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Space Shuttle Launch Pad 39A with Challenger STS-6 (1:144)


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Hello everybody,
after my Easter bunny was scampering on, smilie_oster_240.gif I've picked out the necessary 57 Pins for assembling the Crawler chain,  

 

JpDDhm.jpg

 

and so the first 26 Chain links were put together.  cool.gif

 

HOzn2y.jpg

 

As it quickly turned out, however, this arrangement is unfavorable for threading the pins into the Pin lugs, as one needs some freedom of movement for being able to position the tweezers with the pin exactly in front of the opening. rolleyes.gif That's why I've then switched to a pinning of pairs of the chain links. huh.gif

 

But since the threading of the pins did not work right away, as a precaution I've aligned the first Pin Lugs of the pairs something with the drill (Ø 0,4 mm) that made things easier. :whistle:  

 

qs3UXK.jpg

 

f4UJoN.jpg

 

Then the pairs were connected to one another, whereby the pins had to be inserted in with great care in order to prevent the 6 mm long pins from jamming or even jumping out of the tweezers. shocked.gif

 

GLCXjI.jpg

 

yazQJX.jpg

 

After the first half of the chain was pinned together this way, 

 

JHNudS.jpg

 

the second half was next in line, 

 

LQDJCI.jpg

 

with which finally the first of the 8 Crawler chains was finished. up039822.gif

 

6ZamPo.jpg

 

With it only 7 Chains left over. up040577.gif

Edited by spaceman
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I hope you had as wonderful an Easter as you can! And I hope you fared better than your little Bunny!

He looked delicious!

 

I'm glad to see that, as tedious as this job is, that there are no fitting surprises for you Manfred! It all seems to be going together smoothly!

 

And it's looking great!

Pete

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Hello Pete,

 

good to hear you're doing well. :coolio: 

My Easter bunny is also fine, he's resting now for the next year ...  s-schlafen-001.gif

 

Thanks for your compliments. :worship:  Meanwhile I have found a reliable procedure for these tricky Crawler chains, which works well. up040577.gif

 

 

 

 

Edited by spaceman
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Hello everybody,

 

with the 2nd Crawler chain I can make it briefly. cool.gif

 

After the Track Shoes were put together again in pairs and the Pin Lugs were slightly pre-drilled, huh.gif

 

oUxcnF.jpg

 

the couples could be pinned together.  

 

xFgnle.jpg

 

Each time further chain links were added, the middle openings were first pre-drilled again and then these groups were pinned together, etc. ... :whistle:

 

LEjLjI.jpg

 

until finally the 2nd Chain was done too. up039822.gif

 

cw0uGP.jpg

 

Meanwhile the tedious handling is already easier for me. up040577.gif

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OMG, Kirk, are you completely nuts? :woot.gif: 

 

Joking aside, I would be satisfied if I can prime and paint the chains by airbrush thin enough so that all details do not disappear. up040577.gif

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Hello everybody,

 

and that's why I wanted to take advantage of the momentum and have tackled the 3rd Chain on. cool.gif

 

Already the separation of the Track shoes and the fettling of the separation points is a rather time-consuming business, in which greatest caution is required because Shapeways' 3D plastic Frosted Ultra Detail (FUD ) is relatively brittle and therefore easily fragile. shocked.gif

 

JfJUC1.jpg

 

Thereby now 3 Chains are already pre-assembled and waiting for the next chain, 

 

dTjbJr.jpg

 

where, just for fun, I'll stop the time, because I'm curious. up040577.gif

Edited by spaceman
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Hello everybody,

 

so then again I've cleaned the Headset glasses, looked at the clock (12:30 pm), and got started the assembly of the 4th Crawler chain. cool.gif

 

12:30 pm: Separation of the 57 Track shoes 

 

1Z1tWB.jpg

 

12:45 pm: Deburring the Track shoes & pair formation

 

RK5Uhy.jpg

 

RABI7D.jpg

 

1:05 pm: Pre-drilling of the Pin lugs & Pinning of the pairs (deburring of the pins)

 

l4VTfY.jpg

 

1:35 pm: Pinning the chain & deburring of the pins 

 

For the pinning these two tweezers were used, whereby the pins were inserted with the wide tweezers into the Pin Lugs, the position of which could be corrected with the pointed tweezers, which were then pushed in all the way to the stop. :whistle:

 

YeOefT.jpg

 

At 2:17 pm, after approx. 1¾ h, the 4th Chain was finally finished. yahoo.gif

 

rBhoLH.jpg

 

BTW, my preliminary estimate was approx. 1,5 h, so I wasn't that bad at all. up039822.gif

 

Now half of the 8 Chains are done, wherewith only approx. 7 h of pure construction time lie ahead of me without interruption, :bandhead2: but which I will still manage now too. up040577.gif

Edited by spaceman
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Hello everybody,

 

now I only have to bite my teeth four times :bandhead2: then the 8 Crawler chains would be done, so let's get to work! :banana:

 

So keep the scissors coming, up046933.gif

 

AuvW4r.jpg

 

and get rid of the annoying set-bars. cool.gif After that, the laborious deburring of the chain links was the next step again.  rolleyes.gif

 

y4JB0q.jpg

 

After the pair formation, the pre-drilling of the Pin Lugs followed, as usual, huh.gif

 

xoHOIZ.jpg

 

and then the pinning the chain, alternating with pre-drilling the Pin lugs and occasionally deburring of bulky pins. :whistle:

 

ZIAN1j.jpg

 

And with the 5th Chain I'm already over the worst, up039822.gif

 

1s5OAA.jpg

 

and can slowly see light at the end of the tunnel ... up040577.gif

Edited by spaceman
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Hello everybody,

 

before I get to my day-to-day business, I would like to remind the beginning of the Shuttle missions and Columbia's launch to her maiden flight STS-1 with which NASA's legendary Shuttle program began today 40 years ago. :thumbsup:

 

81pc0382-m.jpg
Source: NASA

 

And thus back to the present. Today was the turn of the 6th Crawler chain, of course (almost) again in the familiar and proven sequence of steps. cool.gif

 

lNRYpr.jpg

 

- Deburring of the Track shoes

 

4TpYfp.jpg

 

- Pair formation and pre-drilling of the Pin Lugs

 

VW0V6H.jpg

 

- Pinning the pairs (deburring of the pins)

 

hmJ4xE.jpg

 

For a change, I proceeded a little differently this time than before and have connected these pairs by building Groups of four,  :whistle:

 

LUifnV.jpg

 

which I've then connected to each other to Groups of 16up039822.gif

 

JZjV4E.jpg

 

from which in the last step finally the 6th Chain was formed. 

 

ucJCiC.jpg

 

So now it means to clench the teeth only still twice, :bandhead2: to finally holding a complete set of 8 Chains in my hands.  up040577.gif

Edited by spaceman
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Hi Manfred,

 

Thanks for mentioning STS-1 today.  It's hard to believe it was 40 years ago.

 

Your work on the track on the Crawler chains is amazing.  As always I follow all of your posts.

 

Mike.

Edited by crowe-t
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Thanks Mike, my faithful friend, for your appreciative words.  :worship:

 

That's right, let's keeping the legacy alive! :thumbsup: 

 

Sts-1_crew.jpg Source: NASA, John W. Young (left, † 2018) & Robert Crippen (83)

 

These guys made history! up040577.gif

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Hello everybody,

 

today I'll report with a quickie regarding the 7th Chain. :coolio:

 

- Deburring of the Track shoes

 

umb1xp.jpg

 

- Pinning the pairs

 

EMctIi.jpg

 

And so also the 7th Chain is already done, so that the last Pin-storeroom can be looted next. up039822.gif

 

pFttbS.jpg

 

In order that the finale of this fiddling chapter is finally around the corner. up040577.gif

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On 4/7/2021 at 4:33 PM, spaceman said:

OMG, Kirk, are you completely nuts? :woot.gif: 

 

As mad as a fish, I'm told.

 

On the subject of which, those tracks look so go that it is almost a shame not to contemplate motorising the crawler. Now that would be mad. Someone would do it, but not me. 😄

Keep going, you're nearly there. 

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And I'm as crazy as a virgin is nit-picking, I'm told ... :whistle:

 

Nothing is impossible, but in this case I'm drawing a blank on that one, :hmmm: but the idea would have something, as one can see at this LEGO Crawler here. up040577.gif

 

 

Edited by spaceman
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Hello everybody,

 

it's managed!  hurrah.gif In the meantime, the 8th Crawler chain is finished and the Crawler is already almost Ready for Rollout! :rofl:

 

So here is the short farewell to a certainly stressful and monotonous for everyone, but necessary chapter ... :whistle:

 

With the pinned couples the final countdown was ushered in, 

 

NwU2rc.jpg

 

and then the time had finally come, and the 456 Track Shoes have become now to the 8 Crawler chains. And the 8 Pins for closing the chains are also left over. up039822.gif

 

9pz7QE.jpg

 

Since the 16 Drive Sprockets are already finished, I will soon have to think about which parts of the trucks I will build from the Paper kit, or will scratch, or whether I should fall back for some tricky details to the 3D modeling skills of my friend Joe (crackerjazz) from the ARC Forums followed by 3D printing ... :hmmm:

 

QHckU0.jpg

 

Very helpful for this would also be the generous offer from Sascha1990 in his German Raumcon thread (Reply #14) NASA Crawler + LUT and Saturn V as 3D print of his monster crawler for making the 3D STL Files available for general use on his homepage. up039822.gif Unfortunately nothing has been seen of him since then, huh.gif as well as that he has not yet responded to my recent request too ... hmmm.gif

 

So let's see, time will tell! up040577.gif

Edited by spaceman
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Hello everybody,

 

now that the 8 Crawler chains are finished, I stowed them safely in a box so that they don't get dusty and nothing happens to them.  cool.gif

 

pjTnMg.jpg

 

N6qIUn.jpg

 

And now to a sad story, which is connected with the generous offer from Sascha1990 to share the 3D STL files of his Monster-Crawler in his much noticed thread NASA Crawler + LUT und Saturn V als 3D Druck as well as with the following radio silence of the master since then. hmmm.gif

 

About the connections I have now received more information in the NSF forum (forum.nasaspaceflight.com).  rolleyes.gif

 

Since I was quickly enthusiastic about his great project at the time and we were in a daily exchange of ideas, I had suggested him in a PM in autumn 2018, to post about also it in the NSF forum, whereupon he then had started a thread Crawler Transporter 1/48 3D-Print, in which he had announced his idea of a true-to-scale model of the NASA Triology (Crawler, LUT, Saturn V) in 1/48 what had aroused great interest there. :thumbsup:

 

In it he had also announced that his 3D STL files for the 3D printing of the Crawler would be made available for general use, that he would then upload on Thingiverse what he has also done,  as I've learned now from an NSF friend.

 

At the same time as printing and building his Crawler, he had already started with the 3D modeling of the Launch Umbilical Tower (LUT). up039822.gif

 

In his post Reply #17 one could read that he had to remove his project on Thingiverse because some people attacked him very aggressively in private messages, shocked.gif which I was surprised about, but without having given it any further thought, because I was not familiar with this portal at the time. huh.gif

 

But that was apparently the reason for his sudden disappearance, both in his German thread and in the NSF forum.  

 

As I've found out from my US friend today, he actually made his Crawler 3D STL files available on Thingiverse at the time, but my friend hadn't downloaded them immediately because he was already looking for a 3D printer  and nearly almost had bought one. 

 

When my friend was on the platform again, he was horrified to see that the 3D files and their master had meanwhile been gone, after which he didn't show up somewhere ...  analintruder.gif

 

Here is the comment of my frustrated friend:  

 

A lot of people were putting heavy pressure on him to share his LUT files as well, many were unkind ... You know how people can be ...
I can only imagine what some of those cretins were doing to him ...
Very sad ... up043952.gif

 

So the good-heartedness and unselfishness can be abused by such people ... cry.gif

 

Let's see, maybe he'll get back at some point ... up040577.gif

Edited by spaceman
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  • 3 weeks later...

Hello friends,

 

the break was long enough, and since Sascha1990 has probably said goodbye forever, I have shelved my 3D Printing Considerations for now. cool.gif

 

Most likely I had thought of the 16 Propel motors, four of which drive one of the four Truck pairs and thereby move the huge Crawler forward. 

 

zdKgD4.jpg
Source: NASA

 

In David Maier's Kit, these motors form a unit with the gearbox housing and must be laboriously folded and glued together from these parts, 

 

3kSBRG.jpg

 

whereby the details in the typical Maier design are only indicated by partially blurred textures, rolleyes.gif

 

65l9pC.jpg

 

what then looks like this at the finished model of my friend Michael Knobloch:thumbsup:

 

What bothers me even more are the even more rustic-looking modules of the JEL Hydraulic cylinders for equalization the crawler on the slant Crawlerway up to the pad, 

 

uFSqzk.jpg
Source: papermodelers.com (mk311049)

 

which are only built box-shaped and covered with textured wallpaper, 

 

cvFWqO.jpg
Source: papermodelers.com (mk311049)

 

what is immediately noticeable on closer inspection and therefore would not please me. hmmm.gif

 

iNO65W.jpg
Source: papermodelers.com (mk311049)

 

tJfptx.jpg
Source: papermodelers.com (mk311049)

 

That is why I thought for a long time how I could at least partially circumvent these inadequacies in David Maier's Paper Kit:hmmm:

 

To do this, I firstly again dealt more intensively with Mischa Klement's Crawler Kit (1/96) and the few construction reports about it and then contacted the master who had briefly introduced his unprecedented Crawler in our German Raumcon forum a long time ago in the topic Paper models. up039822.gif

 

http://www.raumfahrer.net/forum/yabbfiles/Attachments/up027931.jpg
Source: Mischa Klement (cyana)

 

His kit consists of approx. 11.000 parts (0,4 mm to 40 cm) up046885.gif and is without exaggeration High-End Paper Modeling, whereby the Crawler is a true work of art in museum quality due to its impressive level of detail. 286.gif 

 

The kit has been available since 2010 and is limited to 499 pieces worldwide, but is not for the faint of heart, which is why so far only a few modelers have successfully completed the construction of this monster, of which I know three, whose construction reports I am followed and studied with interest. http://www.die-kartonmodellbauer.de/wcf/images/smilies/smiley228.gif

 

Due to the high level of detail, these assemblies look worlds better by Micro Artwork, here just the components for a Propel motor and beside it the finished pair Gearbox housings with motors

 

i8PR5U.jpg b5HHyq.jpg
Source: Mischa Klement (cyana) 

 

as well as here on the finished model. 

 

zT4zIb.jpg
Source: Mischa Klement (cyana)

 

And in his extensive building instructions (48 pages) everything is illustrated and described in detail. cool.gif

 

In our last conversation I learned that there are actually still some kits available what I no longer believed. That's why I spontaneously decided to buy a kit and have received the proud part in a sturdy cardboard box a few days ago. yahoo.gif

 

v8LDYQ.jpg

 

Here is an overview of the contents of the kit:

 

2DV9vP.jpg

 

1  The kit comes in a solid card board box and is packed in a nylon bag to avoid damage from humidity. The red circle shows the placement of your serial number,  for me 443/499.

2  Instructions manual with 48 pages

3  2 sheets of 300 g card stock – one A4 sized in gray, one half A4 sized in yellow (WWY2, WWY3)

4  2 sheets of A4 transparent film (TRNS1, TRNS2) for windows and gratings

5  1 sheet of black A4 tissue paper for Guide and JEL tubes as well as for steering cylinders (TPA)

6  12 sheets of 250 g card stock A3 (CHA1-CHA5, COR, CBL2, TOP, 4 x TRK2) 

7  10 sheets of 120 g paper A3 (SMP, CBL1, 4 x TRK1, 4 x TRK3)

8  1 sheet of 100 g paper A3 (WWY1) and 1 sheet of 80 g paper A3 (PIT)

 

In the kit nearly everything has been thought of, both in terms of different paper/cardboard thicknesses and colors, as well as transparencies for windows in the driver's cab and gratings for covering openings in the crawler floor as well as for fans and walkways. up045518.gif

 

Js980v.jpg

 

Since the truck booms contain breakthroughs and openings, these parts are printed on gray cardboard of the same color, 

 

uuYrrp.jpg

 

and partially even the backs of the sheets are printed with the backs of the parts. :thumbsup:

 

8C8kxd.jpg

 

And here is a look at the detailed and illustrative assembly instructions,

 

NHf6jw.jpg

 

that one also can downloaded from the Homepage, here with a look at the detailed structure of a Propel motor

 

ANE6QS.jpg

 

And here for comparison the individual parts of a motor in the kit size (1/96) and about half the size in my scale 1/160 with my obligatory one reference Cent, from which it can be seen that it should be difficult, if not impossible, to tinker such a small motor respectively 16 pieces of it.  http://www.ehrliche-hamster.de/forum/images/smilies/emoticons/crazy.gif

 

nzWh9Z.jpg

 

But maybe I should at least give it a try ... up040577.gif

Edited by spaceman
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