Falcon 9 / Dragon 1/96 [AXM] (2)

Here she is. A long white pillar with nine engines. the capsule was not hard to construct but also not really easy. It took some skill to get the shape of the curved heat shield edges right and to get the end cap on the top a bit more flush.

Sorry for the greenish glare on the pictures but it already was dark outside and I photographed with fluorescent tube light so it's not the best quality..
More stuff after the jump.

In the end I left off the main part of the heat shield because the aft end would cover all of it anyway. The design of the curved heat shield edges has been very ingeniously done. When done correctly one can almost not see any gaps in the curvature. Very nice indeed.




The "trunk", Dragon's aft section,  has a cylindrical shape with two flattened sides and thus fits less snugly into the circular upper stage. But there are two fairings covering those flattened parts so there's nothing left to see of that.

Those fairings are a little difficult. They have a very narrow margin in fitting right. I smuggled a little by extending the base of the parts a little more outward. Otherwise the top end, which needs to be following the curve of the capsule's heat shield, wouldn't touch anything of it and leave a big gap between itself and the heat shield.
It took some extra cut glue strips inside to put the fairings into place. The top and bottom edge were secured in place with some masking tape until it was dry.
In the end the Falcon 9 looks good. Perhaps it could need some more refinement in the detailing of the entire rocket - the engine section is beautiful, the capsule is very nicely detailed too, but there is no separable second stage part at all. the rocket is just one long static cylinder. And that's the only thing missing from a further very pretty model. But of course it looks very good as it is, as the newest addition to my ever growing rocket garden.

Up next: 
...
Mir! 
More on that next time.