Space Shuttle Endeavour with ET and SRB's in 1/96 [Part 5]

Now that the orbiter is finished, it was time to build the external tank. There is no single to-go model to base your build on, there have been at least six or seven variants of the external tank. And they sometimes even varied between one mission.
Now my intention never was to be 100% accurate. Moreso, I think rivet counters might not like my builds. I might have said this before but I like to build my models to look realistic but above all, they have to look good. They do not necessarily have to be 100% the same as the real thing but they got to create the impression they look the part.
Here is where I am now for those of you who are in a hurry, The rest of the story shows how I got there. 

It sure does look nice, huh? Why don't you read the rest of the story? There's a nice cliffhanger.
I already showed two picture of the cone part in my previous post but let's tell the sory here in full. To start, I chose some thick card with a nice colour that resembled the average colour of the External Tank. I have a big pile of coloured paper stocked and this is where is comes in handy. I used an enlarged (104%) version of Bill Spencer's External Tank model to scale things up to 1/96. The large parts were joined to a single piece to create a seamless long body for the LOX part of the tank. The Liquid Hydrogen tank part and bottom cap were for another sheet.

The cone was easy to build and looked nice. I then got the idea to take a piece of sandpaper and started to sand the cone until the seams were blending in, and the hull got a nice roughened, irregular and almost woolly texture.

A more yellowish type of card would be used for the intertank. Parts were cut for the hydrogen cone of the ET. In the meantime the larger intertank was cut and rolled up in a cardboard cylinder to set a little and awaiting further work.

It took some effort, but also the largest part of the ET was curved, glued and reinforced with a couple of rings inside. (I first rolled up a second piece of thick paper to serve as an inner wall, this way, when you push in the tight fitting paper rings, you won't be seeing ribbing on the outside.) And sanding. Lots of sanding. Sanding sanding sanding until the surface was nice and textured. The seams were placed exactly so that when the fuel lines and cable runs will be glued on, they will be invisible.

Up next, the intertank. I first wanted to make the corrugated ribbing by using thin paper strips but then I got hold of a pieces of finely ribbed card, used in packaging and I decided that that also would look good. It took some paint and a little trial an error. But there it was. The intertank.

The bottom cap was easy stuff. Now it's time for some posing against the 1/96 N1 to get a grasp of its size.

Nose cone cap. Scratch built and the pointy bit is a cocktail stick.

Next, Cable run. Now take note: this is not 100% accurately modeled, but it looks darn good and I am not going to change it. (The part below the intertank officially consists of two parallel running small metal tubes, encased in braces placed in intervals over the ET's hull.) The run itself was made out of grey card, doubled up to gain some thickness and placed ovr the seam of the cone section. (The seam over the main tank part will be covered by the fuel line.)
On both sides of the cable run I placed carefully cut parts that serve as the clamps that keep the run in place. They are encapsulated in the foam insulation layer of the tank. These parts were made by glueing two colours of card on top of one another and sand one side edge off to a slope. Then I cut a small strip, and while cutting in an angle, I tried to make the pieces angular as well. Then they were glues in pairs along the cable run. Now, tell me. This looks good too. Admit it. Come on, admit it. It looks good.

[EDIT] Well... Of course, right after posting this, doubt started to nibble away at my confidence. Yeah, it looks good. Yeah, most people might not even notice it isn't how it should look. But just look at the scale. Look at it. I have made models in 1/400 that are more detailed than this (well, almost..). So, no, it suddenly wasn't satisfactory any more. I had to do it. I took the tank apart. I need to do it better. I kept the cone, the bottom cap and the intertank, but the latter will be thoroughly modified and the rest of the detailing will be redone.

So here we are. Back to square two. Still a lot to do. But that is for another post. Until then, keep safe and happy building.
Thanks for passing by!
--PK