STS - 1 (continued)

Some progress has been made. Real life kicked in and while I would love to have STS-1 quickly finished to get to work on new models, I obviously also have to do my job. Perhaps some of that another time.

I finished the biggest part of the Crawler. I only need to do the walkways along the four sides.
I was amazing how easy everything came together. Alfonso makes models that are well designed and easily reduced in scale.

Biggest issue was the angle in which I had to put the four trucks in order to get the MLP level while the crawler climbs the 5º slope to LC39A.
I used a transparent gel glue to give the trucks some time to adjust to their positions while hardening. After that I did the steering rods that put all the trucks in the right direction. When trying the crawler out for the first time in the late 60s,  they discovered that they couldn't just let the tracks steer the behemoth like a tank or a shovel. With such a delicate load it had to be more subtle.

 Okay, I smuggled. The rotating parts of the engine sections weren't paper cylinders but small pieces of cocktail sticks.

As almost usual, the thickness of the paper causes some displacement issues underneath the tracks. Since this part will be on the crawlerway and not visible, I don't give a flying hoot about this. Ha!
I did, however make the exhaust pipes and mufflers for some extra detail.

 Clearly seen here is the angle of the trucks in relation to the body. It looks kinda weird and maybe even a little grotesque but with the MLP on top it has exactly the good look. Besides...

The deck is completely level. As it should be.
Tomorrow I'll add some more pictures.