"Okay, Hunt Club, are you ready for the pick up?" [pt.8]

Yesterday I did a lot of things. I cooked dinner for four, I did some necessary house cleaning and I did some work on Hunt Club. I just didn't take any pictures. I was in a flow and just kept on building. The landing gear was added. Made of brass and aluminium it sure is sturdy. CA was used as bond. I painted it green with one of the dozens leftover enamel tins I still have. The colour matches quite well. I also made the complete tail section and the tail rotor unit. So there is where we pick up the thread.

"Okay, Hunt Club, are you ready for the pick up?" [pt.7]

So there we are again. I did find some time to do some building after all. Small progress, in size as well in adding stuff to the model. Just a few bits and bods here and there. First of all I closed up the cockpit. it was a tight fit and it needed some serious tender force to get the large side window frames into place. I had to take account of the thick paper (as usual) and cut off some of the bulkhead at the back of the seats. When it finally was snug into position I used some Tamiya masking tape to keep it there until the glue set.

The rotor cowling was made and for reinforcement reasons I wrapped a paper strip around a brass tube so the main rotors are able to spin.

"Okay, Hunt Club, are you ready for the pick up?" [pt.6]

Hmz. grmbl. Something I feared appeared true. My better-in-the-know friends on Papermodelers.com told me the model I had was a pirated copy when I told them where I got it from. It was something I didn't expect. But I immediately started the search for the right one. I could only just discern the name of the original publisher on the tiny pictures on that site (which I shall not name). With that information it was relatively easy to find the original site. A little later someone on Papermodelers came up with the same site so then I knew for sure this was the kosher one (it actually was an Israeli site) to obtain my model from. So I immediately got myself a legal one from there and that's how I solved the problem.
I have made some progress in the meantime.
First, the nose has been put in place. easy job, although it was a bit spacious here and a bit too narrow there. With a bit of fiddling and gentle force it was all handled and taken care of.
No pictures of that, I am afraid. But you can see a bit of the nose in the first three shots:

Hard to see but I have left a hole open in the nose for the three protruding engine exhaust pipes.

"Okay, Hunt Club, are you ready for the pick up?" [pt.5]

I just made some chairs for the helicopter. With the door open it was obvious there must be something to see inside. I did two sets of chairs, seven in total. It was kind of hard because of the size, they're far from perfect but it is relatively dark inside the helo and there will be a figure in the opening looking down to Liberty Bell so there won't be much to look at but there is some bustle and that was the point of it. The hull has been cut and prepared for assembly. I also did the inside walls, printed out on thin paper, and used some transparent cellophane plastic for the windows in between those two layers. After the closing up it will be the nose parts and the cockpit. Soon I will have to actually think of how I have to make those men in the helicopter. I still have no idea... Hmmm....

The first set of chairs were made like they should, with separate N-shaped parts.

They kind of look good, but they are a bit crooked and bent. I wouldn't like a ride on those chairs..

"Okay, Hunt Club, are you ready for the pick up?" [pt.4]

Time for some helicopter stuff again.

This one was also quite severely reduced compared to its original scale. From 1/32 to 1/96th is a third of its original size. Luckily, it works out very well. I keep on getting amazed how well these reductions in size keep the model doable in terms of fit and its ability to have all the small parts cut out rather well.

...Where will this lead to?

Quite a sturdy little frame.

Adding some furniture and cupboards to the office

Gallery added!

I dove a little deeper into the world of blogging. I made a second page to this blog, a picture gallery in which I will show you some other and older things I made.

Hope you like it. You'll find the link in the sidebar, right on top.

"Okay, Hunt Club, are you ready for the pick up?" [pt.3]

The "water" has been added. Wonderful weird and amazing stuff, that acrylic paste. It is milky white when you apply it but it dries up transparent. I carefully did one thin layer last night to try it out. This morning, the result was encouraging and I added a second, much thicker layer and was more bold with the brush I applied it with. I made the frothy wave heads a little thicker and made more of a bustle around the Mercury's landing bag. I let some gloops of the paste come out of the capsule's hatch opening to imitate a gulp of water. I bended the brass tube a little in the bell-shape of the spacecraft so the fit was better.

More after the break!

"Okay, Hunt Club, are you ready for the pick up?" [pt.2]

A dab of paint and the first mercury capsule (I don't know if this will be the final version).

That's what I can show you this time.

With the colour on the base it already starts to look like the ocean surface. White heads on the waves and eventually the darker parts and rotor wash after the second layer of paint.

Just the blue underlayer. It already looks quite good. I took it out of its frame today, for letting the gypsum dry better and to repaint the frame itself.

"Okay, Hunt Club, are you ready for the pick up?" [pt.1]

To those of you who are a little bit more than just familiar with the early days of spaceflight this sentence will hopefully remind them of the troublesome rescue attempt of Liberty Bell 7, America's second suborbital spaceflight with Gus Grissom at the controls. It was when Grissom hit the water and was waiting for the helicopters to arrive. Callsigns 'Hunt Club 1' and 'Card File 9', two Sikorsky UH-34 Sea Horse helo's were approaching and Hunt Club was ready to hook on to the bobbing capsule on the waves while Card File hovered at a distance. Further away two more helo's hovered to film the procedures.

Hunt Club 1 radioed to Gus they were getting ready to hook on and Gus himself was getting rid of his helmet and some hoses. He answered to wait a moment before grabbing the spacecraft so he could jot down some measurements the gauges on the instrument panel showed. He readied the charge of the explosive hatch, so he could press the big knob in the capsule to blow it when Hunt Club 1 was hooked on. He prepared his neck dam, a rubber collar to prevent water to seep into his spacesuit and got a pencil to write down the numbers.

©NASA

Outside the capsule the wires of the parachute, still in the nearness of Liberty Bell 7, got entangled in the outside emergency trigger for releasing the hatch when suddenly, without any warning the hatch was blown off with a loud bang and Gus was surprised by a gust of fresh cold sea air. a wave of water gushed into the capsule. Grissom immediately stopped what he was doing and crawled out of the spacecraft as fast as he could.

N-1 [part 5] Finished!

 First some good news: the A3 printer works fine. It has a nice and fine crisp print. So that's a good addition to the network and for the hobby (I kind of hate that word).

Then some other good news: The N-1 is finished. It was not an easy job, I'd give this model a 4 out of 5 for difficulty. it's good, well designed and detailed but the lack of a decent way to keep the rocket straight and the feather/slot system at several points makes this one very hard to get it to look perfect.

besides that this actually started out as just a survey to get to know this model to build it in 1/96th, it is looking nice now next to the 144th Saturn V (Airfix/RealSpace). these two giants need to be shown next to each other, I think.

Next up: Either the attempt to save Liberty Bell 7 after its splashdown, another 1/400 in-space diorama involving maybe Skylab, or I am going to do another probe or satellite. I have a small preference for the Merc diorama. We'll see.

N-1 [part 4] - and more news.

Blok W has been added to the stack. The higher you get, the easier the stages become. This one with only four engines was done in an hour or two, two-and-a-half. Although I find the small 'lips' where Blok G will be put a little flimsy. I have made the first part of the upper stage already and when fitting it upon Blok W  there was a remaining open space between both stages. Not nice. I'll glue the two together and try and avoid the gap.

A concave business end, four engines and some fairings. That's it.

Blok W placed on Blok B, same method as before, using strips of paper through the truss to try and keep the whole stack as straight as possible.

In this picture it's hard to see the widening of the rocket.

Starting work on Blok G, or N1/L3, the part of the stack with the "Moon Train".

More exciting news after the break!

N-1 [Part 3]

Truss cutting time. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

Luckily, listening to 'Das Wohltemperirte Klavier' (Played by Ivo Jansen) soothed the pain in my fingers. Bach clears the mind and it helped a lot. One and a half hour later I had a cut-out truss in my aching hands.

I painted it in spite of both sides being coloured. The cutting edges revealed a lot of white paper again and it looked just ugly. I let it dry in a circular shape and that kind of helped with the attachment to Blok B.

Blok B's attachment to Blok A was downright hellish. The glue caused the freshly attached part to move while working on the other side. the thing constantly lurched to one or the other side but was never straight.

I found the solution by shoving three small, equally wide strips of paper into the truss just high enough to let Blok B rest upon them and thus being level with Blok A and the interstage truss. Finally it looked straight. I glued both of them together and even was kind of satisfied with the result.

...Until I looked at the whole from a distance. Blimey! Crikey! Golly! Oh Bother! Ugly words involving several illnesses, ailments, a means of transport and crustaceans! Put tweezers on my nipples and call me Shirley! it STILL lurched!

There seemed - after some thorough investigation - to be a problem with the  bottom of the N-1; It rests on the inner part of the engine section and the base ring and I am afraid that part is not level at all. Well, that's too bad. I decided to tweak the standard a little and made one half a little higher so it will compensate for the lurching rocket.

Next to the Saturn V (Polystyrene; Airfix/scratch/RealSpaceModels) it starts to look like a worthy opponent.

Up next: Blok W!

 

Hopefully tomorrow and with a little bit more successful building later on this week there will be more to show.

N-1 [part 2]

Today I worked on Blok B, the second stage of the N-1.
Luckily, because of its size, less tedious to work on than the first one. Just eight engines and eight delicately shaped fuel line fairings. As expected, it all went together very well and easy. The next thing to do is the latticework between the second and third stage, called Blok W because that's how the Cyrillic alphabet rolls.

I will leave that until tomorrow, because it is better to do that with freshly awoken eyes, which can focus better than the tired ones I have now. The callus on my left index finger I get from all that cutting is getting thicker by the minute. (-;

Here are some pictures.

Aaaaargh! That's for tomorrow!