SpacecraftGuy

I just ordered a detail set for a Saturn V model from New Ware in the Czech Republic, sent to Canada. Tom wrote that as of the autumn, he was required to charge the 21% Vat. Has anyone else outside the EU had the same thing happen with online purchases? No doubt I'll be hit with a GST charge when it arrives here, too. Is the VAT still refundable after the fact, as it was for in store purchasing when travelling? And, if so, how? As if the weak Canadian $ wasn't enough of a hit, this will probably be my last purchase from any of my old favorite EU vendors. Yikes!

And a couple more screen grabs.

Some screen grabs from the launch.

A couple more.

Some more of my references.

Some of my references. Some of these photos took a lot of searching, so I thought I'd post them here.

And, reading all the comments about how terrible the kit decals are, I redrafted almost all of them. This was all done on Photoshop, so it's not vector. That shouldn't matter, as there's nothing to enlarge them for, except I'll probably use them to update my 1/144 reduction of the 1/96 AXM paper model, which they should still be fine for. The markings I revised should have a better resolution/clarity than the originals and I've tried to brighten the colors closer to true. I just pasted all my new versions over the top of the old on a scan of the kit decal sheel. On my last session

Stalled for a little while (tiling the bathroom) on finishing the decal wrap. Rathet than just searching for images of "Artemis", the other day I realized I could also try "SLS". And, lo!, there were a couple really good, if hard to find, high-res images of the thing that have given me a few new details to fix and add to the wrap. Now it sounds like I should really "draft" the rest of the markings in 1/200 scale. That's sad to hear about the decals, because it's not such a bad little kit (Charlie Brown's comment about his Christmas tree just came to mind), it just needs a little loving. Or may

Just downloaded Mr. Meens' latest offering, the files for printing a 1/48 Orion service module: https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/various/1-48-orion-spacecraft As always, it looks superb. Now I just have to get a 3d printer!!

Replaced the attachment in the first post with one removing the paired conduits, as that would be the wrap that anyone would use who wasn't going to replace the kit part with a small and fiddly scratched piece. Moved the bases of the other conduits anywhere from .2 to .6mm up or down to match where the kit details appear so that they line up better. Also revised a couple details on the transition. Also updated the transition with a second version showing how it appears at some point pre-launch. There appear to be some protective covers in place over a couple of... somethings. D

In case you're wondering if this would work, I did it before to create a a wrap for the core and the rest of the markings for a Dragon? Ariane V Rosetta mission. I think it worked out really well, tho' I didn't want to alter the kit to create quite the correct number of vertical "bricks". Oh, there's the Artemis back there, with a paper b&w segment of the wrap checking the fit.

Nope. there's just no way my painting skills are up to getting my AMT Artemis to look anything like the Artemis. So I think I'll cheat. I have the great AXM paper model of the Artemis and the piece of card wrapped into a cylinder makes for a great looking fuel tank. Why not make the paper model into a decal? That would eliminate the need to become a master artist. So I scaled the AMX model of the core to 1/200, and started going through alll the photos I can find and the screen grabs I made of the launch and started adding what details I could find and making a few corrections to the AXM "kit"

That's why I started drafting my own - I really want to re-do my NB-52 as Balls 8 and he was long sold out of it in 1/72. And, besides, it's kind of fun researching and coming up with different and additional markings. Tho' I may have to do some extra markings Balls 3 for my Atlantis rerelease. But it looks like this winter weather season I'm just going to try to get my set of shuttle decals finished. All that's left is the top of the nose area and I'm busy trying to match my drafting to the compound curves. It has been a many January/February's project. Time to get it done.

Gorgeous builds, as always, Mr. Merriman. Love to hear a little backstory on these. Tho' there's no way of guessing the scale, they don't seem to be your full-sized Blueprint for Space builds. Built for a commission? Built for sale? And, can I use the word "build" in one more sentence? Please, more info. Yes, kind of scary to click on a link w/o any info, but I've been unable to log into ARC Forums at all for the past 4 days. "Site Not Avalable" kept popping up. Finally had a suspicion and just checked my Bitdefender. Sure enough it had been notifying me that "opera.exe attempted

Ordered the Indycal decals today, and am soaking my ancient AMTset in EasyOff as I type. It'll be a while before I can get back to modelling, but you are still a bad, bad influence. I've no idea where my 1/200 shuttle is, but I did get the 1/200 Artemis for Christmas, so some reworking of the base will be in order. One thing I noticed on my old set, besides all the incaccurate details that I never fixed, is something that I did fix. The Redstone part of the MR is not long enough. At 1/200 scale, you need to add approx. 12.7mm to bring the booster to the correct length. Allways says it's 718"

That is a lovely monster of a kit. I built it when it was re-released, and I was not great at building and finishing monster kits back then. It's been since disassembled and stripped it back to bare plastic pending scribing and a bit of detailing. It has no cockpit to speak of, something that the aftermarket has never cured. There's a great article in an old Fine Scale Modeler (March 2010?? ( I disassembed my B-52 13 years ago and haven't done anything with it since??) by someone who really did a nice job on finishing the thing. The kit decals are super basic. Someone did make a decal set for

I don't know about "contest-worthy", but it sure looks great to me. I'd believe the in-flight photos were of the real thing. Now you've caused a great mystery over here. I started on the Aoshima kit years ago, but it turned out that the kit was actually something like 1/100 scale. So I scratchbuilt a 1/72 version, even posted my in-progress photos somewhere, and now I can find no trace of either model, nor of any posts I might have made anywhere. None of my storage boxes have it listed on the contents. The only evidence that I ever worked on these at all are a couple of leftover P

I have the Spacecraft Films set of the Apollo 8 mission and a few years ago I thought it would be a fun idea to watch Christmas Eve in "real" time. It took me back to 15 years old watching it in the dark with the Christmas tree glowing in the other corner, and the scent of a real tree. A big box under the tree that year might have been the Apollo stack. If it wasn't, then the Apollo stack would have been from the previous year (I don't think so...) on the coffee table watching the TV, too. For the last few years, I've expanded the ritual from just Christmas Eve to watching more of the Apollo 8

Alien time-travellers visit Mount Rushmore diorama... Fantastic!

"Cool-looking"?? At that scale, your 3d photo, on my -I don't know, 20" monitor? - is at least 10 times actual size. That astronaut is only 1/3" tall at 1/200. You must have painted the details with the point of a pin. Cool just doesn't begin to describe how cool this is. Outstanding! is more what I'd say.

No, it looks like you get the whole thing, including astronauts, for a low. low early bird price price of only $900 + shipping. Altho' here in Canada, with US postage now, that would work out pretty close to $2100Can. Sigh.

Lovely, intricate work! The only pre-flight photo I have of Snoopy doesn't show the topside of the descent stage. But just in case you haven't seen this one...

Hi, Pete! I hope you realize that you're the reason I'm finally rebuilding these. It's something I've always wanted to do, but it has been going back through your build threads here (discovered via a note about your builds in one of Mike Mackowski's SIMs, that has inspired me to get off (or onto) my butt and start cutting. I've lost all my initial concerns about destroying just what my old '67/'68 kits were as I've now become immersed in cutting them and obsessed in angles and millimeters, etc. To be fair, the height difference in the midsection is pretty much unnoticeable in sane-

So. New plan. Correct "corrections" don't quite fit the 60's Revells. A new discovery was that the midsection isn't quite as tall as it should be. The front and back profiles of the mid section aren't right, either. They could be corrected by adding bits here and there, and I really wanted to keep as much of these old models as unaltered as I could, but I reluctantly decided that the best choice to fixing this would be to remove the old mid-section entirely, box up an accurate foundation, and layer as much of the old kit parts as I can over the proper base. That, I hope, will give me a solid p

42 minutes later, and that's done. And I feel really good about it. It's going to be the LM the way it was supposed to be. The photos below show all of the standard cutting to correct the facets on the back and front of the port tank surround and the front of the stbd tank surround, removing the solid fuel line on the port side, the incorrect facets on both sides of the docking hatch, and the area surrounding the ascent engine. And now this is where the actual fun begins: adding the new panels and facets. Followed by the no-so-fun filling and sanding and repeat. I'm going to focus on just the