Tamiya 1/100 Space Shuttle

[Jay Chladek]

I've polished windows with Micro Mesh cloths and pads myself. It works great. A good final step to bring back the luster after polishing is to apply a layer of Future (I believe sold these days as Pledge with Future Shine) to them with Microbrushes. But you'll need to position the model so the Future stays level on the window area and doesn't pool at the bottom. The best part about using Future to do this is if you mess up or don't like a spot, use Windex or some other glass cleaner with ammonia in it, apply some to a microbrush and rub the Future off. It will take the old Future clear coat off without damaging the original plastic. So, when dry, you just start over again. In the case of shuttle windows, if the defect is going to be covered by a border anyway, I wouldn't worry about it. That way you really only need to worry about the appearance of the center of each window, not the edges.

[Hotdog]

DAY 30: 4.5 hours

(69 hours total)

Build cost to date: $330.58

I have printed my first decal sheets and it's time to start applying them. I'm really excited to be beginning this phase of my build. Here we go!

First I applied the rings of thermal blankets that go around the SSME's on the aft bulkhead.

These were printed on clear decal paper. They might have been just a millimeter too large so there was a bit of overlap, even after heavy coats of Solvaset. There were a few tiny wrinkles the Solvaset and q-tip could not work out, but in this case it kind of added to the realism.

Next I applied the tile decals to the aft bulkhead, and then the round skirt areas where the SSME's plug into.

The tile decal was a piece of cake to apply, but the others wrinkled up quite a bit as a result of trying to place a flat decal on a rounded surface. This worries me about what will happen when it comes time to do the OMS pods. No matter how many coats of Solvaset I tried, I could not get rid of all the wrinkles.

Next it was on to the vertical stabilizer. First I applied the clear decals representing the white areas. Then I applied the decals representing the black areas over top. This worked like a charm, except for a few small wrinkles where the spine bends.

The black decals that frame the outside edges of the flap are missing, because I messed it up while trying to stick it on. It was very thin and narrow and difficult to handle without getting twisted up. I'll have to reprint it and stick it on in a later update.

Finally, with the aft bulkhead decals dry, I could attach the engine bells and be done with it. I glued them on (instead of using the screws) because the twisting of the plastic would have ripped the decals. I gave the engines another layer of weathering before gluing them on.

And there we have the first finished piece of the build, ready to attach to the fuselage!

So far I'm pretty pleased with how the decals are turning out. The wrinkling has me a bit concerned, but the level of detail they add (while hiding imperfections in construction and painting) is wonderful. It's difficult to appreciate the detail of the decals in these hastily-made photos. When the build is complete, I will take some better shots.

[crowe-t]

The decals look very nice! I can't wait to see another update.

[spaceman]

Great job with your decals, come on and let's see more.

[jetplane]

Wow.... :woot.gif:/>

The SSMEs looks uncanny real and its colors well captured....!! Well done..keep it more coming!

Its the most realistic 1/100 scale Shuttle I've yet seen this far...........

George

Edited January 9, 2013 by jetplane

[ralf]

WOW, I totally agree, that texture decals are the most realistic decals I've seen so far. And I think that there are some people out there (including me) that would be very happy if you would share or sell them. Great work so far and I am really looking forward to your progress.

Cheers Ralf

[composerman]

Everything is looking great! I'm planning on using a similar technique for the decals on my 1/72 build. I have been going back and forth on whether to use clear decals or white, but after seeing your clear results I think it's the way to go. I can wait to see the rest of it!

[Hotdog]

Composerman,

You will want to use both clear and white decal sheets for your shuttle build, depending on which part of the shuttle you are covering. Clear decals won't work for the entire shuttle.

You will need the white decal sheets for the darker (black) areas such as the belly tiles. The decals you see above that are black are printed on white decal paper. The clear decal sheets can only be used to cover the white areas of the shuttle. I wish clear decals could be used to do the whole thing!!! I say that because the white decal sheets come with their own set of little quirks. The clear decals are much easier to deal with.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in for your compliments. I will have another update soon.

Oh, and by the way, I plan to do a 1/72 orbiter this very same way. May be a couple of years though! I have an X-15A2 I wanna tackle first :)

Edited January 10, 2013 by Hotdog

[Hotdog]

DAY 30: 1 hour

(65.5 hours total)

Build cost to date: $349.37

This week I received the micro-mesh polishing kit for fixing the scalding of the two port side windows caused by the spray adhesive.

I masked the area around the windows to try and protect the paint from the polishing and sanding.

The coarser grit (3200) micro-mesh wasn't abrasive enough to do any damage so I had to break out the 1000 grit Tamiya finishing papers to start with. I made only a limited amount of progress before the window came loose again. The break extends all the way to the center of the window

The damage done by the spray adhesive seems to go pretty deep into the clear plastic. First I tried folding a thin strip of the sandpaper and rubbing it into the area. Then I wrapped a thin strip around the tip of a wooden toothpick to see if I could apply more pressure that way. It was after doing this for awhile that the window became loose.

This picture shows you how different the sanded side is from the other side. Despite the masking, the sanding still rubbed some of the paint off around the edges of the windows.

So once again, I have attempted to glue the window back into place using Tamiya extra thin cement.

The question now is, do I take another shot at trying to buff this thing out, knowing the scalding is deep and the window is likely to break loose again and risk removing more paint around the windows in the process?

This is so aggrivating. I should be spending this time applying decals, not dealing with this mess. I am tempted to just cut my losses, let it be, and move on with the build.

[Space Tiger Hobbes]

Digital photography sees all flaws, but that is pretty rough. Doesn't Tamiya cement craze clear plastic? If you can't polish it out, JBOT makes a decal sheet for the Tamiya shuttle that I think includes the cockpit windows. For whatever reason, his site doesn't show what you get, so I can't confirm. But it's a clean solution to your problem and it probably looks better than a clear window. Under the best circumstances, it will be hard to see your interior work.

Here's another cheaper solution. Sand down the window area. Paint the clear area blue, clear, silver, smoke, or whatever and then apply the window tile decals when you decal.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330851046943&category=1194&emailtemplateid=54074628&sellerid=FpRekKD1aqAbshYIkuwV4A==&buyerid=FpRekKD1aqBGy0dD0jMPPg==&refid=store&ssPageName=ADME:B:SEMK:US:LISTG

Edited January 20, 2013 by Space Tiger Hobbes

[crowe-t]

That's unfortunate what happened with the windows. If you decide to go ahead and try polishing the windows again just take it slow and easy. You shouldn't need much pressure at all with the micro mesh cloths. Start from the coarsest grit and work your way up to the finest grit. Even if the windows don't come out perfectly smooth once the decal is in place it'll still look very nice.

Edited January 20, 2013 by crowe-t

[ralf]

Mhhh, I think you didn't know that but Tamyia extra thin or any of those hot action glues or also superglue tend to fog any clear parts. So I would avoid them and use a PVA/white glue instead. From looking at the pictures I would use a coarser sandpaper grid (not too much of course) and sand it down. Then work your way with the finer grids and only after that use the polishing kit. That you can do is to mount the sandpaper on a small piece of wood that is cut to the desired shape. Or (what I do) is to glue it on a wooden coffee stirrer (not sure what it's called correctly in english). And take your time, this is a long and tedious process. I am not sure what I would if this was my model. I would probably take the effort and either remove the paint (again) and start all over again. This is painful but with that amount of money and effort you poured into the model I think it's worth it. Or go with the easier route and use decals on the windows. But that would be a shame since you spend the time on the cockpit. Not an easy choice.

[Hotdog]

I sent an email to Tamiya customer support about getting a replacement part and they said it would be 8-12 weeks before I could purchase it because that's when the next production run is. Not sure I want to wait that long. My idea was to replace the window and create a decal of the white tiles that go around the window area to cover up the mess. I'm still going to go this route, just without the opportunity to replace the window. This will probably be one of the hardest of the decals to make because of the roundness of the areas the decal has to cover, and how closely the edges must register around the window openings. It may be 12 weeks by the time I have a decal good enough to work!

[Hotdog]

DAY 32-33

7 hours

(72.5 hours total)

Build cost to date: $349.37

Just a quick update before I go on vacation. It's safe to say that my enthusiasm for this build hasn't been the same since the window issue came up. I have distracted myself from the problem by toiling away at the seemingly endless job of creating decals, and how to use the decals to fix the window area. Perhaps I will regain my enthusiasm if I can get a nice set of decals on the nose and around the windows and put the issue behind me.

So here I go, starting towards that goal with some clear decals to add detail to the nose.

The decals you see applied here have a ton of detail, but once adhered to the surface you almost cannot tell there's a decal there. Sure, it's cool and better than bare paint, but there's a ton of thermal blanket detail that doesn't show up. I would probably have to apply another instance or two of the same decal over top of it to make the details show up. Or, make the decals darker. I like for these details to be subtle, but when you pour so many hours into getting the details just right, you want them to be noticible. Ahh, it seems there's a lot more to this decal-making business than I thought!

Here's a shot from the other side. You can see where I got a little too creative with the decal around the star tracker holes. I thought including the little snap-on square areas of thermal blankets around the openings would be a nice touch, but it's overkill. I guess I'm going to try some kind of gray wash on the exposed paint areas around the holes to try and blend it all in more.

Next I applied the belly tiles. There were quite a few air bubbles after applying the two large decals over the belly. The instructions on my bottle of Solvaset said not to blot the solution and let it evaporate, but this was the cause of the bubbles. I figured out I had to take my finger or a towel and apply soft pressure once I had the decal where I wanted it to get rid of the air bubbles.There are still some extremely tiny ones, but you can't see them unless you get up really close.

Take a look at the seam where the two decal sheets come together. This is too painfully noticible. You guys that have gone the decal route on your shuttle builds, how did you solve this? Is there any way to make this seam less noticible?

While I was at it, I applied the decals to the landing gear doors.

I also finished applying the decals to the other side of the vertical stabilizer.

Here is the decal I made for the root of the stabilizer area between the OMS pods. It turned out very nice and all of the details show up on it. Probably because it was printed on white decal paper and not clear. So I suppose the advantage of using the white decal paper is the extra detail, but the disadvantage is its thicker, harder to cut, and the printed image flakes off easy. You also have to paint over the white edges after cutting out a dark colored decal. I really dislike the white paper and prefer to use the clear when possible.

When I get back from vacation, I will glue in the landing gear and try to finish the decals for the nose.

[crowe-t]

Hotdog,

Really nice work on those surface decals! On my monitor the details show very well. I think if the details were any more noticeable they would look out of scale. You don't want it to look like the thermal blankets are printed on, but rather show a hint of surface detail as your model looks now. I think your decals look perfect the way they are.

I had the same problem on my Revell shuttle's bottom tiles with a seam showing a bit. It's the edge of the white decal paper showing through. You can either dust the edge with some pastel chalk or very carefully touch it with some paint. Pastel chalk is the safer way to go.

You can always apply more Solvaset to the bubbles after it initially evaporates. That sometimes helps.

Did you apply a clear coat or Future before applying the decals? I noticed in the close up of the OMS Pods there is a bumpy texture. Future will smooth the bumpy texture out a bit and allow the decals to lay flat.

Edited February 16, 2013 by crowe-t

[ralf]

Hotdog,

I really like what I see. The decals especially on the bottom and the vertical stabilizers are probably the best I've seen for any shuttle kit. I also agree that the details are spot on more would probably spoil the look. For the seam I have another suggestion. Maybe a pinwash after sealing the decals in varnish would hide it.

I hope you get your enthusiasm back soon.

Cheers Ralf

[habu2]

You can always apply more Solvaset to the bubbles after it initially evaporates.

Before you apply more Solvaset, use a small needle to poke a hole in each bubble. This will let the air escape when the Solvaset pulls the decal down to the surface.

[Astro-AL]

These Decals look great Hotdog, thanks for sharing them. The yellow and black Purge Port and Rescue decals look really good.

[K2Pete]

Hotdog ... have you done any thing more on the decals for the Tamiya Shuttle?

My modelling mojo seems to be coming back and I'd like your belly decals for it. Have you tweaked 'em at all? Are they fer sale?

Thanx a lot

Pete

[Hotdog]

Pete,

I haven't gotten back to working on my Tamiya shuttle (I will likely start over with a new kit once I finish my other in-progress builds).

The belly decals are spot-on and fit perfect, so if you are interested in a set I can provide. Shoot me a PM.

[jetplane]

Hotdog,

Can you send me a set of the Tamiya 1/100 scale tile decals you created?

I'm wiiling to place an order for it plus your cost & shipping.

Regards,

Jetplane

[anj4de]

Hello Hotdog, all

 

Any chance of getting the pictures fixed in this threat? I now use this program for my pics, works like a charm...   http://postimages.org

 

cheers

Uwe

[anj4de]

Due to the lack of pictures...what is the best way to represent the radiators on the inside of the cargo bay doors? In the kit there are two parts on each door in chrome plated plastic. On photos I see 4 panels per door. How did you guys do that? I am thinking Evergreen pre-engraved poly sheet covered with Alcald 2 chrome.

 

thanks

Uwe

 

 

[K2Pete]

I used Evergreen grooved sheet and I would suggest you turn it upside down, with the grooves on the bottom. They are too pronounced if on top.

This is my continuing build ... the doors are at the bottom of the 1st page.

 

 

And if you choose to use Warbird decals for your shuttles, I will realize you just don't care about accuracy ... their belly decals, IMO, are pretty poor looking 

 

Pete

Edited February 27, 2018 by K2Pete

[anj4de]

Hi Pete

 

I was not looking at using the Warbird tiles on the 1/100 shuttle...I just spotted them in 1/72 and there at least the tile size looks ok... For the big shuttle and in general I will use what ever is best. Unfortunately those tile decal sets vary in availability.

For the Tamiya shuttle I am going to use set of Hot Dog.

 

cheers

Uwe