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space shuttle stack accurate flight deck question


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Hello all,

 

I am slowly continuing to work on creating a more accurate flight deck/windows for the 1/72 Monogram shuttle stack, and am trying to find out what the port side interdeck access hatch looks like at launch.  The photos I have seen show it open as a hole in the floor, but I imagine that the hatch must be closed for launch.

 

Does anyone have any information or images on this?  When it's closed, does it blend in flush with the rest of the floor, or is it a raised surface?

 

Many thanks in advance,

 

Kelii

Lucid interdeck access hatch.jpg

Screen Shot 2017-08-03 at 7.26.47 AM.png

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hi Kelli

 

Here's a 3D view which shows the hatch open ... which you've more than likely already seen ... the other images I've seen show a cloth covering over the 'floor' while being prepped for launch.

 

http://360vr.com/2012/02/16/discovery-flight-deck_2193/

 

To be honest, at 1/72, if the hatch cover is raised off the surface, the thickness would be negligible. Just build it flush.

 

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Thanks K2Pete for the good suggestion.  I created a little rectangular outline/indentation in the floor around where I estimated the borders of the closed panel would be and will do a test-print to see if it helps to suggest the presence of the access hatch.

 

I'll order a test print from Shapeways and see if it works.

Screen Shot 2017-08-04 at 4.42.15 PM.png

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  • 3 weeks later...

I was able to send off the files for a test print, and here are the results.  I have some minor fit modifications to perform, but it's close enough to fit in the Monogram model.  The flight deck gets really cramped when all four astronauts are present.

 

I was pleased to see the accuracy of the tiny sub-millimeter light holes when using Shapeways extreme detail acrylic.  I hope that the backlighting through the decals will look realistically like illuminated buttons and display panels.

 

The windows and HUD glass will use 0.2 mm thick microscope slide coverslips fractals, just like with Dutycat's beanie cap.  Dutycat was kind enough to encourage me to post here about the progress on my project.

 

I can't post the other photos here due to hosting size limitations, so here is a link to the Flickr album:

 

https://flic.kr/s/aHsm3C6zvt

 

IMG_0387 copy.jpg

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Nicely DONE!! I'm glad I read that DutyCat gave you some encouragement because when I saw your other pix, your 'beanie cap' part looked a LOT like his ...

But all your parts look outstanding! The 2 part cockpit is intriguing!

In the cockpit, can you even see the hatch covers on the floor? And in retrospect, was it worth the concern?

 

Be sure to keep posting your progress on this model ... we wanna see all it come together!

 

Thanx for posting these! 

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Thank you Crackerjazz and K2Pete for the kind words.  My test print revealed a couple of fit issues that I adjusted today, and I put on a very poor paint job to see if the airbrush could reach the under-hanging surfaces (it could, so I don't have to make the aft wall a separate piece).  I had to adjust some of the astronaut positioning to fit in the very cramped spaces.

 

I'm sending off another Shapeways print order now, and will get to work on the decals.

 

A few more pics up on Flickr (you can see where I smeared the paint and cracked the part when I dropped it):

 

https://flic.kr/s/aHsm3C6zvt

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This is pretty amazing work, Homer! I have long wanted to make a 3D-printed beanie cap, but I lack the 3D CAD skills to produce one. Looking forward to seeing your progress on this! :cheers:

 

Any particular reason you chose the tile pattern for Columbia? It was unique in that it accommodated for the ejection seat panels above the crew seats. I think more modelers would prefer the more standard patterns used on Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. Also, since Columbia had tiles that covered the entirety of the nose, the rest of your beanie cap would need to be covered in tiles as well. Here's a drawing to illustrate what I mean:

 

8YPgpdZ.jpg

 

Also, here is a model created from a 3D scan of the Discovery orbiter that may be of some use in your project: https://grabcad.com/library/nasa-space-shuttle-2

 

Keep up the good work!!

Edited by Hotdog
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Thank you hotdog.  My wife laughed at me this morning when I showed her your post noting that I used the wrong orbiter tile pattern for my beanie cap (I was trying to model Discovery).  I should have posted to the group asking for help finding the reference materials instead of using what I was able to find (the Columbia blueprints) with my less thorough searches.  I might go back and redo the tiling pattern if this kit modification is of enough interest to other modelers for their projects.

 

Thanks as well for the better quality 3d model of the orbiter.  I will definitely use that in trying to simulate the quilts and the aft OMS thrusters.  Did your underside tile project succeed?  I was interested in buying a set of them for my orbiter if I ever move beyond the beanie cap/flight deck part of the build.

 

Oh, Crackerjazz, I neglected to answer your question.  Yes, the little outline of the interdeck access hatch is visible after the paint when down, and it looks reasonably convincing with my mediocre modeling skills.  I don't know if there will be enough light once the flight deck is sealed up to see it, but it certainly wasn't a lot of work to add it to the model.

 

If anyone has an good tips for lighting up the ceiling panels I would be most appreciative.  There's only a few millimeters of space between the interior ceiling panel and the tiled beanie cap above it, and I'm not sure if a surface mount LED will be able to illuminate the panel adequately.

 

Also, is there a trick to posting linked photos in these forums?  When I used the "insert image from URL" option it didn't seem to work when I linked to Flickr.  It seems to me that other posts include far more that 100 kB of images.

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Yes, the tile sheet I made for the belly of the Monogram orbiter was a success. The next step is to draw out the tiles for the rest of the surfaces to fit the model (I have them all drawn out, I just need to make them fit).

 

Lighting up the ceiling panels will be interesting. You'll need to paint the inside plastic of the kit Flat Black to keep the bright LED lights from shining through to the exterior. You may need to give it 2-3 coats! As always, test it out before gluing anything in. If LED's are too bright, you can put some super glue on the bulbs to dim them.

 

ERMQ7pV.jpg

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Thanks hotdog.  I think your photo above gives me the idea to mount the ceiling LED forward (there's the most space there) and bounce the light off on the inside surface of the tiled beanie cap, which I'll try to line with reflective tape on top of the light-blocking paint layer.

 

Tracy, I would be happy to try to scale the interior parts to 1/100, but I don't have a Tamiya shuttle to try it on to confirm that it will fit.  I made the 1/72 model to be as thin as possible (0.6 mm thickness on the unsupported walls) so I don't know how reliably it would print at 1/100 (0.45 mm thickness, presumably), but we can certainly try.  Please send me the cavity dimensions.

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  • 4 months later...
On 8/30/2017 at 1:23 AM, Homer said:

Thanks hotdog.  I think your photo above gives me the idea to mount the ceiling LED forward (there's the most space there) and bounce the light off on the inside surface of the tiled beanie cap, which I'll try to line with reflective tape on top of the light-blocking paint layer.

 

Tracy, I would be happy to try to scale the interior parts to 1/100, but I don't have a Tamiya shuttle to try it on to confirm that it will fit.  I made the 1/72 model to be as thin as possible (0.6 mm thickness on the unsupported walls) so I don't know how reliably it would print at 1/100 (0.45 mm thickness, presumably), but we can certainly try.  Please send me the cavity dimensions.

homer where can i get your 3d printed set from how can i get one?

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Hi Catfan, thank you for your interest.  I plan on posting it to Shapeways when it’s done so others can order it, but I’ve been (very slowly) making some further changes to the model, like updating the tile pattern per Hotdog’s suggestion above.  I’ll try to post more photos this weekend after I test out the decals that I made.  I don’t think it should take too much longer before it’s ready for release.

 

Assembly will require some microscope cover slips of 0.2 mm thickness or less and some standard staples, which will function as the space shuttle main engine throttles for the pilot and commander.  You will probably need a glass cutter to score and break the cover slips.  If it works, lighting the ceiling will require some small surface mount LEDs.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have some more photos of the project, now with a test run of the decals on an earlier iteration of the print.  Please forgive the poor quality photography.  I tried to test the lighting with a flashlight that was a bit too bright, so the effect with LEDs should be a lot more subtle.

 

https://flic.kr/s/aHsm3C6zvt

 

Something that I really didn't appreciate until this attempt to create the flight deck is that there's not a lot of space to see the interior through the front windows when the thing is assembled.  The dashboard really obstructs a lot of the view.

 

The rectangular display panels are shrunken HAL9000 screens.

 

25840845808_f0555997c4_z.jpg

 

I keep finding things in the build to revise.  Right now the HUD frames don't quite fit in the space available on the dashboard flanking the HUD glass (those pentagonal things sitting at the feet of the astronaut), so I will need to create some mounting slots for them.  Those frames are decals on the same microscope coverslip glass as the HUD, about 0.2 mm thick.

 

39682026242_ce7d16a087_z.jpg

 

I'm not sure if the overhead lighting effect will work, and I don't think you will be able to see the ceiling from the external shuttle windows, but here is what the ceiling looks like when lit from behind.  I didn't put the numbering decals on the 7 bags yet.

 

39682026492_85877117ac_z.jpg


 

When lit from the front with way too much light, it does allow you to see the astronauts.

 

25840846578_cfa1fa2542_z.jpg

Here's the front display illuminated with the roof removed (and the two specialists sitting on their jump seats fallen over).

 

25840853018_9d68009e7b_z.jpg

 

With a lot of light diffuser sheet, the flashlight glare is toned down a lot more to create a more realistic level of screen glow, so I think with indirect lighting bouncing around inside the fuselage more diffusely from properly mounted LEDs, it should look a lot more realistic:

25840851178_8ffd26e96e_z.jpg

 

Here are some shots of the flight deck without lighting:

 

38814941585_ab322db3cc_z.jpg

I bent two staples into a smaller C shape and painted them black to simulate the main engine throttles here (to the left of the pilot and commander joysticks), but they are still a little long for this scale.

25840844028_89a897177c_z.jpg

25840844608_5c8d330036_z.jpg

 

25840855468_cab845ba5e_z.jpg

 

 

I followed Hotdog's suggestion and modeled the more modern orbiter tile patterns on the current cap.  I have another few changes to make to try to improve it a little further, and I think that I'll try to make the tile roof and the flight deck interior all one part (currently, the interior of the flight deck is a separate part that I printed at frosted extreme detail on Shapeways, and the cap is a separate part printed at frosted ultra detail).  The cap is too large to fit within the print size limits of extreme detail.  Given the limited visibility of the interior parts when fully assembled, I don't think the decrease in resolution of the print will be noticeable if the interior is printed at ultra, and furthermore, it should make the model more affordable.  The base is printed from white, strong and flexible nylon, and since I plan to cover it with simulated quilts, the gritty surface texture on it shouldn't matter.

 

 

 

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WOW!

You've done a spek-tak-yoo-lar job on this! The build, the painting of the astronauts and ... and ... the details!

 

This cockpit should be in 1/48 and a stand alone model ... mmm ...... m-m-m ....... m-m-m   :thumbsup:

 

Pete

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Thank you for the kind comments, all - I appreciate the encouragement.  I will try to model the tiled window frames with the bolts per Hotdog’s suggestion - that photo will help, thanks.

 

If lighting the ceiling turns out to be unhelpful, then I can see making the roof removable as a viable option, since you really can’t appreciate the ceiling details when it’s all assembled.  I could make those aft sidewalls part of the base of the flight deck, and permit the roof to come off to show off the interior more easily.  The reason why I tried to model the parts as they are at present is to minimize light leaks from the ceiling, but I’m not sure if this is really going to work or not.  I’ll try putting in some LEDs into the mockup and see how it looks.

 

When I get some down time to work on the computer again I’ll try to model the parts again at ultra detail and see how it prices out.  Right now the three separate printed parts cost about $100, so it’s a little expensive.

 

On a tangential topic, can anyone telll me if these gray fore OMS covers are in place at launch, and if so, do they have these cables that seem to connect to them?  Thanks.

 

shuttle_ship_assemblage_preparation_caseEndeavour-on-LC39A.jpg

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I'll assume you mean the RCS covers ( Reaction Control System as opposed to OMS, Orbital Manouvering System ).

 

They are installed at launch and are just Rain Covers or FOD covers ... here's a superb video and at the 21 minute mark there's a super slo-mo of the nose of the shuttle.

 

Watch the entire video when you have 45 minutes, it's just excellent!! The covers just blow off during launch ... the cables? I don't see 'em.

 

Hope this helps

Pete

 

 

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I've only seen those gray covers when the shuttle is being moved and processed.

Once on the pad and ready for launch, it has these white paper covers that peel off during ascent.

 

20fbwhf.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Some (slow) progress:

39352648854_abb38a4839_z.jpg

 

The Columbia versus Discovery/Atlantis/Endeavour overhead tile diagrams weren't as accurate as the tile layout on the GradCAD 3d model that Hotdog linked to above, so it took me many attempts to figure out how to export a SolidWorks file into Blender without owning the SolidWorks application.  Because the models are not identical I have to do some stretching and interpolating to try to get the tile pattern to conform to the geometry of the beanie cap.  It's a lot of tedious pixel moving, so this might take a bit of work, but I think the tiles will look a lot more realistic than the cruder version I used before.  In some of the close up shots of the beanie cap I posted above it's apparent that the tiles aren't lying down realistically - I created those by tracing the Columbia vs. Discovery diagram Hotdog kindly posted above.  In the screenshot below, you can see the SolidWorks model on the bottom, with the new windows and then my 2d tracings above it.

 

28286528909_2402ced082_z.jpg

 

Using coverslip glass with decals for the HUD frames flanking the glass isn't thin enough for the model, so I will try creating some photo etch parts for the HUD assembly instead.  I've never done photo etch before, so I would welcome any guidance or tips from the group.  I'll also see if I can make some photo etch paint masks to permit easier highlighting in gray of the bolts on the window frames, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to line the mask up accurately enough to make this work.

 

40033493852_fdfa328280_z.jpg

 

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