simple kit consisting of only 6 parts. Here is the parts tree. The extra two parts at the bottom of the picture are from a spare kit in my stash. I’ll be cutting a section off and adding it to the other kit because the AMT model is substantially too

Before starting to decal the Redstone booster, I did some more work on the Mercury capsule. I mixed two drops of Vallejo 71.004 Blue and one drop of Vallejo 71.001 White to get a color that will highlight the portholes on the capsule. It's a bit lighter than I wanted but it was close. I used Plasti-Zap CA glue to attach the capsule to the booster retention ring. I made sure the capsule alignment was correct. The panel where the window used to be needs to align with the black umbilical cover that is directly over the a flat spot on the collar shoulder. That flat spot correspo

Oh it is definitely the Horizon Models kit. I missed out on the Dragon. From what I've heard I didn't miss much. Thanks. I started the 1/48 build in mid May and finished it by mid July. I enjoyed the build, even with the occasional screw up or frustration. I've got a 1/48 Wings Atlas D in my stash that I may get to before long. From an initial once over of the parts, it will definitely be a challenge.

The 1/72 scale Mercury Redstone kit from Horizon Models is the second part of my three scale Mercury Redstone build. I built the model this past July. I was way too busy to post anything then, but I have some time now so here is the build. It is a real shame that Horizon Models had to close their doors. Their 1/72 space models were very good and way better than any other injection molded kits. I was really hoping that they would make a 1/72 scale Gemini Titan model, but I guess that won't happen now. I’ve built their Mercury kit before. It is a good kit for its

In between sanding and filling the propellant section, I started cleaning up some of the parts of the launch stand. This part had a major sink hole and the part itself is molded hollow. I’m sure it is because there would be a very slim chance that anyone would see it from that angle. Still I felt I should cover it. I used a rectangle of .005 styrene sheet and glued it on. After that set, I sanded the edges down to blend it into the rest of the part. There are some other umbilical connections that go under two of the Redstone fins. They also had deep sink holes and some light

Continuing on with the build I applied primer to the New-Ware instrument section. Hopefully you can just make out where I scratched the alignment marks into the part. I also painted the umbilical covers Tamiya TS-14 Black and then applied a matte clear. I glued the upper two halves, parts 11L and 11R, together. I noticed that they were quite out of round. I decided to try to round them out with some clamping and a soak in hot water. Here it is all clamped up and ready for its bath. Well, that didn’t turn out too well. I me

Habu2, Thanks for the kind words. The hardest part of the Jupiter-C kit is getting the two halves of the propellant tanks together. It seems that there is always some type of warp, one way or another. Beyond that it's not a bad kit considering it's age.

By the way, I think I should point out that much of my research came from Mike Mackowski's SIM #5 Mercury. I also pulled several Mercury spacecraft NASA publications from the Internet to get more detailed drawings of some of the spacecraft details. At this point I decided that I’d better check the fit of the capsule on the New-Ware instrument unit. There is a flat protrusion on the end of the adapter that represents the retention ring. That was the ring that held the capsule to the booster during flight. It appeared too thick and too wide. I think this is mainly because of a small

With the tower legs cleaned up, I started on the other nose parts. The nose cap was masked and then primed and painted with Tamiya TS-14 Black. I then used some MicroScale MicroMask to cover the painted part. This will protect it when the tower is painted red later on. Once the red is on, the mask can be removed. I also added some extra details to the antenna canister. It had some lightly molded in ribbing that was not correct and much too light. I used .010 by .020 strip stock and made some new ribbing. Once it was on I sanded the edges and rounded the fore and aft ends of each rib.

This has really been busy for me these last few months and I have posted almost nothing. I have been building models during this time I just haven't had enough time to post here. So, here is a bit of catch up. Back in May I started on a project to build three versions of the Mercury Redstone. Each representing a different mission and in a different scale. I already have a 1/144 scale Mercury Redstone from RealSpace Models that I did a few years ago. It was done as the MR-3 Freedom 7 flight. This first part of the build I did a 1/48 scale Mercury Redstone as MR-4 Liberty Bell 7 tha

Here is my marking notes for boosters TMA-02M through TMA-20M. Note that where is says TMKB Progress logo, it actually refers to the TsSKB Progress text I previously mentioned. Also where is says Progress Space Center logo, it actually refers to the Progress Rocket Space Center text I previously mentioned. TMA-02M: on all four sides: Russian flag, Roscosmos. On sides without Soyuz text: small Russian & US flags, Energia with small text centered with Roscosmos marking. On sides with Soyuz text: small Russian & US flags next to bottom of "M", Energia with small text below