SpacecraftGuy

Ignore this. You are one step ahead. As Ron above said, it sure wasn't shiny by the time it hit the water. Apollo 16 in the water, Apollo 5 on display, and a close-up of I don't know what Apollo. But I don't really see why you applied all that foil if you're planning on removing almost all of it? The Beautiful work, tho'. Damn, I have to get me a printer...

Okay, however many mintues have passed since last post. Started by spraying the Mission straight from the bottle. Went on perfectly and evenly. Part of some modeller's problems with certain paint might be their airbrushes. I used my 40 year old Badger 200 to spray the bomb bays of AMP's North American L.R.V. (a pretty cool kit if you're into oddball spacecraft). I have Paasche and Iwata airbrushes, too, but my 200 would spray sand. Airbrushes were never designed to spray model paints. They were designed to spray artists paints and inks. Model paints are way closer to sand than in

That is a hilarious video. He's using a mixture of 3 different Vallejo additves in order to get the VallejoAir, which is supposed to be a paint formulated for use With an airbrush, to work with an airbrush. I do admire his dedication. Sound like he spent a lot of time figuring this out. Why, I'm not sure. Most people would just look for something else that works. I'm doing two surfaces each about the size of a mass market paperback. How long would that take to do using the narrow spray width he uses I wonder? But he does prove that it is possible to airbrush using VallejoAir.

The other model shop in town sells Mission Models paints. Just read about them and the site quotes: "Their formula is triple pigmented and does not include any additional thinners or reducers which in time can cause a break down of the paint and diminish shelf life and quality. "Because the paint is triple pigmented and ultra fine you will find that it offers superior and beautiful coverage utilizing thin coats from the airbrush." Perhaps that's my problem with the Model Air. They are pre-thinned and probably old even before I buy them. I have sucessfully airbrushed regu

Just sat down to re-start a whole pile of projects dormant since the autumn. It was supposed to be an easy start - catch up on airbrushing many, many parts. Starting with chromate green. Any other paint I use, enamels, Tamiya acrylics, even my first experience with Alclad 2 last aurumn - they all work! So. Vallejo Air chromate green. Clean airbrush. Ran Vallejo cleaner through it before I started. Blew a beautiful stream of cleaner till a couple cups ran dry. Shook the bottle well. Put a bit in the cup. Sprayed gobbily and clogged. Celaned the airbrush. Thinned the Valljo. Clogge

With the same inevitable timing that seems to go with things like this, now that I'm done with the decal drafting, and I AM done (I hope), today Michael Mackowski has just released Space in Miniature #10: Saturn V. As with all of the volumes of SIM, this one looks essential for any modeller, rivet-counter or normal sane alike. Fantastic reference photos, David Weeks' stringer maps and other details, brief revies of various kits, and builds ranging from brief to a very detailed 1/200 SV build. $10US to download, $15US for the download plus a printed copy, available at:

it's such a silly little thing, but I'm especially proud of my drawings of the Mercury capsule art. I searched out all the photos I could find of the markings, including a couple shots shots of Cece Bibby painting them. Friendship and Aurora were a bit of work to replicate, and they're so pretty that you can't really see them at the smaller scales, so here they are in 1/24. As far as scaling goes, I believe the Liberty letters were 6" high and the Freedom 4". For a while today, I thought I'd lost this file. Happy to have stumbled across it cleaning up leftovers. Again, open it in a new tab an

Good to know it's working! Thanks for looking. I've added the links tfor the Mercury and Gemini to the posts above. Here is the AMT Artemis/SLS artwork, in case anyone is considering adding this kit to the collection: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/ctouhhp6mnez7t163qr8t/AF2EXQLpYWUOTyZpsXXXftI?rlkey=fm0qgb9vhbcow51wj57mwhai1&st=bwpm72a9&dl=0 There are two versions of the core wrap, one fitted to the kit as it is, and the other without the incorrectly placed main conduit, which would require removing said condiut and scratching a new one for the proper locat

I realized yesterday that this all began in January when I began drafing a decal to use in lieu of having to paint the 1/200 SLS. So - six months later?? The decals have special fitment problems with especially the 1/144 Saturn 1 and Saturn V, which include the corrugated areas. The 1/200 AMT isn't so bad, but still some sanding may be needed at the seams to make the stages round may be necessary. The decals were scaled and test fitted (only on paper) to fit round corrugated areas. On the 1/144 kits, those little bumps at the edges of the parts increase the circumference but 2-3 m

In case there's a limit of attachem,t capacity per post, posting the rest of the SV smalls here.

And the Saturn V. Like the Saturn 1, both AMT and Airfix 1/144 (don't have the Monogram 1/144 so I don't know, but no doubt true for it as well) have bumps and lumps that shouldn't be there, don't have bits that should be there, and have some details that need correcting or rescaling. At least New Ware makes a correction set for the 1/144, but now that he charges out-of-EU exports with the VAT, it's nose-bleedingly expensive. Like the S1B kits, the fins are wrong the wrong shape and new should be cut. Two versions of the fins here. All of the reference photos I could find for the Apollo 11 SV

And here is the 1/200 Saturn 1. This is where the AMT (and Airfix) kits run into real problems. Lots of stuff sticking out of the models that shouldn't be there. Stuff that should be on the model not there. Both kits scale out quite differently from each other. And the AMT kit has a horrible first stage in general. It can be helped considerably by getting rid of the 8 Redstones and replacing them with styrene tubing. The proper The oh-so-close to perfect Evergreen 232 or 432, 3/8" tubing won't quite fit, and nearest smaller size 231 or 431 ,343 diameter tubing is just a tiny bit too small, but

Here's the 1/200 Gemini decal art, slightly better res buit still not the 1200 dpi of the originals. The Titan with the tan band on the top was seen only for Gemini 1 and 3. There are two "silver" color variations because photos show differences in color for whatever reason. The Gemini adaptor won't fit either the 1/200 AMT or the 1/144 Realspace. Also, one or the other or both models don't quite match the Alway's dimensions. So if you want to go reasonably accurate, you'll need to do a bit of modifying. White doesn't print well on clear, so any markings that are white on just about any color

So here are small thumbnails of the 1/200 Mercury art. The big issue with the AMT Redstone is that it's near 1 cm too short. Easily fixed with a plug from stryene tubes. The striped patterns below won't fit on the AMT Redstone w/o the extension. (Perversely, he 1/144 Redstone from Realspace is slightly too long and too skinny, according to the Peter Alway dimensions in Rockets of the World. But that's another thread.) I added a few of the larger of the tiny decals from the 1/72 Horizon kits to see if they would be visible at this tiny scale. They might be, but I don't know how one would cut th

Here is the Dropbox link to the Saturn V artwork: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/j54p216ckmmdrm73upfxx/AEc0DW7EPF25IMg7TY59UWY?rlkey=vuusdb7s1yon48r1v2jvxe6nb&st=unp2od2r&dl=0 Again. let me know if you can open the folder and see the files...