Ariane 5 1/96, pt. 16 - the EAPs [part 2]

We're getting somewhere. The first EAP is almost finished. The only thing left to do is making the struts which attach the booster to the core stage.
Lots of the work done the past few days is scratch built stuff. The first tube now has its greeblies and all the protrusions it also has in real life.

More after the jump. As usual.

So let's start out where we left: We had one stove pipe with a cone on top. I added some golden bands around the tube at the place the parts are segmented. Now one tube had the nose cone, with the ball inside, the retro rockets and all that. Now the next one.

 

There is number two.  Now the engine bell. The EAPs have a big nozzle for blowing out all that powdered power inside. Both free kits offer an engine bell that looks nothing like the real thing. Too small, too narrow and too straight. So I made one myself. I used the measurements of the lower skirt of the booster to get some of the scale and just eyeballed the rest. The nozzle now consists of three main parts, the bell has a wide lower part and a narrower upper part. They fit exact on top of each other and I edge glued them together. The silver strip over the seam is aluminium tape. The upper part is rolled paper. Lots of strips went in there. I painted it anthracite but in the end you can't see a thing of it. The tube over the nozzle is a bit of metal wire. The paper used was very heavy card, which I painted three times with a clear gloss coat layer.

The skirt was added and a small strip of aluminium tape around the base. The glue tab on the outside? Yes. Inside I glued a layer of metallic paper, the seam and the glue tab will be covered with the thrust vectoring machinery and the accompanying gas bottle.

On top of the engine bell I  used small black triangles to imitate the shape of the mass inside. The cone was painted black with Tamiya matt black.

My pièce de résistance for today: the thrust vectoring gas bottle and its attachment. All hand made, no kit parts used. It looks very pretty.

At the skirt you can just discern the retro rockets. Thre are four of them. Here you also can see I painted the chrome strip over the engine bell black. Up next" somewhat the same as this, but with the other stove pipe. See you soon and thanks for stopping by.

--PK