bglasford1 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 (edited) Here is my plan. Now that I have become proficient at CAD modeling and 3D printing my plan is to build a 1/60 scale shuttle along with the launcher, FSS and RSS. Since the Apollo model was so tall (almost 7') I decided to take this much shorter model, place the launcher on piers and park the crawler underneath. The shuttle model I am using is the Amphioxus model of the Discovery complete with the Hubble telescope inside. Fortunately I don't have to create this model just print and assemble. Also I have a head start on the launcher since they reused the Apollo LUTs. I have already checked and I can reuse almost all the side panels I have already created. There are just a few more hatches here and there. Of course all the piping and such on the sides are new along with everything on top. And there are three holes instead of one. I also have a head start on the FSS since they took the LUT tower and reused the upper two thirds or so along with the crane. All the equipment is new and there are new swing arms but the structure, elevator and stairs should be reusable. One other thing I should mention. With 3D printing you are not constrained by the scale. There are a few people printing my Apollo LUT at different scales (probably because they already have the rocket at a certain scale. All you have to do is figure out your scale conversion factor and scale the parts in the slicer before printing. So this is really an any scale you want model. But the way I figure it, go big or go home. Here are the assembled SRBs. Stand alone and alongside the Saturn V for a size comparison. Edited February 16 by bglasford1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 16 Author Share Posted February 16 And here is the shuttle bottom in the process of being sanded. I had never considered sanding a model I wasn't going to paint but it gives a certain amount of realism. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 16 Author Share Posted February 16 The neat thing about this guys models is that he modeled the inside parts and you can disassemble the models and see the inner workings. This is the first time I have modeled using aluminum foil. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 16 Author Share Posted February 16 And here is the completed shuttle. The only thing I am not happy about is the white over black is achieved by printing one layer thick (0.15mm) panels and you can see the glue spots through the elevons and rudder. I will probably reprint those pieces and figure out how to attach these parts without the glue spots. And here is the completed shuttle with the Hubble attached inside. Another thing that didn't quite work is the magnets that hold the doors in place when open. I'm still scratching my head over that one. The hinges are too small to make function. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 16 Author Share Posted February 16 Here is the Hubble. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 16 Author Share Posted February 16 The external tank has been partially printed using orange filament but I am unhappy with the color so I will spray paint it a more correct color, however it is way too cold to be painting in the garage so I will have to hold off on that for now. In the mean time I am working up the dimensions of the launcher box which will be made out of wood and skinned with plastic panels. And of course its too cold to be wood working in the garage so I have drawn it up in the CAD tool and will have a few months to do other design work and possibly find any mistakes in these measurements before I commit the design to wood. I do quite a bit of wood working and have always used inches. For some reason when I stared the CAD work I used millimeters and that has worked out well. It is much easier to think in terms of millimeters and fractions of millimeters than in fractions of an inch. So I drew it up, printed it out and then converted the major numbers into inches. The only measurement that is not exact (that I have found so far) is the distance between the SRB engine exhaust holes. They should be 2mm further apart but I need those to match up with the model since the SRBs need to be centered in these holes. You may also notice that the overall box dimension seems a bit too small. That is taking into account the thickness of the skins I already have created. You can also see that I am allowing 5mm for the inner skins. That includes the thickness of the skins, the ribbing and the top plate overhang. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
crowe-t Posted February 17 Share Posted February 17 Great job on this. What printer are you using? A friend gave me a Prusa Mini that he only used once. I haven't had time to set it up but will soon. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 17 Author Share Posted February 17 I have a Prusa MK4 and another MK3 that I upgraded to a MK4. They made the first layer height adjustment automatic, the servos are twice as accurate, the computer is upgraded, the user interface is upgraded, the prints are about twice as fast and the hotend/extruder is completely upgraded. It is amazing how far Josef has taken this printer in such a short time. Since all the plastic printer parts are 3D printed, to perform the upgrade the first thing you do is print the new printer parts. That keeps the part price down. I was impressed when I got the first kit and one of the fans was not working they paid to overnight a new part from Prague. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 17 Author Share Posted February 17 I reprinted the elevons and just added glue around the edges to hold the thin white parts in place. This looks much better. I need to do the same for the rudder and then try and either reprint the hinges with a small hole or drill out the existing hinges to add a thin wire to make the hinges operate. With this model the elevons operate along with the rudder and landing gear. Notice that the rudder can also split in two to act as an air brake. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 18 Author Share Posted February 18 I have a shuttle question hopefully someone out there can answer. I'm working on designing the walls of the SRB engine chambers. In many photos such as the one below the walls all look the same. However in the following photo it looks like the short wall farthest from the SRB has some additional support I-beams. My guess is that for some reason this added support structure was added at a later date. Does anyone have any information on this? Is there a date range or mission range for these two variations? r In the end it probably doesn't matter too much because I plan to add removable red water barriers which will obscure this detail, but I like to be as accurate as possible. Thanks in advance. 92129735.jpg.webp Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 20 Author Share Posted February 20 The launcher box is taking shape. It doesn't have to be pretty, just straight and true. This is 1/4" plywood, the lightest I could find. There is added cross braces in the large void section to stiffen the box. I will probably add a few more corner braces in strategic places to keep the inner side panels from breaking loose. The box is being built upside down. There is also a picure of the top. I used sheets of 2' x 4' plywood which means the entire top and bottom could not be cut out of one piece. That's OK because the top and sides will be skinned. Only the bottom will remain wood which I will paint grey before skinning the rest. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 20 Author Share Posted February 20 The outer side skins are reused from the Apollo LUT. Most of them have to be modified a bit because there are a few more doors and I-beams that support pipe brackets and the floors on side 1. I notice that on side 3 they did not remove the umbilical tower legs that extended through the side out to the corners. Here are some of the Side 3 skins printed up and ready to go. There are 6 parts to this side. The joint is at the I-beams so they are as obscure as possible. And here is a close up of one of the I-beams. They look like I-beams but if they were true I-beams then you would have to add supports when printing. What I chose to do is angle the tops back so no supports are needed. This also adds strengh. You would never notice they are not true I-beams unless you felt underneath with a dental pick. Here is a picture of my original test print. I ended up using the one on the right. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 20 Author Share Posted February 20 (edited) The other key to this launcher is strength in the piers that hold the model up. Here are some pictures of the corner part that they call the "fixed support interfaces". To strengthen them there is a hole through the underside of the middle where the centering pin would go. This hole is large enough for a 1/4" dowel. The dowel will partially glue to the interface and partly to the wooden box. And here is a picture of one of the piers, the type 3 pier. Notice that this part is designed to fit over a 1/2" dowel. I will probably mount this entire model on a 1/2" or 3/4" piece of plywood and counter sink these dowels into the base. On top they will have a 1/4" hole to accept the interface pins. All these parts are designed and ready to go as-is. All I need to do is print them in the new grey color. Edited February 20 by bglasford1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 20 Author Share Posted February 20 (edited) I had all the technical documents for the Apollo LUT thanks to the LUTGroup which really helps. I have not seen any of those documents for the shuttle other than single pages here and there. If anyone has the complete documents I would greatly appreciate a copy. Here is a CAD drawing of the complete wall I created before chopping it up into printable pieces. Those measurements are in millimeters at a scale of 1/60. For the location of the floors, pipe brackets and other shuttle additions I will get measurements off of pictures since I don't have the original documents and there are plenty of pictures. I should be able to get within a millimeter or two. Edited March 5 by bglasford1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
habu2 Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 26 minutes ago, bglasford1 said: I have not seen any of those documents for the shuttle other than single pages here and there. If anyone has the complete documents I would greatly appreciate a copy. Have you seen the PDFs linked here? https://web.archive.org/web/20020806164507/http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/sodb/ Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 21 Author Share Posted February 21 Yes I have. That is all orbiter information, unless I missed something... I simply printed and assembled someone else's shuttle model. I have already printed his Saturn V model and it was very accurate so I trust his shuttle model is equally accurate. So far I have verified the SRB connection point dimensions versus the documents I do have and they are correct to within a millimeter at scale. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
habu2 Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 I have a ton of shuttle reference books. I highly recommend the book(s) by Dennis Jenkins. His three volume set is pricey but IMO worth it. His earlier book covering missions 1-100 would probably suffice at a lower price. Not (m)any 3-view drawings but tons of technical drawings and photos of virtually every part of the entire STS and associated systems. https://www.amazon.com/Space-Shuttle-Developing-Icon-1972-2013/dp/1580072496/ref=sr_1_36 https://www.amazon.com/Space-Shuttle-National-Transportation-Missions/dp/0963397451/ref=sr_1_13 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 21 Author Share Posted February 21 Thanks for the info. I always like to read up on the history and to motivate me. Do any of the books have technical drawings of the launcher and the Fixed Service Structure (FSS) and Rotating Service Structure (RSS)? Thanks... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 21 Author Share Posted February 21 Here are the fixed support interfaces printed up, bolts and all. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
habu2 Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 1 hour ago, bglasford1 said: Thanks for the info. I always like to read up on the history and to motivate me. Do any of the books have technical drawings of the launcher and the Fixed Service Structure (FSS) and Rotating Service Structure (RSS)? Thanks... Jenkin's books are deep in history and technical details, but only on the orbiter, ET & SRBs. His books also cover lots of alternate shuttle concepts during the shuttle's conceptualization period. Dennis worked on the STS program, and he now heads the program to display Endeavour at the California Science Center. https://californiasciencecenter.org/about-us/samuel-oschin-air-and-space-center/go-for-stack Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 21 Author Share Posted February 21 Yes, everybody seems to be shuttle centric. The models out there from the model vendors that include the FSS/RSS/Launcher seem to be overly simplified. When you model something like this at a scale of 1/60 there is a lot of room for detail. I alway strive for a museum quality model. For some reason there is plenty of detail if you are modeling ships or planes. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
habu2 Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 Suggest exploring this forum, MLP etc discussed here sometimes. http://www.collectspace.com/cgi-bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=Mercury+-+Gemini+-+Apollo http://www.collectspace.com/cgi-bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=Space+Shuttles+-+Space+Station Not a lot of activity but older posts may yield nuggets. Also consider signing up and asking for info. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 24 Author Share Posted February 24 (edited) Notice that the view is from the inside per the arrows in the little overview drawing at the bottom labeled "Key Plan". Going from side 1 (left) to side 3 (right) you can see that the distance between the support beams are 9 - 8' sections followed by 3 - 8' 8" sections followed by 6 - 10' sections. All of the hatches and electrical interfaces still exist in the shuttle variation. Edited March 5 by bglasford1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bglasford1 Posted February 25 Author Share Posted February 25 After finishing the drawings for Side 1, that gave the height of the two main pipes going down the entire length of side 2. I just assumed the pipes would be parallel and horizontal. At the far end (side3 edge) the pipes did not line up with the pictures. Turns out my assumption was not accurate. The pipes droop as they head towards side3, maybe due to where they hook up with the fixed lines? This picture shows the drooping pipes and the yellow circle shows where they should end up. You can see in my drawing for that end of side 2 that the top cross beam for the pipe support is too high up on the side in comparison the old original Apollo supports that I know are correct. Since I don't have the original documents I will do some detailed measuring of the picture to get this correct. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
habu2 Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 Perfectly horizontal pipes would be rare, you typically want some slope, however slight, to aid drainage and/or flushing. You don't want to leave residue in a local low spot that could contribute to corrosion or contamination. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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