Proton-M 1/96 bare metal edition [5]

I suddenly realised there was something wrong with the second stage. I had forgotten the part of the 2nd interstage with the flags on it was white and I also really wanted to do something more with the blast holes in the top of the stage. So what else was there to do than just take the whole stage apart?

Rip 'er to shreds!

 How I went ahead and what happened, after the jump.

This is a long one with a lot of pictures. I've been a little slow in posting the last couple of days and that's the reason it is long. Well, enjoy it anyway.
Here's what I started out with: an almost finished second stage, looking reasonably good, tight seams and nice and straight. All engines are looking good, it stands straight up, and I even detailed the engine bells.

I happened to get hold of one very special Xacto knife: a double-barreled one! This makes small but super straight lines in one cut a possibility. I used it for the plumbing on the engine bells.

But look at the top part: the interstage is one piece with the second stage and normally this is no problem but the part with the flags on it is not metallic. It's white. And the top has these printed blast holes for the upper stage but they're not open. I would like them opened from the beginning but I kind of forgot it when I did the second stage. I even painted the white part of the Russian flag white so it would stand out. Anyway, I decided to rip the whole shebang apart. And so I did.

This was what I was left with. The tank dome top and the bottom engine part. The rest could not be used again. I printed out new parts and wondered, thought and pondered on how I could make those open blast holes. it took a few days. Then I had some time again and started with what I had designed in my head.

The bigger parts were a piece of cake and they looked well. The four small parts that would make up the inner pieces of the blast holes were tested by one freehand-cut piece on a template. It was spot on. Just a very small adjustment in the angle of the side panels was the only thing I had to change. After that, I cut out three more and started the assembly of all the parts.

 The bottom part. Easy-peasy. tight fit again, even better. The fun started with the upper parts. I didn't worry for a second about the flag piece, that just was a cylinder which would go on top of the "Proton" lettered part. The blast hole piece had a small problem: the overhanging "lips" were not attached to the rest of the ring that would be formed after cutting. I solved the problem by first cutting out the complete blast hole, including the "lips". Then I glued the part on a thin strip of paper, in a lighter aluminium tint. I curved it a little and then I glued the cut-off lips back in their original place. Then I cut out the blast holes again, leaving the lips in place. This way I also created a glue strip for the part below and a fitting ring for the stage above. After that, I started to glue in the blast hole 'slides':

Top view

Bottom view. All is glued with CA.

And there we are. Back where we were a couple of days ago but also somewhat further down the line. The next step is the conduits and cable runs on the second stage and interstage parts. The smaller ones on the white part of the interstage have some big black outlines on all the photo's I found. Now how are we going to recreate that? I guess black paper and pencil will come in handy here!
'til next time!