Flis kits Saturn 1b build thread

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I am going to use strips of plastic to make the cable tunnels for the S-IVb stage For the smaller tunnel I used Plastruct .020 x .040 strip

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for the larger tunnel I used Evergreen HO 4x8 .043 x.090 strip.

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the larger tunnel is drying..I masked off and painted the portion of the tunnel that will be in the black IU and roll band.
 
while these are drying, I am going to work on the S-1b (first ) stage antennae. These are flat panels that are located every 90 degrees around the booster. The panels will be cut out of this part of the instruction sheet (I made copies..) and will be glued in place on the booster.

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I used some plastruct .010 x.040 strip and then painted it bright yellow. These are to be the blade antennae that will be glued (hopefully...) on the radio panels. These will be trimmed to size and then glued in the marked locations on the radio panels. I think these little yellow blade antennae should look cool on the booster.

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sorry progress has been slow up here...its been a busy week at work...but I am not complaining..thankful to have a job...thanks for following along with my build. I hope you guys are enjoying it. This is sweet little kit!
 
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OK...the S-IVb stage cable tunnels are on!....I used plastic strips...cut them according to the plan

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and then painted the portion that would over lap the roll band and IU band.

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I think they look good!

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next up are the S-1b first stage telemetry antennae....I printed a copy of the radio panels on card stock and then carefully trimmed them out using a straight edge to make nice clean cuts

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the kit allows you to add as much detail to the build as you feel comfortable with. Since the Saturn 1b is my all time favorite, I like to add some extra detail to her. I used some small plastic strips and painted them a bright yellow. These will be the aerial antennae. (see post #62) I trimmed the yellow strips to size and then glued them in place on the radio panels

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a really good pair of tweezers will be your friend with this build. The tweezers I am using I bought a quilt show that I went to with my wife. She is a quilter and they actually had some really nice and fine ones that come in handy on small cuts like these
 
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here are some more pictures of the completed panels and a couple of shots of a test fit to show how they will look on the booster. I like them on there...the yellow adds a neat little touch of color and detail to a cool looking S-1b stage!

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I wanted to try to add that cable tunnel that runs down the fuel tank on the S-1b stage...its located to the left of the red PDS line....

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I tried cutting small lengths of plastruct .030 x.040 strips to replicate that tunnel...I then used white glue to glue them in place...not sure if you can really see these or not...but just trying to add some detail to the first stage

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telemetry panels are on! I think they look good there! Good day's work! going to give my eyes a break I think! :eyepop:

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continuing to work on the booster today....I started painting my fins and messed them up...so they are back outside drying...going to start over....still do not like how they look so I may end up trying something differently with them....but yesterday I took some plastic strips and make our retro rocket packages...these attach to the right side of the roll band.....cut them to length and gently rounded one corner and glued them in place.

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next...I wanted to highlight the separation point on the S-1b / S-IVb stage...I used some chrome Line O Tape pinstripe tape...this joint is directly above the interstage roll band....just a little touch of color to the booster.

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it was my hope that maybe I could hang the fins today...but I don't think that is going to happen lol......so I might start some detail work on our Apollo/CSM/SLA combination....the tower is coming!! :y: But I think I can do it!! :horse:There some stuff I want to do to our little spacecraft before we get to that tower!! we are just getting started with this little rocket! Hope you guys are enjoying the build and as always thanks for following!
 
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This is a wonderfully DEEP build thread, and I'm loving it! Those wraps are very cool too.

I am very interested in seeing the escape tower and CSM work.
 
this kit is amazing! It deserves a build thread of its own. I am having a blast with this! Big thank you to Saluki again on the wraps! He did a great job with them!!

I just made another set of fins and took another shot at papering them...much better so far! I am learning as I go with this build! stay tuned for the CSM...if I can pull off what I am planning I think you will like it!

This is a wonderfully DEEP build thread, and I'm loving it! Those wraps are very cool too.

I am very interested in seeing the escape tower and CSM work.
 
Where would we be without Plastruct and Evergreen ,I must have every type of styrene part they make and then some....(from both rockets and my model airplane building days)

Man ,that rocket looks absolutely beautiful ,nice work as always Rick !!!!

And as others have mentioned ,a great build thread.....very involved....love that.

Paul T
 
thanks for the kind words Paul...much appreciated!! Its a neat little kit and I am having fun. Learning some techniques as I go along and that is always fun!Building 1/72 scale models comes in handy some times!!!

I am surprised that there are not more threads out for this little kit so I thought I would make this thread as detailed as possible with the hope that someone who builds it might find it helpful or someone who thought that its too hard would be able to see that it really isn't that bad of a build (famous last words...I still have that tower to build!!:shock:.) The kit actually has three skill levels factored into the instructions....skill level 3 for a conventional build, level 4 (where I mine is...building the tower with plastruck) and the level 5 where you build the tower with metal pieces that are soldered together! Saluki's wraps really help with the finishing of the kit...I was pulling out my black canopy trim decal sheets to make roll bands up here...I went with the wraps cause they are too sweet not to use.

and yes..I totally agree..Evergreen and Plastruck are just great products...every shape and size imaginable! just perfect for small details...especially on a little guy like this one...she will stand about 9" tall when all said and finished.

hope you are doing well up there and I hope you are getting ready for football season! I sure am!

Rick


Where would we be without Plastruct and Evergreen ,I must have every type of styrene part they make and then some....(from both rockets and my model airplane building days)

Man ,that rocket looks absolutely beautiful ,nice work as always Rick !!!!

And as others have mentioned ,a great build thread.....very involved....love that.

Paul T
 
OK...sorry progress has been slow so far....its been a busy at work and the next couple of days into the weekend will be just as busy. Not losing steam on this build...far from it! work has been busy and on Friday I am travelling up to visit my son at college and catch a football game with him so it will be a fun couple of days.

This kit has you paper the fins for added strength. I just didn't like my first couple of efforts on the fins so I decided to take another shot at them. I have never papered fins before so its kinda neat to learn a new way of doing things. My new fins are certainly not perfect...but they are far better than my first couple of sets!

the kit comes with a set of paper templates. I found that they just didn't fit the fins that I cut correctly. There is nothing wrong with this kit....its the builder. I think I just didn't sand the fins enough...but balsa of this size can be kinda tricky so I decided to just make the paper template a tad bit bigger....this allowed me to paper the entire fin and trim off any excess.

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I have a coat of flat white paint on these and now the next step will be to paint the roll pattern on the fins. These seem much better to me. The process of painting the fins on a Saturn 1b can be a chore...but, I personally think the painted fins on the 1b are very very cool. So it will be worth the effort!

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while the fins were drying, I used some additional Evergreen strips to cut and sand our APS units.

I will glue these onto the inter stage tomorrow..

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I am anxious to start painting the fins! The 1b has beautiful raked fins and they really make that booster pop once they are on there. I am hoping I can start painting some tomorrow. Thanks for following! This is such cool model rocket...I am already thinking of rolling right onto the SA-205 Apollo 7 (black and white tanks) kit when I wrap up this one!!!
 
sorry for no pictures tonight....making progress though! I have 6 out of 8 fins painted up here.....I was on a roll but then forgot that I had agreed to go shopping with my wife ...:facepalm:...and I have learned to listen to She Who Must be Obeyed...:no:...:

I admit..unless I shopping for a model rocket or plastic model...I hate shopping....will post more pictures tomorrow!

thanks for following the build!
 
sorry for no pictures tonight....making progress though! I have 6 out of 8 fins painted up here.....I was on a roll but then forgot that I had agreed to go shopping with my wife ...:facepalm:...and I have learned to listen to She Who Must be Obeyed...:no:...:

I admit..unless I shopping for a model rocket or plastic model...I hate shopping....will post more pictures tomorrow!

thanks for following the build!

Rick,
I always take something to read in the car while my wife shops. It is amazing how many new subjects I have learned during that reading time.
Bob
 
Bob...I would have loved to do that but I was asked the dreaded question...."I need your opinion..." What that means is that she does not know what to do and the first opinion to be discarded of the several that will be obtained is mine. What made it worse was that I was forced to enter the store that I dislike the most on the planet Earth...Bed Bath and Beyond. I would rather go to North Korea than enter that store. Simply too much estrogen in there. It was terrible.

Rick,
I always take something to read in the car while my wife shops. It is amazing how many new subjects I have learned during that reading time.
Bob
 
OK...I do this every time....:facepalm:

as you can see from the attached picture..I reversed the roll pattern on the fin....black should be on the bottom.

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I have repainted the black portion to flat white and in a few minutes will tape out and repaint the fin correctly. Its GO fever up here...in too much of a hurry to hang the fins. I love the 1b and I love those cool looking fins, I really really do...they are sexy!....then again...there are EIGHT of them to paint....lol!
 
OK....all 8 fins are on....they are not perfect by any stretch...but not bad over all. Looks like a Saturn 1b booster to me!!

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I will have to take a break on the build for a few days ..but when I come back I will spray a gloss coat on the fins and then apply the fin decals. Always want to apply decals on a gloss surface. Once they are on I will spray a dull coat on the fins and thrust structure. APS modules are ready to go on and I have to make some ullage rockets and I think this booster will be done...and time to move onto the space craft!
 
OK...home from a great visit with my son for a few days....time to have some fun with the 1b!

I sprayed a gloss coat on the fins and thrust structure this morning and shortly will try to put some decals on the fins. going to put the APS modules on the inter stage...these are silver fairings that are located on the inter stage . I am attaching a picture of the real SA-207 (Al Bean's Saturn 1b for Skylab) You can see that APS module is located on the left side of an inter stage roll band

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APS modules are on!

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OK....next to be added are the ullage rockets...once again I went with some plastic Evergreen strips...on parts this small I have always found it difficult to make them out of balsa..i tend to crush the little pieces in the soft wood...

I just tried to get three triangular shapes close enough in size and they get added around the interstage

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the fin numbers are on....I can't state enough about the quality of the decals provided with the kit....you will note that the Saturn 1b has fin numbers that are marked on every other fin...even those the kit decals are of excellent quality, if you haven't worked with decals a lot I would suggest using a wet paint brush to gently move the decal off and into position taking care to gently damp up any excess water. I also made a mistake when I put the wraps on..I should have sprayed a clear coat on them prior to working on them because in another area some water from applying a decal got onto the wrap and left a water mark on the Instrument Unit wrap. This time I clear coated the thrust structure wrap and took care to make sure that the booster was angled so that any water would run away from the wrap...just trying to give tips for anyone that tries this awesome kit..

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here is a picture of my SA-207 booster....I am not all that happy with the fin fairings that I made..I think I can do a better job with those and will try it on a later build. But overall, I think it looks OK.

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Time to move onto the spacecraft and then the tower!
 
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OK...this might be insanity...but I want to try to make a BPC for our little Apollo capsule...I started by trimming out the paper tower that the kit provides is you just don't want to make a tower out of plastic strip the size of your hair!

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I used this tower to get an idea of roughly where to position the top band of the BPC. In real life, it looks like the upper portion of the cover was a built up area and since I don't think I can make that, I tried to replicate it with a strip of tape. I am using 1/64 white pin stripe...

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