Monogram 1-72 Space shuttle w/ tank & booster

[Youngtiger1]

Hey Gang,

I just picked up one of these for pretty good price and I'm thinking about starting it soon. I also manage to find the CE tile decal sheet and CE resin Nozzle set as well. Only thing I'm missing that I can think of is Dennis Jenkins Space Shuttle book for reference.

Now, has anyone build one of these before? I sure will like to know what I will need to do/change to bring it to the current standards. Your help will be greatly appreciated. :o

Mike

[PBoilermaker]

Hey Gang,

I just picked up one of these for pretty good price and I'm thinking about starting it soon. I also manage to find the CE tile decal sheet and CE resin Nozzle set as well. Only thing I'm missing that I can think of is Dennis Jenkins Space Shuttle book for reference.

Now, has anyone build one of these before? I sure will like to know what I will need to do/change to bring it to the current standards. Your help will be greatly appreciated.

Mike

CE also made Orbiter/Tank/Booster decals in 1/72 along with a Columbia fin tip camera. Realspace models makes some very nice decals as well, you should try to pick up either set. As far as making it reflect a current stack, you will need to scratchbuild and paint according to photos. Different details for each mission, so pick one and gather references. There is a link to a neat reference site in the pinned thread at the top of this forum.

Jay Chladek is the man when it comes to Orbiter models. I'm sure he will chime in. Again, take a look at the pinned Shuttle post at the start of this forum...VERY comprehensive info.

[Youngtiger1]

Pboilermaker, thanks for the info on the link and yes, I do need to talk to Jay. He's the man with all the info on space shuttle and space stuff

[Jay Chladek]

The Jenkins book would be a good one. Although for the best pictures, you could probably do just fine with the STS-114 Photo scrap book as there are loads of details to be gleemed from the photos of Discovery on the pad and in orbit.

In short, the Monogram kit is pretty good as it doesn't really need much to update it. For the orbiter, new resin engines are a must, mainly because the OMS engine bells are so tiny. Rather then trying to source the CE ones which have been OOP for awhile, get the Realspace ones instead since they are still available and look the part. My examples needed a little work to clean up some minor casting flaws, but once they were primered and painted, they looked the part.

Breaking down the work needed, here is what I found with mine:

Orbiter: Drill out the Star Tracker ports on the nose. The Monogram kit has them etched in, although the positions are a little different on the real orbiters. Use strip styrene to beef up the window borders since the stock Monogram windows are a bit oversized.

Add the drag chute housing to the tail base if doing a current orbiter.

Also, when adding the main gear doors, just fill the door splits completely and sand flush if you plan to use the CE tile decals. Reason being is one of the gear bays is set back about 1/16" from the other and the CE decal doors are in a little different position anyway. By removing the splits, you have a flat surface and don't need to worry about trying to align the decals with the doors.

External Tank: It is actually pretty good for an RTF (Return to Flight) tank, although some of the details match the original Light Weight tanks better (the kit was tooled up in 1985 afterall). If doing the earlier tanks (such as the tank used for STS-107), the PAL ramps will need to be added. Monogram also cheated a little in the tank molding by not putting intertank corregations on near where the SRBs go (would have been tough to do with the draft angle of the mold). But those can be put in with strip styrene.

A harder fix will be relocation of the two rectangular shaped access ports at the top of the tank. These shifted a bit to the right on later tanks. You could back fill the areas inside the tank and cut in the intertank grooves (you will cut through the tank if you don't back fill these areas), or you can do what I did and just paint on these ports in the proper spots and not worry about modifying the plastic. Of course in my case I was pressed for time to get the model done and didn't want to have to do another time consuming modification.

The fit of the tank is a bit of a challenge due to its size and the rough texture molded to it, so you will obliterate some of that texture during the filling and sanding process. Also, the tank halves are packed into the box with one stacked into the other and as a result, one of the alignment inserts in back is slightly warped, causing fit problems.

My advice for building the ET is as follows. For starters, cut away one of the lower inserts on the main tank halves to allow that half to flex and match up with the other one more easily. When the rear end piece of the tank is added, it will provide enough structural support in that area. BTW, I don't recommend adding the aft cap until most of the seam cleanup work on the tank is complete, or else you will be risking damage to the struts that go to the SRB field joints. This is such a big sub-assembly that you really don't want to damage those.

Do your best to align stuff in order to minimize the seams, but there still will be seams. To hide them, you can either fill and sand as normal, obliterating detail in the process, assuming you plan to sand all the texture off or not worry about the flat spots. In my case, I purchased a can of Krylon texture paint from Hobby Lobby. I masked off all of the tank except for the seams I wanted to cover and shot them with the paint. Then I sanded the painted areas down a bit to blend them in. The paint isn't an exact match for the molded on texture, but it looks okay to me.

SRBs: The stock units look and build up just fine out of the box. I like how they did them with the aft field joint being molded to the ET for strength and the rest of the boosters going on over and under these pieces for a nice and stiff assembly to support the weight of the stack. Only inaccuracy I can find is that the access covers on top are molded to both the front and back of the SRBs when they should only be on one side. Of course the reason for this is Monogram used the same two half molds to do both the left and right SRBs. Removing the covers from one side of the SRBs can be time consuming, and the inaccuracy isn't really that noticeable anyway since most people look at the side of the shuttle stack with the orbiter on it as opposed to the back side.

The one main feature that these SRBs need are the insta-foam rings for the aft segments. NASA began using the same foam used on the tank to spray around the rear segment joints of the SRBs to help prevent seawater intrusion into the joints as they sit in the water awaiting pickup. These rings can be added easily with epoxy putty. The large ring that extends around the aft field joint on the SRBs (part of the structure molded to the ET rear end in the kit) was also changed to a complete ring rather then a 270 degree ring after Challenger. This can be done by filling the open area with epoxy putty and sanding it down to look like the rest of the ring (easy fix).

The stock stand in the kit can support the weight of the completed model quite well and it looks good. In my case I used a different display base as I wanted to try and display the model just on its SRBs and not have a stand peg sitting inside one of the engine bells. Plus I wanted to incorporate patches from the shuttle mission I was representing into my display. To do this, I cut a piece of K&S 36 inch long, 3/16" diameter music wire rod into two pieces and mounted them in holes I drilled into the base. Then I used a pair of brass tube sleeves (3/16" inner diameter) inside the SRBs to hold the stack straight and vertical. This is sort of like a launch lug found on a model rocket, except the launch rods are inside the boosters rather then outside. The base itself is a plaque I purchased from a local trophy shop and it is made out of a very dense particle board.

Centering holes for the brass tubes were cut in the centers of the engine nozzles and the center parts of the aft field joint rings and additional centering rings were also added to the insides of the SRBs for added support. Everything related to this modification was glued together with extra slow cure epoxy for maximum strength. When finished, I had the ability to slide the shuttle stack on and off the stand for transport and the thing stands straight and true (albeit not completely vertical as it leans ever so slightly into the orbiter) with no chance of tipping over and falling off its display base.

Edited January 27, 2008 by Jay Chladek

[PBoilermaker]

Jay, you are the man! Do you have rough dimensions or a drawing showing the cut lines for the drogue chute? Is that the only tail mod?

-Mike

[Jay Chladek]

The basic drawing came from the SIM 3 book in the section on Endeavour. Since it was a 1/144 image, I just blew it up 200% to 1/72 scale.

The other mod I did was the diagnal flat spot on the top rear of the tail and that was done with a few swipes of a sanding stick. All orbiters except Columbia and Enterprise have this flat area back there. I haven't been able to find a reason for it, but talking to one engineer that worked on shuttle in the early days, he thinks it was just an aerodynamic cap that was left off the vertical tail of the last four orbiters built (Challenger onwards). Only reason I can theorize for it is that data from Columbia's flight tests showed no excessive high heat loads on reentry in that area that might require a fairing to smooth out the aerodynamic flow, so this cap was removed to save a little weight. Columbia on the otherhand kept that round area, even when it gained the SILTS pod in 1985.

Edited January 27, 2008 by Jay Chladek

[Youngtiger1]

Jay,

Thanks for your input. I was hoping that you stop by and say something.. :D Looking over your information that you posted....I've got few more question for ya....

Star Tracker: I see that you drilled out the star tracker and placed some thing under it. What did you do there?

Windows: how wide should the sheet styrene be?

Exterenal Tanks: What's the difference between Return to Flight tanks and Light Weight Tanks? I don't think I'm going to do early tanks but what is PAL ramp and where does it go? What... Intertank corregations on near where the SRBs go?

A harder fix will be relocation of the two rectangular shaped access ports at the top of the tank: You know I looked at some photos but could not locate this. Can you explain more?

BTW, you space shuttle w/boosters looks awesome. Can you post more photos of you build model? TIA.

Mike

Edited January 28, 2008 by Youngtiger1

[Jay Chladek]

I just backed the star tracker ports with sheet styrene. That is all that is needed since the optics are covered until the shuttle reaches orbit.

As for the width of the styrene strip, I can't recall exactly what I used, but it was a common width of Evergreen strip. I think it was about two millimeters wide if I recall correctly. The strips do need to be thick enough though to be sanded flush with the rest of the flight deck area when you do the sanding and blending. Of course, be aware that when you do this, the windows will more then likely need to be polished and Futured in order to remove any defects from the glueing of the strips and any sanding nicks. In my case, I did cover the windows with tape after I glued the strips down before I began the sanding work in order to keep my damage repairs to a minimum.

As for External tanks, there have actually been four different tank evolutions used for shuttle flights. In terms of modeling, the vast majority of shuttle flights have either used the light weight tank or the super light weight tank (lighter construction materials used for maximum payload capability to the ISS) and both look almost identical externally. On the LW and SLW tanks, there were actually two PAL ramps and these sit to the left of the LOX feed line near the intertank region. You can sort of see a ghost image of where the PAL ramps were on the later tanks as they are lighter tan/yellow in color then the rest of the foam in these areas on the tank.

Check out NASA.gov and see if you can download the press kit PDF for STS-121 as that was the first mission flown without the PAL ramps on the tank (after foam fell off one of the ramps on STS-114). My hard copy press kit showcases the ramps and their removal from the tank and the PDF file should have it as well.

Concerning the rectangular areas I was speaking about and the added intertank ribbing, this photo shows both quite well:

To the left, you can see the ribbing I added as the molded tank detail just shows rough foam there rather then ribbing. For my tank, I utilized some Plastruct half round strips (#90880, 1mm wide) to do this. The ribbing in these areas near the SRB attach points are a bit less pronounced then on the rest of the tank, presumeably due to the load bearing structure of the intertank in these areas. So the detail I added looks finer then the rest of the tank corregations. Monogram didn't mold them since on some mid-production tanks, these ribs were almost completely filled with foam. But when the tanks encountered more foam shedding problems later on in the program, the ribbing became more noticeable again as the foam applications were modified in an attempt to minimize the shedding problems.

If you look in the upper right area of the picture, you will see the rectangular area I am referring to. Rather then removing it and relocating it to the proper position found on later tanks, I just painted the tank as if there were a patch in the new location (same thing applies to the back side of the tank as well as these patches are 180 degrees opposite of one another). Like this:

As for other photos, here are some to keep you occupied.

[Youngtiger1]

Jay, Like I've said before..........You Da Man!!

I think I've got a good info to start my project and the photos help a lot. Thank you for your help.

Mike

[simon atkinson]

Hi,

You might be interested in taking a look at a model I built some years ago as a commission for the London Science museum - the orbiter used the (much rebuilt) Monogram orbiter but the SRB's and ET were scratch built as was the launch pad. www.simonatkinsoncreativearts.com click on Simon Atkinson Modelmaking.

Any questions about the model contact through the website.

Cheers,

Simon Atkinson.

[crowe-t]

Hi,

You might be interested in taking a look at a model I built some years ago as a commission for the London Science museum - the orbiter used the (much rebuilt) Monogram orbiter but the SRB's and ET were scratch built as was the launch pad. www.simonatkinsoncreativearts.com click on Simon Atkinson Modelmaking.

Any questions about the model contact through the website.

Cheers,

Simon Atkinson.

Hey Simon,

That's a real nice Shuttle build!

I'm glad you bumped this thread, I hadn't come across this one yet and there is a lot of good info that Jay provided.

[Youngtiger1]

Hey Simon,

I think I have seen that build before. Didn't it appear in the Fine Scale modelers magazine? I have the mag but not sure of the vol. # of my head at the moment. You shuttle sure is awesome build. I love how much detail you put into the pad. I'll be sure checking your site soon and pick you brain for information on "how to".

BTW, Welcome to ARC and thanks for stopping bye.

Mike

[jockdeboer]

Contact Keith for some underside decals generated from the flip photos. He just came out with 1/72 scale. Keith McNeill [keithmcneill@blueyonder.co.uk]

[Jay Chladek]

Yup. That has to be the same model from the FSM cover. I used it for my own reference when I did my own shuttle build back in 2007. Simon nailed the look of early Columbia quite well!

I've got another mostly built and primered shuttle stack sitting in the "to finish" pile. I had to take a break from it as it was getting a bit tiring. But, when the time comes, it will be finished as a 1/72 scale Moonraker 6 from the James Bond film with all the appropriate modifications needed to pull off a proper Moonraker. BTW, one thing that sort of burned me out on the model were the unique ET mods I had to do to this model. The Moonraker tanks were smooth, so I sanded off the rough texture. Talk about long slow root canal. It was a serious PAIN IN THE BUTT!! I am glad I only had to do it once.

Then I'll need to get cracking on a shuttle stack of STS-1 Columbia which I plan to have finished for the 30th anniversary of the first shuttle flight, white external tank and all.

Edited July 1, 2010 by Jay Chladek

[crowe-t]

I looked on Fine Scale Modeler's site and it's in the February 2000 issue. In fact I just ordered a copy.

Edited July 1, 2010 by crowe-t

[Youngtiger1]

I looked on Fine Scale Modeler's site and it's in the February 2000 issue. In fact I just ordered a copy.

Yep, that's the one. I found my old copy. Very nice article by Simon. BTW, Simon your website is great. You have done a lot of cool models. I mean large models

Mike

[HOLMES]

Simon ,, I have seen that in the Science Museum a while back ...I did not know you built it..WOW !!! it is awesome...

WELL constructed ...Truly inspiring..

Thnak you

HOLMES

Edited July 4, 2010 by HOLMES

[simon atkinson]

Thanks,

You're right, the model was in Finescale Modeller some years ago. The model is apparently in storage at the moment, was put back on display when Columbia crashed but is waiting for the Space Gallery to be refurbished.

Love to chat with you any time - there's a contact page on my website - www.simonatkinsoncreativearts.com

Best regards,

Simon.

Simon ,, I have seen that in the Science Museum a while back ...I did not know you built it..WOW !!! it is awesome...

WELL constructed ...Truly inspiring..

Thnak you

HOLMES