johnlove_mk_II

Looks great with the paint. That's Humbrol 40, correct? I've been experimenting with the thin aluminum bowl tops, from Chipotle, for mine. They take the rivet details really well, but may be too thick for practical use … I’ll have to wait 'till my ascent stage parts get here to see how it looks.

Looks like New Ware is getting more of my money. :)

Wow, the S-band looks amazing! Great work Vincent.

Interesting approach on the rivets. I can’t wait to see what they look like painted. Yeah, I’ve kinda jumped back in with both feet, so to say. I ordered the main parts for the ascent stage over the weekend ... and as you know, that’s quite a lot of scratch. I'll be posting updates soon.

Wow! The 1/10 build is a lot bigger than I was thinking. This kinda makes me what to pull my build back out and get back to work.

Nice!

Not much progress as of late - I’m getting married soon and that has taken most all of my free time. So, FED … frosted extreme detail. I’m happy to report that it’s pretty great with the smaller details. Looking at the surface, through a 10x loupe, there is a slight moire pattern, but it’s very slight. With that said the “frosting" effect is still there from the support wax … it’s just finer. Luckily, on the thrust structure, it’s all on the bottom, outa sight. On the other parts it will have to be dealt with, but it’s not near as bad as FUD frost. I’m going to prime them next, hopefull

Really nice!

It's such a treat watching all these parts come into existence. Each one's literally a "model" in it's own right. Can't wait to see more.

I haven't washed them yet, but I'm cautiously optimistic. Looking at the parts with a 10x loupe I can see a little "fuzz" but it very much reduced over the regular FUD. Here's a pict of all the parts ordered. Experimenting with adding the interior structure of the forward skirt of the S-IVB. The walls of the part were modeled at the thinest tolerance and as you can see it warped during the post-production cleaning. Luckily it was designed to fit into the IU detail part and this helps correct the warpage to a certain degree. Here's the trust structure with Meatball Rocketry's J-2 i

Just got this in the mail. It's a lot smaller than I was thinking ... and very thin. I'll post more when I get home from work.

Having one of those “face-palm” moments. Starting trying to model the LM ascent stage forward section. As you know It’s a complex little combination of shapes. I had a few starts and stops and after running into a few problems I remembered that Mattias Malmer had some flat drawings available that I thought would help me with a few spots I was having trouble with. Turns out he has the entire ascent and descent stages modeled in 3D and available to download. :doh:/> So I’ve applied Mattias’s forward section to mine and I think it looks pretty good. Presto, the internet is magic. I

Ascent stage aft section.

Mid section of the ascent stage. (Based on drawings from Vincent Meens. Thanks Vincent.)

Thanks Jazz. Yeah, I think I'm starting to finally starting to feel comfortable with it. Also drawing at 1/144 scale, I can be a little less critical about things.

Legs!

Scaled down the 3-view drawing from the LM news reference and compared it to the kit parts. As you can see they're a lot smaller than they should be for a true 1/144th representation. Here's the bottom part of the Airfix SLA, where the LM would sit, compared to the drawing. It's pretty spot on. I just decided to noodle around and see what I could come up with and ended up with this for the descent stage. Oh, and the S-IVB parts finally went into production today :woot.gif:/> ... the S-II parts have not. :(/>

I'm really excited to see the parts in FED, from what I've read and seen it looks really good. My experience with Shapeways has always been hit and miss. I've ordered and few day later went into production ... shipped early. I've also ordered, sat for two weeks, finally went into production and shipped shortly after. Meanwhile, I'm kinda at a point where I can't proceed until I get the parts, so I started in on the LM and CSM. The New Airfix parts are a huge improvement over the previous, but I thought since I wanted this thing to come apart in stages I'd like to dress-up the CSM with a mo

The S-II thrust structure art is now complete and uploaded to Shapeways. It might be a while before they get to it, there seems to be a backlog. (My S-IVB parts I sent last week haven’t made it into production yet.) I had to just get this in the FUD because of bounding box issues. The instrumentation boxes I’ll do in the frosted extreme detail. You’ll notice that there are two notches cut out at the base for the twist-lock latch feature that holds to stages together.

Finalized and ordered Just uploaded and ordered the S-IVB parts. I’m going to try out the new Frosted Extreme Detail - it was only a few bucks more. I left off a lot of details that I will probably add later with styrene bits and bobs, but I’ll wait to see how feasible that will be. I also made a little insert for the forward skirt with some structural details.

So now I have three Monogram Saturn’s in the stash. Two 80’s versions and now a recent issue from Revell/Germany. (I know, slightly overboard, but hey the LHS had one, and now I’ve spares to experiment with.) It’s safe to say the mid-80s vintage parts seem a little more crisply molded, but they do have a lot of surface scratches from being bounced around in their boxes for 30 years. It’s interesting to compare the 80s vintage parts to the recent ones and see some of the small imperfections, on the back of the parts, rendered exactly the same, down to the fine scratches. Getting back to wo

A little more progress on the S-IVB trust structure. The ambient helium tanks are now separate parts A few more S-II instrumentation boxes.

Got my second Monogram Kit in the mail yesterday, and the Skylab kit was delivered to work. The second Monogram kit is from the same run as the one I purchased earlier. It’s still wrapped in the cellophane and has a sticker for a Kennedy Center trip sweepstakes that expired in ’87 … kinda cool. It’s going to be a like a little “time-capsule” when it’s opened. Still working through the thrust structures, adding what will be viable and maintaining the interlocking stage feature that the Monogram kits have. I’ve also decided to have all the instrumentation boxes and a other parts as separate

Thanks crackerjazz. The S-II thrust structure is taking shape ... at this small scale some sacrifices have to be made, but I think it will look pretty nice after all is said and done.

I've decided to scale back a bit and actually try to finish a project. A few weeks back, at a local contest, I scored a late 80's Monogram issue Saturn V for only 15 bucks. It's a really nice representation at 1/144th, and will make a really great model when completed. I then decided to order the New Ware detail set, you know … just because you gotta. Also I have one of the recently reissued Airfix Saturn IB's and the retooled SLA/SM/BPC/LES looks pretty darn amazing on the Mono stack. A plan is in motion. So after a few days the New Ware detail set arrives, and it's really nice. The b