Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Little Joe II - Completed!
Here are some pictures of the completed Estes 1/100th scale Apollo Little Joe II:
Little Joe II - Finishing Up
Now that the booster section has been successfully rebuilt and we've tested a painting solution that should not cause a repeat disaster, we can apply the silver aluminum color to the corrugated styrene portion of the LJ2 body and then finally apply the decals and finishing touches.
The Floquil Silver I chose turned out OK. Ideally I would have preffered a bit more of a sheen to it but I'm happy it went on evenly and I had no paint application issues thanks to my trusty double action Tamiya top feed airbrush (I love that thing!). I have to say for smaller models, airbrushing is the way to go since it gives you so much more control of the paint flow. But for larger model and mid-power rockets, rattle cans are still the most convenient option... but I digress.
I opted not to use the decals supplied by Estes due to the fact that there were some obvious inaccuracies. The most obvious error was the inclusion of a red line around the base of the capsule roll pattern. This red line was not visible on the A-001 round which I am depicting. I opted instead to use a decal set from Excelsior decals that was based on George Gassaway's excellent drawings and which was quite accurate. The only improvement I would suggest is to add a little rounding at the base of the capsule roll pattern.
The service module decals were fairly straight forward and as with the capsule roll pattern, I opted to cut out and apply each square individually to avoid having decal film lines wherever possible. The bolt pattern at the base of the SM was kind of tricky as it broke in a few places, but I was able to get it reasonably straight.
The booster "United States" decals were applied in 2 pieces (again to avoid film lines) and was a fairly straight forward decal application. One thing worth noting is that due to the corrugated surface I applied about 3 coats of Miro-Sol decal solvent to "soften" the decal and get it to sit nicely into the corrugations. I also made use of a few prototype pictures to make sure the positioning was correct with the "T" in "STATES" sitting just over the lower booster demarkation line.
Well that about finishes up the Estes 1/100 scale Apollo Little Joe II build. In the next post, I'll put up some pictures of the finished model.
The Floquil Silver I chose turned out OK. Ideally I would have preffered a bit more of a sheen to it but I'm happy it went on evenly and I had no paint application issues thanks to my trusty double action Tamiya top feed airbrush (I love that thing!). I have to say for smaller models, airbrushing is the way to go since it gives you so much more control of the paint flow. But for larger model and mid-power rockets, rattle cans are still the most convenient option... but I digress.
I opted not to use the decals supplied by Estes due to the fact that there were some obvious inaccuracies. The most obvious error was the inclusion of a red line around the base of the capsule roll pattern. This red line was not visible on the A-001 round which I am depicting. I opted instead to use a decal set from Excelsior decals that was based on George Gassaway's excellent drawings and which was quite accurate. The only improvement I would suggest is to add a little rounding at the base of the capsule roll pattern.
The service module decals were fairly straight forward and as with the capsule roll pattern, I opted to cut out and apply each square individually to avoid having decal film lines wherever possible. The bolt pattern at the base of the SM was kind of tricky as it broke in a few places, but I was able to get it reasonably straight.
The booster "United States" decals were applied in 2 pieces (again to avoid film lines) and was a fairly straight forward decal application. One thing worth noting is that due to the corrugated surface I applied about 3 coats of Miro-Sol decal solvent to "soften" the decal and get it to sit nicely into the corrugations. I also made use of a few prototype pictures to make sure the positioning was correct with the "T" in "STATES" sitting just over the lower booster demarkation line.
Well that about finishes up the Estes 1/100 scale Apollo Little Joe II build. In the next post, I'll put up some pictures of the finished model.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Little Joe II - Rebuilding the body tube (Part 4)
Re-attathcing the fins:
Now that the body tube has been successfully rebuilt, it's time to re-attach the salvaged fins...
Above is a picture of the salvaged fins. They were removed from the botched tube, stripped of paint, sanded, re-primered, and finally finish sanded.
The fins were re-attached using a light film of 5 minute epoxy. This is just to anchor it in place for the epoxy clay fillets to be applied later on. The fillets will be applied in the same manner as they were the first time but I will endeavour to make them smaller.
All four fins are attached in the same fashion. I didn't take any pictures of the epoxy fillets this time around but you can refer to an earlier post to see how it was done on the original tube.
After attaching the fins, the next step is paint. In an effort to avoid any more mishaps, I created a paint test mockup using a bathroom tissue tube and some scrap pieces. I'm planning on airbrushing Floquil silver for the booster color and I want to ensure the Xylene in the paint won't attack the plastic or the primer coat on the balsa fins.
So basically as is evident in the picture on the left, the paint test was a success. The paint did not attack the styrene or the primer coat on the balsa fin. It also did not attack the epoxy clay glue joint which was simulated as well.
The picture to the right shows the airbrushed silver coat in contrast with the white styrene. It covered very well and had a nice metallic "sheen" to it though that didn't really come through in the picture... Now that our paint test was successful it's time to paint the booster and apply the decals.
Now that the body tube has been successfully rebuilt, it's time to re-attach the salvaged fins...
Above is a picture of the salvaged fins. They were removed from the botched tube, stripped of paint, sanded, re-primered, and finally finish sanded.
After attaching the fins, the next step is paint. In an effort to avoid any more mishaps, I created a paint test mockup using a bathroom tissue tube and some scrap pieces. I'm planning on airbrushing Floquil silver for the booster color and I want to ensure the Xylene in the paint won't attack the plastic or the primer coat on the balsa fins.
Little Joe II - Rebuilding the body tube (Part 3)
Tunnel Covers: The next step in rebuilding our booster is to add the tunnel covers. There are 2 on this rocket, 1 short and 1 long located on opposite sides of the rocket. On the original Estes kit, these were just flat paper strips, but since we are using styrene, we can vary the thickness of the material and make the small humps that go over the lower/upper booster demarkation line stand out more.
First we glue down a piece of .010" x .125" strip approx 3.30" long.
Next I glued down two shorter pieces of thicker .020 x .125 strip material for the raised portions of the tunnel cover. The lengths I used were intended to match the Estes lengths more so than to be exactly to scale. They were approx 0.25" long on the rise between the upper and lower booster and 0.35" on the rise at the base of the booster. Notice also that the ends of these small pieces are sanded to an angle. This more closely matches the prototype and was a primary reason for using the thicker stock.
Then we repeat the process for the shorter tunnel cover on the opposite side. This tunnel cover uses the same strip material as the long one and is approx 1.35" long. One reason I kept the original (ruined) Estes booster was to assist in aligning these tunnel cover locations in relation to each other and also locating the fins correctly.
The lengths of the small raised portions on the short tunnel cover are the same as for the long one...
Now that weve completed the tunnel covers we can compare them with the original kit. I think adding the adding the styrene wraps and tunnel covers vastly improves the overall appearance of the model.
Here is a comparison of the short tunnel cover with the original Estes kit. My goal here was simply to improve the appearance of the model while still maintaining the flavor of the Estes interpretation of the original. Had I wanted to enter this model in a scale competition there would have been more time taken to match the dimensions to that of the prototype.
Overall, I think I was able to turn a blunder into an actual positive improvement to the model. Once again, I want to thank members on YORF (Ye Olde Rocket Forum) for their help and advice. If it wasn't for them I probably would not have attempted this rebuild, but would have spent $40-$80 on a new kit and would have ended up with a less attractive model. Next up, re-attaching the fins and building our paint test mock-up...
First we glue down a piece of .010" x .125" strip approx 3.30" long.
Next I glued down two shorter pieces of thicker .020 x .125 strip material for the raised portions of the tunnel cover. The lengths I used were intended to match the Estes lengths more so than to be exactly to scale. They were approx 0.25" long on the rise between the upper and lower booster and 0.35" on the rise at the base of the booster. Notice also that the ends of these small pieces are sanded to an angle. This more closely matches the prototype and was a primary reason for using the thicker stock.
Then we repeat the process for the shorter tunnel cover on the opposite side. This tunnel cover uses the same strip material as the long one and is approx 1.35" long. One reason I kept the original (ruined) Estes booster was to assist in aligning these tunnel cover locations in relation to each other and also locating the fins correctly.
The lengths of the small raised portions on the short tunnel cover are the same as for the long one...
Now that weve completed the tunnel covers we can compare them with the original kit. I think adding the adding the styrene wraps and tunnel covers vastly improves the overall appearance of the model.
Here is a comparison of the short tunnel cover with the original Estes kit. My goal here was simply to improve the appearance of the model while still maintaining the flavor of the Estes interpretation of the original. Had I wanted to enter this model in a scale competition there would have been more time taken to match the dimensions to that of the prototype.
Overall, I think I was able to turn a blunder into an actual positive improvement to the model. Once again, I want to thank members on YORF (Ye Olde Rocket Forum) for their help and advice. If it wasn't for them I probably would not have attempted this rebuild, but would have spent $40-$80 on a new kit and would have ended up with a less attractive model. Next up, re-attaching the fins and building our paint test mock-up...
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Little Joe II - Rebuilding the body tube (Part 2)
Well it's been awhile since my last update and for that I apologize... But I have been busy and there will likely be alot off updates coming in close succession as I try to catch up.
When last we left our Little Joe II project we had just recieved our replacement tube from SEMROC and cut it to match the length of the Estes tube in "Rebuilding the body tube (Part 1). In this installment we will continue working on rebuilding the body tube by applying new body wraps fabricated from thin styrene strips and "N Scale" railroad car siding material.
Starting from the bottom, I applied a .020" thick, 0.25" wide strip flush with the bottom of the tube. Then I cut a 0.90" wide strip of the corrugated siding material and applied that above the first strip.
Here is another view after application of the first two styrene pieces.
Next, to obtain a better simulation of the demarkation line between the upper and lower booster, I used two very thin .020" x .040" strips placed in parallel with a small gap between them. Now this gap is slightly exagerated at this scale but it gives a nice effect. Here you can see a comparison between the stock Estes wrap on the left and the scatchbuilt one on the right.
Above the two .020" x .040" pieces comes a larger 2.05" strip of corrugated material and finally a strip of .020" x .060" material caps off the booster portion. In the above picture, is another comparison with the original Estes wrap. As you can see I'm about .05" short on the whole thing compared to the original Estes wrap. In order to be exact, the longer corrugated piece should probably have been 2.10" instead of 2.05" but I'll have to live with it. Next up we will apply the tunnel covers to finish off the booster assembly and then build a mock-up of our booster in order to perform a paint test. The purpose of performing a paint test is to make sure our paint won't attack the styrene. I don't want any more painting nightmares.
When last we left our Little Joe II project we had just recieved our replacement tube from SEMROC and cut it to match the length of the Estes tube in "Rebuilding the body tube (Part 1). In this installment we will continue working on rebuilding the body tube by applying new body wraps fabricated from thin styrene strips and "N Scale" railroad car siding material.
Starting from the bottom, I applied a .020" thick, 0.25" wide strip flush with the bottom of the tube. Then I cut a 0.90" wide strip of the corrugated siding material and applied that above the first strip.
Here is another view after application of the first two styrene pieces.
Next, to obtain a better simulation of the demarkation line between the upper and lower booster, I used two very thin .020" x .040" strips placed in parallel with a small gap between them. Now this gap is slightly exagerated at this scale but it gives a nice effect. Here you can see a comparison between the stock Estes wrap on the left and the scatchbuilt one on the right.
Above the two .020" x .040" pieces comes a larger 2.05" strip of corrugated material and finally a strip of .020" x .060" material caps off the booster portion. In the above picture, is another comparison with the original Estes wrap. As you can see I'm about .05" short on the whole thing compared to the original Estes wrap. In order to be exact, the longer corrugated piece should probably have been 2.10" instead of 2.05" but I'll have to live with it. Next up we will apply the tunnel covers to finish off the booster assembly and then build a mock-up of our booster in order to perform a paint test. The purpose of performing a paint test is to make sure our paint won't attack the styrene. I don't want any more painting nightmares.
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