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space shuttle stack accurate flight deck question


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30911563647_b61da3646f_b.jpgHere is my attempt to paint the tiled cap.  I used some 5 and 8 mm punch scalpels to cut the curved sections.

45850793301_1a08070e66_b.jpg

45850794271_1ab08febce_b.jpgGloss coat before the decals.  Not that this will be a very accurate build, but I'm trying to copy the asymmetrical black tile pattern from STS-114.

45850795201_c3d77336cb_b.jpgI haven't yet gone around with a needle to highlight the window frame bolt holes in gray and perform a panel line wash.  After I get a chance to do those steps, it will get a matte coat.

 

I'm going to try to see if a layer of black light mask decals will make the lighting look more realistic internally.  I've created two separate decal sheets, one printed on clear, the other printed on white:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ypdaakr5esi1fw7/flight deck decal clear.pdf?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/95njvzltcguzj7p/flight deck decal white.pdf?dl=0

 

Here is the template for creating the window glass and the main engine throttles.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mj9uai56th9tt1x/flight deck glass and main engine throttle template.pdf?dl=0

 

Shapeways informed me that the on orbit model has some detail that's a little too thin (Dr. Stone's fingers around the Canadarm controller), so that model has been removed from my store until I get a chance to modify it a little more.

 

 

 

 

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Hi Homer. Just to let you know sir I finally got the all of the parts and they are great, just what one needs to really make the windows pop along with the tile. I sort of made a boo boo on the cap and cutr off the insert pieces but I order another one with all the parts and pieces. Have put a little paint on them but don't think the tiles come out like yours do in the picture. Have to put very fine coats on them or all that great detail will be gone. Thank you and now I have a second set coming so will practrice on this set. and keep them for the next shuttle stack I get in the future. Not to steal the great parts and pieces but thought I would show you  the 1/32 shape ways LM  that Vincent Meens designed. I really enjoyed building this. Now back to the great shuttle parts to paint and install in my shuttle. Well Homer thought I was going to upload a couple of photos but have to figure that part out sir. Be back l Gary. Not the same as seeing the photo here but maybe I figure it out before to much longer. space shuttle (12)

Edited by garyshipwright
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Thank you Ralf and mkjm for the encouragement.

 

Looking good, Gary!  Sorry that you clipped the wrong parts on the model and had to buy a second set (but thank you for your enthusiasm for this project and willingness to spend another chunk of money).  That's a great idea to use plastic instead of glass for the windows - I may give it a try.  Let me know how the optics are for looking inside to see the details of the flight deck, in case the view is distorted.

 

Masking the windows for painting was a major pain.  I thought that it might make more sense to create some paint masks manually with printer paper, so I created this document with the silhouettes of the windows and the HUD raised details on the dashboard ready for some careful work with scissors and an X-acto blade.  I'll try them out and see if they're accurate enough for airbrush masks, but wanted to forward them to Gary (and others who might be interested) in case he wanted to give them a go as well while he was practicing on the current model.  The black lines are marking the outer border of the window frames, so you should trim just outside the silhouetted areas.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/es526i6nii5441u/shuttle window masks.pdf?dl=0

 

Let me know if you find them useful for the window masking work.

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Thanks Homer. Well,  clipping the wrong parts just gave me a reason to buy another set but don't tell the misses. Guess you could call it enthusiasm I just call it having a lot of fun adding good detail parts to my models, sort of like that feeling you have when the work day comes to a end and you just can't wait to get home and back to work on the project. The mask for the windows should come in handed. . The one window that I added, looked like it had good clear view to the flight deck but won't know for sure till it's all together. Are you planning on lighting up your flight deck and if so what hard ware are you plan on using. Seems a shame to put all that detail and not seeing any of it. I also want to light up the payload bay. I just order a payload  bay from real space models , he posted on his site that he will be shipping them at the end of November. Had a lot of fun adding the payload bay to my last shuttle and does help bring the bay to life as I call it. 

Edited by garyshipwright
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On 11/12/2018 at 4:58 PM, Homer said:

 

45850795201_c3d77336cb_b.jpg

 

Here is the template for creating the window glass and the main engine throttles.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mj9uai56th9tt1x/flight deck glass and main engine throttle template.pdf?dl=0

 

Just FYI, I tried the link to your templates on 'dropbox' and I can't see 'em. It seems I need to sign up first ...

 

Man-oh-man this is looking so-o-o good! I'm gonna go over to see Gary's build to see how it looks installed ... keep up the great work!

 

Pete

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Thanks to you both.  Pete, please let me know if that link works for you once you sign up for a dropbox account.  I just clicked on it and it worked for me.

 

Gary, I am planning on lighting the shuttle, but I've never made my own lighting system before, so I have no idea if I will succeed in my attempt.

 

I plan on using a bunch of warm surface mount LEDs powered by what I'm guessing will be a 9V battery hidden behind the main engine mounting.  I might have to 3d model something other than the kit part which has the integrated elevon or whatever it's called to include a battery access hatch.  Once the shuttle hull is glued and light blocked, I'll probably cover the inside with metallizer paint or aluminum foil, then try to place some surface mount LEDs inside to scatter light everywhere.

 

I bought a bunch of these from Digikey:

 

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/cree-inc/CLA1B-MKW-XD0F0E83/CLA1B-MKW-XD0F0E83CT-ND/2753184

 

I made a little recessed area in the ceiling piece of the flight deck to permit mounting two to three of them - you can see two of them perched in their recess below.  The walls behind the pilot and commander positions are hollow to permit passing wires, also shown in the photo.  I sprayed metallizer (AK true metal) on the inside of the tiled beanie cap and the outward facing surface of the ceiling to improve light reflections, which hopefully will help to illuminate the holes around the edge of the ceiling piece.  Honestly, though, I am doubtful that the ceiling will be visible once the model is closed up, so this part mad be completely over-engineered.

 

45894213642_a7fc3af230_b.jpg

 

I was getting frustrated with my tape masking ruining my paint layers by pulling up paint of the Shapeways fine detail plastic, which I presume doesn't grip the primer as well as styrene.  So I tried the laser toner transfer technique used for making the photo etch to create some frisket paint masks.

 

I printed the window paint mask pdf on a laser printer on thermal transfer paper, glossy side up.  I think you can use glossy pages from magazines for this technique to spare buying the thermal transfer paper.  Then I passed the glossy paper with the toner side facing a sheet of frisket paper through a laminator.  The toner particles released from the transfer paper and attached (for the most part) to the frisket, providing enough detail to cut the masks.

 

45217471244_b4c1df2809_b.jpg

 

The wax paper backing the frisket detached a bit from the heat of the laminator, but the print geometry on the frisket itself was more or less preserved.

 

I then cut my masks with a new X-acto blade, and with a little bit of fudging of the geometry to get it to lie correctly (my mask doesn't account for the geometry of the beanie cap away from the immediately planar window frames), it fit with minimal fussing.

 

45217470534_027ff23dd9_b.jpg

 

I sliced the mask in two places to provide enough wiggle room to get it to fit correctly - at 2 and 8 o'clock in the photo above where I've bridged the gaps with pieces of yellow Tamiya tape.  This was a lot less work than my original masking tape effort.

 

The reason why I needed to remask and repaint is because my first attempt at painting the bolt holes failed, as you can see above.  The acrylic ghost grey paint dissolved the Future layer and acrylic black layer underneath when I tried to wipe off the excess.  So I messed up my original paint job.  I repainted the black frame using the frisket mask, and will try again to paint the bolt holes, probably with an enamel paint to reduce the risk of having the same thing happen again.  Any suggestions from the group on better ways  to apply paint to the little 0.5 mm pits in the window frames without a lot of overflow to remove would be most welcome.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Homer said:

 

I plan on using a bunch of warm surface mount LEDs powered by what I'm guessing will be a 9V battery hidden behind the main engine mounting.  .

.

 

Do you plan on displaying the finished kit on a stand?  If so you might consider a pair of contacts at the attach point, with the battery remotely mounted in the base. 

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Hi Homer. I finally got around to applying some paint to the windows and it didn't come out to bad. I painted it once and like you it didn't work out. Having another one coming gives me time to work with this one and figure out the best way to do it. The other one will be installed and then painted. Added a couple of photos so let me know what you think. Gary        space shuttle windows (4)

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1 hour ago, garyshipwright said:

Hi Homer. Can you show me or tell me what or where I can find the  colors that the seats, flight deck and crew should be. I know I seen it some well be don't seem to be having to much luck finding it at the moment. Thank you sir. Gary

Look on NASA's various web sites. NOTE: that colors and styles may vary by specific orbiter and year.

Anyway, here's a sample of the things which can be found https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120418.html

And another one, https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/flyout/powerdown.html

And the galleries for the specific missions, such as this, from https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts131/multimedia/fd1/fd1_gallery.html442024main_s131e006074_hires.jpg

 

 

Edited by southwestforests
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Thanks Habu, that’s not a bad idea for the wiring.  If I ever get far enough along with this project, I’ll see if it makes sense to run the wiring through the ET/SRB assembly.

 

Gary, I just eyeballed the colors and then looked in my paint drawer to find some approximate matches.  I used the Gigapan image to determine some of the flight deck colors.

 

http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/102753

 

Most of the flight deck is white, and I used the decals to add most of the colors.  I used some grays for the devices mounted on the aft wall, like the CCTV and the rotational controllers, etc.

 

For the padding on the seats, I used some Floquil D&H Avon Blue F414194, but obviously this doesn’t have to be precise.  IModelKit shows MMAcryl 4661 Ford/GM Engine blue is a close enough match.  For the dashboard, I used Floquil Dirt F414308, and a close enough equivalent is MMAcryl 4604 Skin Tone Shadow Tint or Lifecolor  UA 435 Polish Officers Field Uniform.

 

For the pedestals on which the joysticks are mounted in front of the pilot and commander’s seats, I used Floquil USN Blue Gray F505088, for which you could use MMAcryl 4847 US Navy Blue Gray M-485.

 

For the fire extinguisher, I used MMAcryl Chevy Engine Red 4629, and MMAcryl Int’l Orange 4682 for the ACES suits.

 

FormLabs kindly printed sample parts of my tiled cap for me on their Form 2 so I could see how the quality compares.  Here are the two samples they printed; at first glance, they look pretty equivalent to the fine detail plastic quality, although I didn’t print the figures with their tiny hands.  The tile and bolt pattern looks pretty crisp.  I’ll paint them up so I can make a more apples to apples comparison.

 

45947735522_0fe111f341_k.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

I didn't have a lot of model shop time over the holiday, unfortunately, but I did get some Blender time on the laptop while traveling.  I've been working on creating a more accurate part for the fore RCS thrusters.

 

32295137968_dcb5f26013_o.png

 

I'm not sure how much of these details will be visible in the print, like this striped semicylindrical indentations around the thrusters.

 

31227417767_94cf81a7e3_o.png

 

I had to fudge the angles of the piece to match the RCS cutout from the Monogram model; you can see here that the fore and aft slope of the part aren't aligned with the blueprints.

 

32295137788_2d90cb8eef_o.png

 

I'm wondering if the tiles here are going to look bit out of place, since the rest of the nose of the orbiter will be tiled with decals, so the difference might be distracting.

 

Hotdog, is your tile set going to include these tiles on the lateral faces and the nose of the orbiter, or just on the underside?  Do you think that the junction between this RCS piece and your tiles will work, or will it be hard to disguise the borders of the two modifications?

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Hello,

 

I just joined this site and I am amazed at all the info.  I am currently building 1/72 Shuttle w/booster and ET.  I seen your shop on shapeways Homer very impressive. I will be buying the beanie setup next month.  I redesigned most the the SRB myself, It's pretty close to accurate from references I been using.  Still learning to 3d model using fusion 360.  But as for your RCS thruster pack, there is a guy who makes that piece, Updraft models, I just bought it a couple days ago.  I am going to try and tackle the the SRB skirt and shuttle tile work around the engines hopefully in the next month or 2. 

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On 12/3/2018 at 5:05 PM, Homer said:

Hotdog, is your tile set going to include these tiles on the lateral faces and the nose of the orbiter, or just on the underside?  Do you think that the junction between this RCS piece and your tiles will work, or will it be hard to disguise the borders of the two modifications?

 

Funny you should ask, as this is the part of the tile detail set I am currently working on. I encountered the same issue you did, in that the RCS thruster locations on the Monogram model didn't match up with the blueprints, and I had to fudge around a bit. So my approach is to instruct the modeler to fill in the kit thrusters with putty and use the layout of my "more accurate" parts as their template.

 

5uns6b.jpg

 

So to answer your question, yes, I am trying to cover all of the tiled areas of the orbiter, not just the underside.

 

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15 hours ago, Robhp said:

But as for your RCS thruster pack, there is a guy who makes that piece, Updraft models, I just bought it a couple days ago.

 

That part fits the Revell orbiter. The nose shape of the Monogram kit is more rounded, so you will likely have some major fit issues if you try to use the Updraft parts with it.

 

Homer, if you are successful in both your beanie cap and RCS thruster pack solutions, then perhaps I could fashion my tile detail set to line up with your parts instead of trying to reinvent the entire wheel. I think modelers who are willing to go so far as to buy my tile detail set will also be buying your parts to go with it as well, so no need for me to include the tiles for the areas your 3D parts cover. I'll stay tuned to see what you come up with, and will likely be purchasing them for myself to see how they work with the rest of my tile set.

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Hotdog thanks for the info,  I actually have both shuttle's,  Monogram and Revell.  I guess I am going to have to wait till you and Homer come out with your Orbiter stuff.  I did buy your Shuttle Umbilical parts a while back.  I am working on my SRB's first before moving to the ET and finally the Shuttle.  Just having issues working on the SRB Skirt, only been modeling for about a month now.

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Thanks Hotdog and Robhp.  I just submitted the order to Shapeways for the RCS insert so I'll post info on how it comes out.  It looks like they don't expect to get me the new parts until after Xmas.  It looks like the Updraft model seats are far more realistic than mine.  I'd be interested to see how they did that, because the seats I designed are at the limit of Shapeways' guidelines for thinness of parts with the fine detailed plastic.  The headrests that Updraft features actually mount on thin cylindrical supports; at 1:72 scale there's no way that the fine detail plastic could support the headrests.

 

https://www.updraftmodels.com/product-page/1-72-space-shuttle-cockpit-update-set-late-for-revell

 

b4f984_c9f9a75f64084637859112b31aaaf689~

 

I was toying with strategies to hide the seam between the RCS insert and the Monogram kit hull part, but couldn't figure out a really good way to do it.  Right now, the tile border comes right up to the seam.  We'll see how difficult it will be to disguise it with filler.

 

Hotdog, I appreciate you being willing to see if your tile detail set will snuggle up to the RCS insert I made.  If I need to make the tiles raised a little more than they are presently to match the thickness of the styrene sheet you are using for your tile detail, I should be able to do that relatively easily.  Right now, the tiles on my RCS insert rise about 0.2 mm above the surrounding flat area.

 

Once the RCS insert is successfully printed, I can post it to my Shapeways store.

 

Gary, please note that the RCS thruster innards collide with the lip of the beanie cap base you already bought.  It should be easy to trim down the interior lip so that the parts fit together.  I modified the beanie cap base part and am printing it with this new order; once it prints successfully, I can move it into my store as well for future model purchases.

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Hi Vidar,

 

I don't have any plans at present to try to make this for the Tamiya shuttle, but if the interest is high, I might be willing to try to convert it.  It will be a lot of work.

 

If you don't mind, let's see how the current scale parts turn out and if the demand is high enough for the 1/100, I would certainly consider it.

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On 12/7/2018 at 5:29 PM, Homer said:

Hotdog, I appreciate you being willing to see if your tile detail set will snuggle up to the RCS insert I made.  If I need to make the tiles raised a little more than they are presently to match the thickness of the styrene sheet you are using for your tile detail, I should be able to do that relatively easily.  Right now, the tiles on my RCS insert rise about 0.2 mm above the surrounding flat area.

 

FYI, the styrene sheet I'm using for the tile detail set is .010" thick, so should be a very close match.

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On 12/7/2018 at 4:29 PM, Homer said:

Thanks Hotdog and Robhp.  I just submitted the order to Shapeways for the RCS insert so I'll post info on how it comes out.  It looks like they don't expect to get me the new parts until after Xmas.  It looks like the Updraft model seats are far more realistic than mine.  I'd be interested to see how they did that, because the seats I designed are at the limit of Shapeways' guidelines for thinness of parts with the fine detailed plastic.  The headrests that Updraft features actually mount on thin cylindrical supports; at 1:72 scale there's no way that the fine detail plastic could support the headrests.

 

https://www.updraftmodels.com/product-page/1-72-space-shuttle-cockpit-update-set-late-for-revell

 

b4f984_c9f9a75f64084637859112b31aaaf689~

 

I was toying with strategies to hide the seam between the RCS insert and the Monogram kit hull part, but couldn't figure out a really good way to do it.  Right now, the tile border comes right up to the seam.  We'll see how difficult it will be to disguise it with filler.

 

Hotdog, I appreciate you being willing to see if your tile detail set will snuggle up to the RCS insert I made.  If I need to make the tiles raised a little more than they are presently to match the thickness of the styrene sheet you are using for your tile detail, I should be able to do that relatively easily.  Right now, the tiles on my RCS insert rise about 0.2 mm above the surrounding flat area.

 

Once the RCS insert is successfully printed, I can post it to my Shapeways store.

 

Gary, please note that the RCS thruster innards collide with the lip of the beanie cap base you already bought.  It should be easy to trim down the interior lip so that the parts fit together.  I modified the beanie cap base part and am printing it with this new order; once it prints successfully, I can move it into my store as well for future model purchases.

Thanks Homer, will keep my eyes open to it. Gary

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