1/72 Dragon Apollo 11 Lunar Approach Update 12

It’s time to get back to the LM. I finally decided what I was going to do with the folded landing gear. I took the deployed gear and cut them at the hinge line. I then did some mild shaping at the joint and glued the two sections together in a folded orientation. I then applied some putty at the joint to smooth things out a bit. The picture shows the spliced gear and the folded gear from the kit.

It’s not perfect and the angles are of course off but I guess it’s passable. The bottom of the Descent Stage is not correct or the kit gear is too small but whatever the case it causes the folded gear into a raised angle when it should be nearly flat. But by this time I’m really done fighting with it so I’m willing to accept it in this state.

I then moved back to the Descent Stage main body. I’ve finally decided to do this model as Apollo 10. The LM on Apollo 10 did not have the plume deflectors. Those were added starting with Apollo 11. I needed to use the small rectangular pieces that are not called out in the instructions to fill the open holes in the sides of the Descent Stage. They don’t fit very well, and the crinkle pattern is not a good match for the rest of the stage. Here are a couple of pictures showing how well they fit.

They are too tall and not quite wide enough for the holes. Here is a view from a different quadrant.

Mr. Surfacer 500 Putty was liberally applied in several layers to better blend them in. I also trimmed off the excess that is raised above the top of the Descent Stage.

Mr. Surfacer 500 applied roughly does a good job disguising the parts. Here is a view from the top.

Since I’m not using the pre-folded gear parts I needed to fill in the massive holes in the bottom of the Descent Stage.

Once I had all the holes filled I gave the Descent Stage a coat of primer to verify that I had all the imperfections covered.

Here is the bottom with primer.

Now it’s time to start applying some paint and foil. Before I get too far along with that though I’ll have to get the landing gear modified. Look for that in the next update.

Thanks for looking in.