After a long layoff I’ve finally gotten back to the Apollo 10 build. I’ve had a bunch of other things on my plate lately and, to be honest, I just haven’t gotten my modeling mojo back. But, I felt like if I don’t get back and try to restart the project it will never get finished.
So, I got back to work on the landing gear for the LM. I finished folding the gear sections and did a bit of trimming and applying putty. Then they got a coat of primer. They aren’t exactly scale, but they do look better than the pre-folded part provided in the kit.
I finished the legs by sanding off the molded in foil on the lower section of the leg since Apollo 10 didn’t have any. I also cleaned up the ladder which had quite a bit of flash/off register mold lines. I also sprayed them with primer.
The landing pads were a bit of a booger to prep. I needed to remove all the molded in foil since Apollo 10 didn’t have any foil applied to the landing pads (except for a tiny bit on the quarter that faced the rocket nozzle). The bottoms were not too hard to do, but the top surface was tricky. I first tried sanding, but given their size that wasn’t working out too well. I ended up applying some Mr. Putty 500 to the surface to somewhat level out the crinkles. I then took a Dremel tool with a carving bit and went around the inside. This worked fairly well. You can see a bit of unevenness around the edges that I’ll have to clean up but I think this will do the trick.
I was looking over the Ascent Stage main body and noticed a couple of areas that I’ll need to fill and I also noted that I had forgotten to add one of the New-Ware resin parts above the right hand propellant tank. I glued that on and applied a coat of primer. That showed up some areas that I need to clean up and then re-prime.
That’s it for now. I’m about ready to apply a gloss black base coat to the Descent Stage and start the detail painting, but I’m going to have to wait for this heat wave to pass. The garage is so warm that the paint would almost certainly dry before it hit the surface. It’s been over 100 every day this week with very high humidity, so no painting until it can cool off a bit.
Thanks for looking and definitely more to come.
Luhman-ations 