luke strawwalker
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thanks Mushtang!! I am glad you like the thread and I appreciate the comments! I will try to make this as good as your threads...but that will be tough to do do...your build threads are just fantastic! This is really a fun kit to build. It is my favorite Dr. Zooch rocket. I just love this kit! Its a fun build, challenging but looks neat and flies great...just solid as a rock in flight....was a late night at work...got home at 8:30 pm.....so there won't be any work done tonight....going to be a busy week at work up here, but I will post more as soon as I can.
regarding your question of scale...the Zooch Saturn 1b and the Saturn V are not the same scale....in real life, the Saturn 1b was @224 feet tall and the Saturn V was 363 feet tall.....so the 1b was significantly smaller....I believe his Saturn V stand @18 inches tall and the 1b is @17.5 inches tall...I will attach a picture of my Zooch scale fleet and you will see his Saturn V next to a 1b and the Saturn V kit is just a bit bigger. I have also wondered if the Zooch Vostok/Soyuz and the Saturn 1b are the same scale or not...I recently purchased his Vostok so I'll have to build it to see!
View attachment 114321
According to the Zooch website, the Soyuz and the Saturn IB are the same "ant-scale"... that makes the rockets built to the same "pattern" the same scale-- IE the Saturn I Block II and the Luna, Saturn I Apollo 5, etc...
If you want to know what the particular "ant-scale" for a given kit is, divide a known figure from the real rocket, (say the stage diameter, which for the Saturn S-IVB stage on Saturn V and IB is 260 inches) by the tube size used in the kit for that particular stage (in the case of the Saturn IB, a BT-60 that is 1.637 inches in diameter), which gives you an answer of 152 and some change. So, basically, it's a 1/152 scale kit. The Zooch shuttle uses the same BT-60 tube to represent the 331 inch diameter External Tank, so naturally it's a different "ant-scale". The Zooch Saturn V uses the same BT-60 to represent the 396 inch diameter S-IC and S-II first and second stages of the Saturn V, so naturally it's a smaller 'ant-scale'. The Zooch Mercury Redstone uses the same BT-60 for the main tanks of the 70 inch diameter Redstone, so naturally it's a much larger scale... BTW, the BT-50 based "Zooch Freedom 7 Mercury Redstone" and the "Zooch Mercury-Atlas" are in the same scale, since the Atlas uses a BT-60 for the 120 inch diameter Atlas rocket main body. This makes a nice pair to display together...
SO, why all the coyness about what exactly "ant-scale" is?? Well, first off, "ant scale" isn't a constant, as we've seen... it depends on the kit, though there are some commonalities. Second, if Wes said "this kit is 1/152 scale" he'd have every rivet counter and scale guru on the planet coming out of the woodwork to nitpick and b!tch and moan about "this or that not being to scale"... which is technically correct, in that these are NOT "internats" scale models, NOR ARE THEY MEANT TO BE... these are "semi-scale" or "near-scale" models, and there IS a certain 'fudge factor' build in that, to scale "purists" (IE anal-retentive), are "not to scale" or "unacceptable". SO, to avoid the pitchfork-n-torch mobs, he simply sells them as "ant-scale" and makes NO reference to the scale whatsoever, much to some folk's chagrin... but, then again, it's not exactly a secret of the universe to figure out for yourself what "scale" the rockets are intended to be, since Wes will only give a cryptic answer such as "44 hands=12 rods per furlong" or something to that effect (for reasons already mentioned). For instance, there's a "fudge factor" in my BT-80 Saturn V... if you divide out the 396 inch diameter of the Saturn V by the 2.6 inch diameter of the BT-80 tube, you'll find that the "scale factor" is 152 and some change. Divide the 260 inch diameter of the S-IVB upper stage by the 1.637 in diameter BT-60, and you'll find that the scale factor is 158. (or vice-versa, but you get the idea). So, the rocket is sorta "stuck" between the two... but it's better than going looking for NON-EXISTANT tubes, especially when the difference in sizes between "what's needed" and what "is actually 'scale'" is only a matter of a few thousandths of an inch (or even a few dozen thousandths of an inch). For internats competition, yeah, it's THAT critical to get ALL the figures dead-on perfect... for a "sport-scale" rocket, not so much... (especially one that's not even in competition!)
Clear as mud??? LOL Once you get used to playing with the numbers, it's easy to upscale or downscale anything you want to whatever size you want.
Later! OL JR