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AMT Man In Space (MIS) Build - Mercury Atlas


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Rather that finish the Saturn 1B before I started any of the other launchers, I am working on the rest of the launcher sequence as I either have breaks in the Saturn 1B build or I get bored/need to reevaluate my options ( :worship: ) with the Saturn 1B. For the next launcher/spacecraft, I decided to start on the Mercury Atlas.

This is a reasonably faster build. The first step involved adding the support tubes for the brass stand.

MISMA002810052006small.jpg

Because of the engine configuation, I added two small support tubes on either side of the center engine bell. These were epoxied in place, and then the two halves of the Atlas glued together. After a few sessions with putty to fill the gaps along with a good polishing, I primed the Atlas with Mr. Surfacer 1000. Here's how it looks at this stage:

MIS_MA_0178062007small.jpg

I plan to achieve the metal effect using Alclad 2 , but that will be covered in a future post.

Have fun modeling!

Mike

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  • 1 month later...

Well, it's been awhile since I posted anything on the Mercury Atlas, so here's an update. I have been working on the top end of this configuration. When you look at a photo of the Mercury Atlas, one thing that catches your eye is the red band around between the flat black adapter and the blue black spacecraft. In the MIS kit, the Mercury sits on top of the adapter leaving a noticable gap between the adapter and Mercury spacecraft. I glued the Mercury to the adapter, then took a thin piece of Evergreen strip styrene and wrapped it around the diameter at the connection point.

MIS000811202006small-1.jpg

I then cut off the excess strip, and put a touch of Mr. Surfacer at the small resulting gap where the two ends of the strip meet. This gave me a nice looking connection band between the adapter and the spacecraft. I had intended to use a red decal stripe to wrap around on top of the strip,but I ended up masking it off and airbrushing it red. Here's a photo of the way it looks now after painting:

MercuryAtlas107082007small.jpg

I painted the adapter flat black, the interface insignia red and the Mercury spacecraft a custom made blue black. To get this color, I started with an airbrush cup filled with MM gunmetal to which I added a few drops of MM Artic Blue metallic paint. To the eye, the colors look good and gives a nice contrast between the two dark colors. I'll discuss the small correction that needs to be done with the escape tower when I do the thread on the Mercury Redstone. I had not shot any photos of the Mercury escape tower in progress. The color used for the escape tower is MM Insignia Red with a sludge wash of dark acrylic paint after the red was dry. BTW, the photo above showing the adapter/ring/Mercury/escape tower is not glued together. I just loosely staked everything together for this photo.

Until later....... :thumbsup:

Mike

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Hey Mike, get a fine line black pen (a .005 ZIG pen or a Micron Pen from Sukuda would work) and you can do up the gaps in the escape tower to make them look like clean recesses. I've done similar things with the pens I've got and they work great for stuff like this.

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Thanks Jay! That's a pretty good idea on how to make the tower look a bit more realistic. I am on the fence as to what I should next with the escape tower. It actually looks pretty good to the eye in this scale, as the camera tends to amplify the faults. :rofl: Rather than screw it up at this late stage, I may just leave the escape tower as it is shown in the photo. Of course, I have plenty of time to change my mind before the GB is finished!

have fun modeling!

Mike

Hey Mike, get a fine line black pen (a .005 ZIG pen or a Micron Pen from Sukuda would work) and you can do up the gaps in the escape tower to make them look like clean recesses. I've done similar things with the pens I've got and they work great for stuff like this.
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At least you are further along then I am. I am sidelined with another project right now and haven't touched my Sputnik R-7 for a month. At this rate, I might have to whip out a Heller Soyuz/Progress set to do as a quickie build to get me something done (when my R-7 was supposed to be a quickie build as opposed to the 1/200 Apollo 9 dio I wanted to do). Give it a week and I should be back at the workbench again. :coolio:

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Thanks for the compliments! Usually, I don't work at this pace, but I am committed to actually finishing a GB! :lol: My batting average has been less than steller in this category. I am helped by the fact that I am working on all 5 rockets in the MIS kit at the same time, so this allows me to always make profress in some area. I even started the Hasegawa Shuttle kit to go with the MIS kit this weekend. One thing I found is that by working a bit on all of the kits, I pretty much have something to post in one of the threads each weekend!

Have fun modeling!

Mike

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have some progress to report on the Atlas. It now looks like a respectable launch vehicle! :cheers: After I primed the Atlas with Mr. Surfacer (previous photo in this thread), I polished it out with some 3200 to 12, 000 grit wet & dry sandpaper. I then shot several coats of MM gloss black. After letting this dry for a week or so, I did another pass with the super fine wet & dry sanpaper to get a really highly polished surface. Then it was time to let the Alclad II do it's magic. The main body is highly polished aluminum. The first stage is straight aluminum. the conduit on the sides of the Atlas is composed of different colored metal panels. I simulated these by masking off the conduit, and spraying the different panels with several shades of Alclad. Here's the final result:

MercuryAtlas101082007small.jpg

I have to admit, I am pretty happy with the over all look! Here's another photo of the Atlas along with the Mercury spacecraft.

MercuryAtlas103082007small.jpg

Now it's on to decaling this puppy!

Have fun modeling!

Mike

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  • 1 month later...

Well, two down on my MIS build! Here's the finished Mercury Atlas for my MIS project. I finished the kit using the Tango Papa decals for the lettering and black decal strips cut to shape for the roll marking on the first stage.

As it is rather small, I am rather happy with the way it looks to the eye, much better than how it appears to to the close up lens on my camera! ;) Enjoy!

Have fun modeling!

Mike

MercuryAtlas128012008MJIsmall.jpg

MercuryAtlas127012008MJIsmall.jpg

MercuryAtlas123012008MJIsmall.jpg

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Grant:

Thanks, I am also looking forward to seeing the 5 launch vehicles together! :o This has turned out to be a bit more involved project than I had initially thought. I just got to resist the urge to get a little modeling variety and work on another kit. Temptations, temptations.................. :o

Mike

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What a great finish you've got on this, Mike! I've gotta remember Alclad over gloss black!

And the subtle differentiation in tones just makes it!

Now, I'm honestly not familiar with this AMT kit ... what's the scale on these launch vehicles?

And I'm quite looking forward to seeing 'em all, too!

Pete

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What a great finish you've got on this, Mike! I've gotta remember Alclad over gloss black!

And the subtle differentiation in tones just makes it!

Now, I'm honestly not familiar with this AMT kit ... what's the scale on these launch vehicles?

And I'm quite looking forward to seeing 'em all, too!

Pete

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Hi Pete! Thanks for the compliment! The Alclad is really easy to use. The key is getting a nice gloss black finish before you shoot the Alclad. The whole process is surprisingly easy. For me at least it is a much easier way to go than the use of bare metal foil to get the shiny look to the Atlas booster.

The kit itself is 1/200. For an old mold, it really isn't too bad. You can bang the 5 models in the kit together rather fast or spend time like I did and do some upgrading. You can see a photo of the kit box if you open my thread on the MIS Saturn 1B build in this GB. One of the things I really like about this kit is that when finished, you get a nice scale representation of 5 key USA launch vehicles without taking up too much room in the house!

Have fun modeling!

Mike

What a great finish you've got on this, Mike! I've gotta remember Alclad over gloss black!

And the subtle differentiation in tones just makes it!

Now, I'm honestly not familiar with this AMT kit ... what's the scale on these launch vehicles?

And I'm quite looking forward to seeing 'em all, too!

Pete

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