Space Shuttle Endeavour with ET and SRB's in 1/96 [Part 1]

After almost two years without spacecraft builds, I thought it might be time to return to my main interest: spaceflight. I chose to build something which was on my list from the beginning, an 1/96 Shuttle stack, to fit in with the rest of my rockets and launch vehicles.

I chose to do Raimondo Fortezzas’ shuttle model because it has a lot of detail. I have come to love the smaller-sized shuttle stack by Alfonso Moreno but I already have built that one four times (and I still have to build the Challenger in 1/400 to complete the series). Besides, it was time for a biggie. Here's a taste of what is to come, there's more if you read the rest of the story.

On the right the original Fortezza- shuttle, left the photorealistic variant.

The blanket type of insulation on the Shuttle is very well imitated on the left shuttle.

Now. this Fortezza-designed shuttle already is a looker, but some years ago, paper modeler colleague Arvydas created a very photorealistic skin for this shuttle, which looks extraordinary nice. So I am going to try and build that one. The tank and SRB’s will be using Bill Spencer’s plans as a template, but will be made up out of colured paper and photo paper. My paper modelling colleague and friend David Hanners has built this stack 10 years ago. It is the original Fortezza version but he too has tinkered a lot with the Shuttle and the other elements. His build is very inspiring to look at and a good lead for me to do this one myself.

Now I have become a little reluctant in doing a step by step build report over the coming weeks. Not that I don’t want to show my obvious and unavoidable failures before posting a final model, but these days it seems that I more easily abandon builds when I write work-in-progress-reports. Or so it seems. Well, let’s try. This model could do with a good photographic guide because Fortezzas’ drawings are sometimes a bit hard to read.

The first try went well, as seen here. The official build lies below. This is one part, and it has lots of small incisions and flimsy parts after cutting. Be careful!

I first wanted to take a try on how this model goes together. Kind of to get familiar with the idiom, so to say. And I would recommend that with this model. I printed the sheet with the cabin on it and glued it together. It is tricky but it is an astonishing result. Especially the way the windows attach to the fuselage in front of it. It needs a lot of bending, careful folding fiddling and glueing. It is a very precise fit. The seams are almost invisible. Now, I want to depict a stack like it is on the pad, so the RCS thrusters on the nose won’t be opened, in fact, they will be covered up with the paper membrane covers. After I got the hang of it, it was time to start the official build. So I printed out the rest of the photorealistic skins and the original Fortezza manual. Here we go.

The first part immediately is hard. The cabin part is one piece and has complex shapes. Amazing piece of paper engineering. The bottom comes together following the tile pattern and that is a precise little job. When you want to cut out the windows to add the real windows underneath, this it the time to do it (Don’t forget the airlock glass in the side). Also, when you want to use the parts to give depth to the RCS thrusters, now you have to cut them out.
I took my time to colour the edges with a Caran d’ Ache watercolour pencil (#3888 - Beige Fonce- Cocoa), a nice neutral dark shade to prevent edges looking too black after construction but still being dark enough to blend in with the rest of the model. It’s a technique really love to use.

I went to the art shop in town a couple of days back to get myself some more of these tertiary colours, and I bought Faber-Castell watercolour pencils in the Albrecht Dürer series, 8200-105 (Ivory); 8200-270 and -271 (Warm Grey I and II) and for upcoming WW2 planes I got me a 8200-169 (Caput Mortuum) and 8200-174 (Chromium Green Opaque). Now I must admit, I use these pencils intuitively, I never look whether the colour is 100% the same with the printed paper parts but it has to feel the same. I even sometimes mix colours. (And I am colourblind but I am pretty good in the tertiary colours, aas long as they aren’t in the brownish green/red section.

With the cabin almost closed up, its time to pay attention to the windows. They have to be glued together before you add the ‘glass’ behind them. With the small incisions across the hull’s surface to get the right shape, you also have the risk to get creases and unwanted folds. I use my ball-embossing tools to prevent and un-crease the folds. The windows *have* to be pulled down to the nose section in front witn some force. It looks like it is not going well but let the glue do its job and try to work the cockpit window section into the right shape with your fingers.

The nose cone is a piece of art. Great shape, great fit. Now here were the first glue tabs I encountered, and I just cut them off. I hate glue tabs becauset they cause steps in the model’s skin. I use small strips to glue from the inside against the seams.
Here too, the edge colouring is very important. I just wet my pencil with some spit and it all goes easy. Like I said before, it doesn’t have to be the same colour but it helps if it’s somewhere near. If in doubt, use a suitable shade of grey to compensate. Grey blends in with any colour.

A great piece of paper engineering, this cabin. Just one piece, apart from the nose and the window parts.

Just to show how the cabin and the payload bay look together. The aluminium cup is to keep the bay straight during the drying process.

Cabin ready, time for the payload bay section. A couple of layers of paper glued on top, and small (& very narrow) glue tabs which in this case are useful (read the instructions before you start) and a nice reinforcing beam on the inside by folding the paper with some valley and mountain folds.
This part wasn’t so hard. I will probably choose to leave the payload bay empty andf the doors closed, so I am not going to make much of an effort here.

A lool inside the folded wing. I cut off the glue tabs. The ventral section has to fit with the underside of the wing. You have to work around the protruding parts of the wing, they will come soon.

Using loose glue strips will give you a much cleaner result.

But take your precautions and also colour the middle section of the glue strips. You shouldn't see any white peep between the seams.

The loose part of the RCC leading edge. It also needs some attention. I use shortened knitting needles in different sizes (here I used a #3 and a #5 for the curving.

The wings are again a work of genius. With a shortened knitting needle I folded and worked the wings into their shape. Here too were glue tabs and I removed almost all of them. Just up front an din the back I left a tab on. After folding,I glued the wing sections together, using inner glue strips to almost seamlessly connect the left and right wing to the central section. the wing’s RCC leading edge has a couple of separate pieces in the curvature of the wing that need to go on separately.

Now here we are. Next is the assembly of the payload bay with the wing section. And I fear the small glue tabs along the fuselage will be troublesome. I asked David Hanners how he did it and he gave me some valuable tips.

The wing needs to go over the tabs and be glued there. There's already a lot of tension on the wing due to the curves and I am afraid the tension is stronger than the tabs eventually can hold on to.

When pulled to the fuselage wall, you can see the wing wants to do different things than Paper Kosmonaut tells him to. I only have two hands. I could do with two more here. We'll see what I can do about it...

See you soon, hopefully.
--PK