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STS-71 Rollover Build 1/72 Scale


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Hi All,

 

  Here is the start of my first ever build blog. I used to build a lot when I was a teen, now in my late 30's getting back to it, and definitely jumping in headfirst. I have 6, yes 6, 1/72 orbiters to build. One is a very old Monogram kit I got from ebay. 1 is an older Revell from the 90s. The last 4 are newer Revells, the 40th anniversary edition. I'm building all of them to represent different missions that have meaning to me. I will eventually be making Columbia in it's STS-94 post landing configuration - I actually saw that land from the top of Space Camp Florida back in 1997. Also building Columbia pre-flight from STS-93 which I saw launched from the old Astronaut Hall of Fame roof, when it was still at it's stand-alone spot along with Space Camp facilities. Endeavour will also be constructed in an on-orbit design from STS-100 - saw that launch from NASA Parkway East. Also STS-88 (Endeavour) on orbit - I got to meet the commander of that mission one day. And STS-108, also Endeavour. A friend of mine, my Space Camp counselor from Florida, and current ISS Flight Controller, used to work for United Space Alliance back in the Shuttle Era. He trained the astronauts in communications and instrumentation. He had a picture of the two of us flown by the commander of 108 and it hangs proudly in my house now.

  The subject of this actual thread will be STS-71, Atlantis. Flown in June of 1995, it was the first shuttle launch I ever saw, having tried 2 times before. Also viewed from NASA Pkwy E. I should mention now that all of these orbiters will be built using as many of Homer's flight deck, OMS pods, etc parts as possible. I will be making Atlantis as though she is being rolled over from the OPF to the VAB for stacking. So I will have the flight deck, OMS pods, engines, but I won't be detailing the interior much as most will be covered up and not lighted. After the vehicle is built, I'll put it on a rudimentary transport vehicle as by then it would seem the orbiters were rolled over with wheels up, vs being on their own wheels.

  I'm using the Monogram kit for this. The fit of the fuselage parts isn't great at all. In the pics you'll see the gaps. To attach I used rubber bands as clamps and 'stitched' the halves together little by little to ensure a fit. I also reinforced the bottom seem from the inside with pieces of sprue from another kit. The following pictures show me cutting about 4mm, as recommended by Homer, off the back-bottom of the orbiter for his engine base plate. I hope you enjoy following along with the build.

 

Orbiter Halves, pre-assembly

 

 

 

Orbiter Halves

 

 

 

Rear Bulkhead, Body Flap

 

Rear Bulkhead

 

Edited by Medicmodeler10
Re-adding photos
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27 minutes ago, K2Pete said:

Um ... your images don't show up ... this is what I get ...

1029482667_ScreenShot2022-04-22at5_34_55PM.thumb.png.ee08147ca93633c2805b2272bcaee635.png

 

I've built a couple of Shuttles, all makes, and am looking forward to following your thread and to see these lovely 3D parts!

Pete

Thanks, I tried just adding them as attachments to my post but obviously failed. I'll look into getting a better way to add pictures.

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GREAT! The pix are there ... but, from my own experience with this kit, you may need to add more reinforcement to that BIG seam, because the amount of sanding you'll be doing will break that seam, probably, a few times and the frustration levels may go off the chart!

 

I had used a 3/4" wide length of 0.060" styrene and the seam still broke apart ... just a heads-up.

 

My builds are all on this forum and my last one was the Monogram 1/72 Shutte with the HST.

I tend to heavily modify my builds to make these o-o-o-old kits  just a little more accurate.  ;^ D

 

Pete

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Great start!

I can second the reinforcement comment above!

Used glass fibre 2k putty alongside with big styrene patches..solid and heavy as a brick now :)

 

Homers parts are beautiful!

The thrusters are too small imho, but the flight deck etc. is gorgeous!

 

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1 hour ago, K2Pete said:

GREAT! The pix are there ... but, from my own experience with this kit, you may need to add more reinforcement to that BIG seam, because the amount of sanding you'll be doing will break that seam, probably, a few times and the frustration levels may go off the chart!

 

I had used a 3/4" wide length of 0.060" styrene and the seam still broke apart ... just a heads-up.

 

My builds are all on this forum and my last one was the Monogram 1/72 Shutte with the HST.

I tend to heavily modify my builds to make these o-o-o-old kits  just a little more accurate.  ;^ D

 

Pete

Yes, went to flickr and started an album there, and it worked. Thanks for the tip on the reinforcement. One thing I am doing on all my shuttles will be to better simulate the tiles and blankets. In speaking with Homer about which RCS insert to get, I told him that I doubted I'd come up with anything new, but I am definitely going to try a multitude of options and methods across all 6 builds. I've seen, and actually tried once on the 1/144 scale stack, the surgical tape route for blankets. I think it was Gil/DutyCat that did clay or putty and a zimmerit tool to lay out the quilt like appearance of the blankets on his 1/72 stack. And I've seen a few people use extra styrene and somehow scribe them or cut them to replicate the tiles. So each of my kits will be an experiment in different ways to do each part of the TPS and in different combinations. The belly right now is very uneven and would not pass for anything that I'd call "good enough" as is, and I have definite plans to putty and sand it. At the same time, not sure how much I'll do since the end result will be covering it all up anyway. I will reinforce it as you suggest though - I don't need any blowouts!

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Sanding the wings and fuselage today. Not very exciting picture-wise. I did cut the control surfaces away from the wings to pose them in a drooped look based on pictures I found online of Atlantis being rolled over prior to STS-71. Do have a question because I tried searching but didn't come up with anything - to simulate the thermal blankets I am going to experiment with white "linen texture paper" that I found at Michael's. It's cardstock material. I know it's not an original idea to me, and I know I've seen that idea talked about somewhere, but as I said, searching these forums didn't produce any good results. Anyone else try this? Or know of someone who did that I could refer to? Thanks!

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Hi

 

since i want to build the same model (one and one only) i came to the same solution. I`ve seen it done by someone else before, can`t find it at the time.

Looked at alot of paper and found Papyrus Linen here in Europe to be an adequate match..looks better in person imho. The problem will be the seams around them (maybe white glue or putty and modelling in the wrinkles?)

btw: one hell of a task, your project. Homers parts alone are quite tricky to clean and paint, not to mention to fit them into the monogram or revell models...

Good luck! :)

 

 

spaceshuttleblanketslookalike.jpg

Edited by nnkk
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That papyrus linen looks really good. Maybe even more of an obvious texture pattern than my linen texture version. The seams are also challenging me. There isn't a true border or separation around each blanket section, but if you look at an orbiter close up, you can see a obvious line of demarcation between one area and the next. I was thinking that maybe a tracing wheel could make an indentation around the edge of each square that I cut. Maybe it'd create the appearance of the joint between each blanket.141252355_AtlantisSide.thumb.jpeg.b4996a4045c4bd0d40693e03c633ecbd.jpeg

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Hello all, great work MedicModeler10!

 

Forgive me for posting this resource that I am sure most of you have already seen, but Steven Jochums did a tremendous amount of work in coming up with his thermal blanket modeling guide that he kindly shared with the shuttle modeling community here:

 

http://www.lakecountyspaceport.com/files/100625718.pdf

 

 

I don’t know if a laser cutter could create the quilted look on a sheet of material (i.e. the orthogonal matrix of protruding bumps with the linear border outline).  HotDog might be able to give us some guidance if his thermal/tile overlay project successfully created the look of the thermal blankets in styrene with a laser cutter.

 

 

 

Medicmodeler10, I will follow your build thread with interest as well.

 

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So today I added the wings to the orbiter as well as began to cut out the area for the two T-0 umbilicals. The templates are very helpful with the umbilicals and I can't wait to see the final product installed myself. As I mentioned, I cut the control surfaces and re-glued them as they looked in pictures I got from NASA's site of Atlantis coming over from the OPF to VAB. It looks messy now, but what I did was just glue in a small strip of styrene sheet to close the gap initially. It will give me a base to build from to make that area look a little closer to what it should.

Wings & Control Surfaces Umbilical plate

 

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So today continued with installing the T-0 umbilicals on both sides and began to cut out for the ET connection points on the belly. I'm going to have to modify the areas around both and/or modify the parts themselves a bit to account for the build up of an extra layer that I'll be putting on the model to simulate either tiles or thermal blankets, as the case may be. As I was finishing up for the day, I decided to test out my idea of using linen texture paper as the thermal blankets. I'm using Lake County Spaceport's guide as reference to how big each blanket area should be. Pictured are two blankets that are of the correct size, per the guide, for this area of the orbiter, right by the hatch. They are just held in place right now with poster tack. I left one clean and I dirtied the other using pencil graphite I shaved off.  I think it'll do, but I need to practice with the weathering a lot more. Using the graphite lets me weather the blankets as much as I want, but being nothing more than pencil and paper - it's easy to erase if I go too heavy.

 

First Blanket Test

 

 

 

 

Edited by Medicmodeler10
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  • 2 weeks later...

Great looking orbiter! I had read a build where the builder 

used cloth medical tape for the blankets. They looked pretty good.

I have a 72nd orbiter stack with the ET and SRB's and some 

shapeways upgrade parts. Put it with my 72nd Saturn V and 1B.

I'll be watching your progress!

 

Cheers...Ron

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Ron, that was my first thought, is going the medical tape route. I still might on other models, as I will have 5 more 1/72 orbiters to build. It'll all depend on how my experiments with other methods of doing the blankets turn out. 

 

  Did some work today on attaching more of Homer's parts to this model. I am not a automotive 'body man' which is all I think a lot of model build is, at times. Especially in the early stages of any model, and definitely one such as this where there are a lot of mods and extras being added on or bits taken away. That's why I opted to do this one first - most areas of the flight deck will be hidden with FOD covers so I can either hide things and not worry about detailing, or take some artistic license with a few 'extra' FOD covers where my work may, or will, be sub-par. But his parts are fitting nicely and I'm extremely happy with the level of detail and the quality. With my later ones I plan to build where all the extras will be showcased, really looking forward to what comes of those.

 

Atlantis Nose Atlantis Tail

 

 

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Check and make sure the doors line up good with the forward bulkhead and crew compartment. This is where I messed up on my build. The 3D printed parts made the nose section way too tall.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 3 months later...

I used the cloth medical tape as well.  Well, it’s actually a coarse paper tape.  Put it in place and brush painted on several coats of the old Testors enamel gloss white.  
For my heat tiles, I bought Evergreen plastic and literally cut out a bazillion tiles, glued each one in place and then sanded the contour back so it didn’t look like a bad digital print job. 
 

ZV4Cs5.jpg

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