1/48 LIfting Body Scratchbuild

[Major Walt]

I'm new here, and this is my first in progress build. (actually it's my first scratchbuild period)

This my rendition of a small people hauler shuttle that would ferry astronauts back and forth from an orbiting spacecraft -- or station.

The parts are taped together so you can get an idea of what the actual ship would look like when finished. It's about a foot long in 1/48th scale. I'm going to cast the pieces in plaster, and use the cast pieces for vacuforming. I want to add a decent interior into this thing.

This pic is of the pieces before I skinned them. Basically it's a styrene plank on frame construction. The picture is a bit blurry -- sorry about the quality

This pic is of the same parts after skinning:

As you can see, the rear lower hull still needs to be skinned and the nose (the most difficult piece) still needs to be finished.

This is a pic of the parts (before skinning) put together:

And here are a few pics of the ship parts put together 95% skinned:

The gray streaking that you see is filler. Not too pretty at this point -- but then again, neither am I

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And here's a sample of what the cockpit canopy will look like (hopefully) This piece was made of Milliput and kept cracking. The one on the ship now is vacuform -- I still need to cut out the windows.

That's all I have to show now. This is my first scratchbuild -- still learning. I hope that you enjoy the pics. Thanks for looking.

Walt

[PetarB]

Awesome work.

One suggestion for the cockpit - if you can vacforum. Use the uncut cockpit shape you have to vacform clear plastic. ON TOP of this, vacform another sheet of opaque plastic. Out of that top vacform you can cut out the windows, and ta-da you have a perfect in-place shaped windows from the clear plastic one you've vacformed underneath it. I've used this method successfully, although it may be a bit more of a challenge at the size you have here, or not possible. Just a thought, I'm sure you have plenty of other ideas.

I know that planking method probably drove you nuts though...

Edited November 30, 2011 by PetarB

[Major Walt]

Thanks, Petar! The canopy is a separate piece--and I was thinking along the same lines as you relative to vacuforming for the windows.

Yeah...planking is a pain. If I do another build like that, I doubt I'll go the planking route again.

Walt (aka Treadhead)

[Blappy]

Hello there. :)

Seeing there here I was thinking a clear resin canopy might be really nice. Maybe we can do a trade down the road for something like this.(?)

Edited November 30, 2011 by Blappy

[Major Walt]

I've started up on this again after a long haiatus. As soon as I am able, I will post pics of my progress.

[Check Six]

Keyword to this project: PERSEVERANCE.

As long as you continue to have interest in it; that's all that matters .

I will be following your progress; which leads me to my first question:

Is your design based plausible or existing research, or is it more on the 'wow/awesome' looking design?

I do scratch-building model projects based on 'whatifs' and 'whatcouldhavebeen'.

For example I'm in the middle of a 'whatcouldhavebeen' U.S.Navy (What I call) EF-111B.

It's an F-111B platform that has been upgraded to be, in essence, an EF-111 AND an F-111F.

It's a carrier-borne strike fighter that has full EW capabilities.

I'm building it to be plausibly accurate but also build in a little bit of 'wow/awesome' factor.