I got encouraged by the way the paint on the S-IVB turned out, so I started applying decals.
I started by applying some decals to the S-IVB. They are from the Space Model Systems 1/144 Ultimate Saturn V decal set, available from CultTVman. They include A LOT of decals. Here I’ve applied the ones that go on the S-IVB. They are really tiny and hard for my fat fingers to work with, but with patience they go on nicely and look great. You can barely see the “-Y” decal on the IU. If you look closely you can also see the labels for the umbilical door and the access door. The black and white sway targets on the interstage are made very long on the decal sheet for anyone who wants to actually apply scale stringers. For this application I just needed to trim them to square shapes since the pre-molded stringers are pretty flat.
I painted the RCS quads with Tamiya silver metallic and then when that had cured I painted the bells with some Tamiya Smoke. It is a transparent color so it just darkens the silver underneath. I think the effect works here. Remember in a previous update I said that I was definitely going to be using decals for the black on the S-II? Well, I lied. The S-IVB came out so well that I decided to try masking the S-IC and the S-II.
It was a bit difficult, but I think it will work. Wish me luck. We’ll see how it comes out in the next update. By the way I still hate masking.
That’s all for now.
Luhman-ations 