Posts: 24 From: Huntington Beach, CA, USA Registered: May 2013
posted 11-17-2018 12:08 AM
This build-up started early last Summer as more or less a straight build-up of the less-than-accurate Dragon Apollo CSM and LM kits, no particular mission, kind of getting my feet (and mind) back into building spacecraft kits after a few year lay-off doing these sorta kits. It quickly snowballed to the point I decided to do a decent Apollo 13 build which of course led to some significant scratch building of many detail parts and pirating extra parts from other Apollo 1/48 kits I have laying around. It's still not as perfect or accurate as I'd want, especially if I simply went with the more accurate Monogram Lunar Module kit.
I used some parts from the Revell Apollo stack kit for the SM blown out interior bay details but due to scale differences, etc, I wound up really kitbashing much of those parts to make them work as best as possible. I think the only (spare) parts I used from the Monogram LM were the two front thruster housings to replace the dreadful ones from the Dragon kit. I had a lot of photoetch spare parts from the respective 1/48 New Ware upgrade kits which helped a lot and used the CSM and LM Ultimate decal kits for the markings.
Finally, the moon base was a plain plastic dome base that I filled with resin to give it weight and then literally sculpted out the surface detail on the outside with a dremel and then used a mix of thick super glue and thick gray primer to build up some significant mountains, crater rims, etc. A bit of painting to bring out highlights resulted in a decent lunar surface.
All four individual modules and the base can be disconnected thanks to brass rods and the panel covering the blown out bay is removable. I was going to use magnets but I figured they'd add too much weight to the finished display.
Here are a few photos:
Gilbert Member
Posts: 1328 From: Carrollton, GA USA Registered: Jan 2003
posted 11-17-2018 07:22 AM
Very nice!
Ronpur Member
Posts: 1211 From: Brandon, Fl Registered: May 2012
posted 11-17-2018 10:50 PM
Very impressive!!
SpaceCadet1983 Member
Posts: 227 From: United States Registered: May 2012
posted 11-18-2018 12:23 AM
Outstanding!
Interkomos Member
Posts: 19 From: Moscou Registered: Oct 2018
posted 11-18-2018 02:39 AM
Very nice display!
Congratulations, it makes you want to collect the models.
apolloprojeckt Member
Posts: 1447 From: Arnhem, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2009
posted 11-18-2018 07:05 AM
Top work, looks great!!!
dsenechal Member
Posts: 539 From: Registered: Dec 2002
posted 11-18-2018 06:37 PM
Beautiful work!
postmanpat Member
Posts: 22 From: Melbourne, Australia Registered: Nov 2018
posted 11-20-2018 02:40 PM
Fantastic build!!
Planetary Member
Posts: 24 From: Huntington Beach, CA, USA Registered: May 2013
posted 09-21-2019 06:17 PM
Here is a recent build-up I did of Apollo 9 which started out as a Lunar Module kitbash using leftover parts from an old Revell kit for most of the Descent Stage and the Dragon kit for the Ascent Stage with a lot of small bits scratch built or taken from the Neware Resin/Photoetch upgrade kit. It started off as an excercise in learning new techniques for foiling and doing the Ascent Stage body using Bare Metal sheet foil (Aluminum).
One thing I wanted with the build was to have the LM legs poseable which is why I used much of the Revell parts for the Descent Stage. Once I got near the end of the LM build, I decided to go all-out and use a spare Dragon CSM kit to make the complete spacecraft. All four modules can be displayed separately or together as shown.
apolloprojeckt Member
Posts: 1447 From: Arnhem, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2009
posted 11-17-2018 12:08 AM
advertisement