The angular details on the sustainer nozzle are looking much better. Not quite finished yet, but looking better. There are still a bazillion holes all over the molding. Those are going to be a pain. You can see from the opening photo, that I have also sanded off all the molded in stringers on the capsule adapter. After looking at the drawings it was clear that the stringers sit proud of the main part of the adapter. This is going to take more work than I had originally anticipated.
I worked on the equipment pods to fill in the dents and holes. While I was doing that it seemed as though they might be shorter than they should be. Since the drawings are in 1/48 scale I can just lay them on the drawings and see if they need adjustments. Below is a photo.
They are definitely too short. I’ll have to find a way to fix that.
After further examination of the drawings, the capsule adapter doesn’t have the bottom raised bit. So I sanded it off. I also added a strip of 0.010 x 0.060 styrene around the top of the capsule adapter. I added it to enlarge the retaining ring for the 1/48 Mercury capsule. Here is a close up.
I test fitted an old 1/48 Mercury model I had in my junk box. The capsule is too wide to fit. So I sanded down the part of the strip that extends above the resin adapter. Then I added a strip of 0.010 x 0.040 styrene. When I test fitted the capsule again it seems to now match the capsule’s diameter. In this photo you can see the extra layer I added.
I also noted that after sanding off all the details on the adapter, it is now a bit too narrow. To fix that I cut a cone pattern from 0.010 sheet styrene and glued it to the outside of the adapter using Plasti-Zap CA glue.
I test fitted all the major parts to see where I still need work.
Overall the fit looks pretty good. I’ll have to add another strip of 0.10 x 0.060 styrene to the upper edge of the adapter so that it will extend up a bit over the capsule. That should get the capsule fit where I want it.
The drawings indicate that the adapter had stiffening stringers around it. They were 1″ x 1″ on the full size vehicle. At 1/48 scale that means that I need to use 0.020″ x 0.020″ styrene strips to model the stringers. The drawings also say that they were 3° 20″ apart around the adapter. That makes 108 stringers total. I’m not sure I have enough strip stock, so time for a trip to the local Hobby Town.
That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in. Much more work to be done.
Luhman-ations 