Dr. Zooch Saturn 1b build thread

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

NJRick

Saturn 1b nut
TRF Supporter
Joined
Aug 27, 2011
Messages
2,818
Reaction score
25
OK....I am going to try my first build thread...I am pretty certain that most on here have superior building skills than I do, so I am always open for helpful hints and suggestions! I will try to keep this as updated as best I can....this week will be a busy week at work so I am not sure how much progress I'll be able to make..but...there is no hurry I suppose.

I have built a number of these Zooch 1b's for two reasons....First, it is my all time favorite rocket and second I LOVE this kit. No matter how many times I build one I am always amazed at the final product and the simple materials he utilizes to make this rocket. The end result is a rocket that stands @ 17.5" tall and flies great on both a "B" or "C" motor. Along the way I hope to add some additional details to her...we'll see how they turn out?

As always, the kit comes in a sturdy box that will hold the finished rocket...great for taking them to the range. There are quite a few parts as you can see...but nothing we can't handle! I also have a ASTP version...I took a picture of its box for you as well. For this thread, we are going to make Apollo 7's SA-205.

000_0067a.jpg000_0070a.jpg000_0087a.jpg

**Jan 26, 2014** for anyone interested in a Dr. Zooch Skylab or ASTP version of this kit, see page 7 of this thread. I will be building SA-208, or Skylab 4's Saturn 1b. I will make reference to parts of the original build thread and will try to add some other details to this awesome kit! Thanks for checking this thread out and I hope you enjoy.
 
Last edited:
I guess every rocket kit has a heart....and for the Zooch Saturn 1b, the heart of the kit is rolling the tanks. If you can make the tanks, you'll have a sweet looking rocket at the end. Dr. Zooch makes the tanks from rolled card stock paper. I recommend that you make extra copies of the sheets. Set your printer on its best setting and I use 110 lb paper....Make some extras as normally you'll need them. Since I am Saturn 1b nut, and I intend to make other 1bs in the future, I usually roll extra tanks while I am at it. You'll see some ASTP tanks (the later versions of the Saturn 1b had all white tanks) These tanks are NOT included in the SA 205 kit...they are simply extra sheets that I had from a prior build and I wanted to make some extra tanks for a future build. Apollo 7 was the last version to fly with the all black tanks....and I have to admit, she is a sexy looking beast! If you look carefully, the tanks on the right are from a super detailed Zooch Saturn 1b wrap made by Rosko Racer! He is a great guy and made a series of additional wraps that can you use for the Zooch 1b. Thanks Rosko!

I am going to build this a little out of order and start with the tanks first. Lets get the hard part out of the way first I always say...First take a nice straight edge and put a new blade in your knife and trim out the fuel tanks and lox tanks....as you can see, I cut many extras. I always try to choose the best tanks and any extras I set aside for future builds. You can never have too many Saturn 1b fuel/lox tanks ya know...:tongue: As you can see, some of the tanks are already curved....those are the ones that came with the kit all rolled up nicely....the flat ones (copies I made) will be curved later on....

000_0089a.jpg000_0090a.jpg000_0091a.jpg
 
Last edited:
The hard part about rolling the tanks for this kit is not creasing the paper. I am using an ASTP tank for these pics...I am trying to get the tanks that I made out of my copy machine to have a bend or curve...it helps to have that bend when we try to roll them tight...again, the key is to try to do this without creasing the tanks...a creased tank is very bad! :y: but as you can see a couple of gentle rolls around the larger dowel and the paper is starting to bend....my larger dowel is a half inch....we are then going to use the dowel provided with the kit next...that is 3/8"...so as the instructions say...we have to roll them tight, tighter and tightest....in other words, we have to go from a flat piece of paper to a 3/8" rolled tank...

000_0093a.jpg000_0094a.jpg
 
When I made my first Zooch 1b...it was at this step that utter despair had set in....no matter what I did, I could not get the tank to roll around that 3/8" dowel without creasing....then I stumbled across a blog by hcmbanjo aka Chris Michaelson and he gave the tip of steaming the paper to loosen it up and help it roll....it was like discovering the Rosetta Stone (thank you Chris!!)(I cannot recommend his blog enough....its terrific!)....anyway....its is time to break out the Mark 1 teapot and fire it up!

000_0092a.jpg000_0095a.jpg
 
what you want to do is gently steam the paper to loosen it up....of course, try not to cook your fingers while you are doing this....I am not very experienced with paper modelling skills...but the steam seems to loosen or soften the paper....as you can see from the pics it starts to uncurl the paper...you don't need to saturate it, but you'll be able to feel it loosen up after 30 seconds or so...I try to steam both sides of the paper making sure to loosen up the curl that it already has...remember...we gotta get this around a 3/8" dowel...

000_0096a.jpg000_0097a.jpg
 
Looking good so far... I'll be watching this one with great interest!

KUTGW!!! OL JR :)

PS. I'm sorta preferential to the black kerosene tanks myself, but of course the "all white" tanks are "more modern"... and had another run of Saturn IB's ever been produced "for real", they would have been the all-white version...

Somewhere, I think it might have been on one of Mike Robel's builds over on NSF, I saw a basically ALL WHITE Saturn V... only markings were the red "UNITED STATES" and "USA" markings... no roll patterns at all. (Also, no fins on the fairings, but as a static model that hardly matters). Apparently the idea was to show what the Saturn V's would likely have looked like had a second production run been approved beyond the 15 originally built when they shut everything down and eventually scrapped it all...

It just didn't have the same "character" as the Saturn V we know and love... with the ubiquitous paint roll patterns. In the same way, had Saturn IB become the "workhorse" of the space program instead of building the shuttle, it would likely have ended up basically all white excepting the national markings... and at some point would likely have lost its fins (again, like the early Saturn I's). Just wouldn't look the same though...
Later!
 
now comes the fun part...Dr. Zooch recommends that you roll these on a soft surface...so I went to the local dollar store and purchased two foam table mats....a tip: try to use a straight edge to line the paper up to the dowel...you want to try to roll the paper evenly across the dowel...these cheap mats, despite the highly decorative pattern (...not....:eyeroll:) have a nice straight edge in the pattern...I use this straight edge to line the paper up to the dowel. I have also drawn a straight line on my dowels with a sharpie...and then using my old arthritic fingers (somehow I recently discovered that I have inherited my mom's fingers.....:p)

000_0098a.jpg

At first, I try to slowly start to roll the paper around the dowel. You'll want to have a fairly firm grip here so as not to let the paper unravel on the dowel....I try to get a nice tight roll on that first revolution around the dowel, trying to use my fingers across the width of the paper holding it in place while you roll it...

000_0099a.jpg000_0100a.jpg



once you get that first roll nice and tight, you can roll the tanks right up until you have @1/2 inch left to roll or so, and then put a small line of white glue on the paper. It doesn't take much glue to hold these tight. a film should do it nicely.


000_0101a.jpg




once you have the glue down, you can then roll them tight. You'll want to have a fairly firm grip during this entire process because you don't want the paper to unravel and ruin the tank...it does not take a lot of glue to hold these...once I apply the glue...I'll roll the tank back and forth a few times on the mat over the glue joint to make sure its joined tight...

000_0102a.jpg

a tip during this process is to continually keep your hands clean...after a few tanks, especially copies, you'll note that you'll get some ink on your fingers and if not careful, you can smudge up a white tank pretty easily when rolling it. when rolling tanks, I keep two damp paper towels...once for my hands and one to clean the mat after each tank is glued to wipe the glue off the mat for the next tank.
 
Last edited:
once you get the hang of it....you'll find that you can spit tanks out a fairly good pace...I suggest you roll as many as you can and pick the best for the kit....as with anything, some tanks will roll tighter than others ....since its only paper, discard the ones that don't look right or have a small crease with a look of utter disgust,:puke: only the best for this rocket!....I rolled something close to 25 tanks in this sitting....I kept the ones shown....since we need only 8 tanks for a Saturn 1b....I'll store the unused ones for a future build...

000_0104a.jpg

hopefully, when you are done you'll have a nice smooth tank....with lettering that is nice and vertical up the side....if you mess up when you make that initial roll, you'll notice the lettering will be off vertical. These tanks look good to me....they are approved for flight!

000_0106a.jpg000_0107a.jpg


amazing what you can make out of a piece of paper! once dry, these little things are pretty tough! I'll try to post more tomorrow, but I think we have a good start for this build. Like I said, the key to this kit is the tanks...once you get them the rest of this build is pretty straight forward. What a fun little kit to make...I never get tired of making one! Thank you Dr. Zooch!
 
thanks Luke! I like the all white tanks that were used on the Skylab and ASTP mission...probably because those were the ones that were flying when I became old enough to really watch them go up on TV....I fell in love with this rocket back in 1973.... But I have to admit, the black tanks on Apollo 7 are pretty sweet too!

Looking good so far... I'll be watching this one with great interest!

KUTGW!!! OL JR :)

PS. I'm sorta preferential to the black kerosene tanks myself, but of course the "all white" tanks are "more modern"... and had another run of Saturn IB's ever been produced "for real", they would have been the all-white version...

Somewhere, I think it might have been on one of Mike Robel's builds over on NSF, I saw a basically ALL WHITE Saturn V... only markings were the red "UNITED STATES" and "USA" markings... no roll patterns at all. (Also, no fins on the fairings, but as a static model that hardly matters). Apparently the idea was to show what the Saturn V's would likely have looked like had a second production run been approved beyond the 15 originally built when they shut everything down and eventually scrapped it all...

It just didn't have the same "character" as the Saturn V we know and love... with the ubiquitous paint roll patterns. In the same way, had Saturn IB become the "workhorse" of the space program instead of building the shuttle, it would likely have ended up basically all white excepting the national markings... and at some point would likely have lost its fins (again, like the early Saturn I's). Just wouldn't look the same though...
Later!
 
thanks Luke! I like the all white tanks that were used on the Skylab and ASTP mission...probably because those were the ones that were flying when I became old enough to really watch them go up on TV....I fell in love with this rocket back in 1973.... But I have to admit, the black tanks on Apollo 7 are pretty sweet too!

Yep... sadly I was only about 4.5 when the last Ib went up on ASTP... so this was before my time. I think that visually the Saturn Ib is probably the most interesting looking rocket ever produced, and to be composed out of "used parts" probably one of the most capable! Not bad for a test program from the dawn of the space age!

I wish the good Doc would come out with a Russian Proton in this same scale, to go with the Soyuz and Saturn IB (which are both in the same 'ant-scale') That would be really cool. The Proton is basically the same design philosophy as the Saturn IB-- a central oxidizer tank surrounded by six (instead of 8) fuel tanks... (and just fuel, instead of a mix of fuel and oxidizer in alternating tanks like on the Ib). The Proton was designed that way to fit through the Russian railway tunnels between the factories near Moscow in the west and the launch range at Baikonur in the East... Ship the vehicle core tank completely manufactured in one peice, and the outer fuel tanks complete but unattached on another train. Connect up the complete tanks at the launch site, and presto-- "instant" large booster...

It's strange that Korolev didn't pursue such a design for the N-1... I've been reading Asif Siddiqi's "Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge" and he points this out... N-1 had its propellant tank gores manufactured back west, but the completed tanks were far too large to transport by rail, so the panels and sections were shipped east and then welded together at the launch site. This required very conservative design, in that the most efficient design for a pressure vessel, hydrodynamically speaking, is a perfect sphere, which distributes the loads equally on all of the interior surfaces. This of course made for a VERY mass-inefficient vehicle structure, since it ruled out the possibility of things like common bulkheads, or cylindrical tanks of different length/diameter ratios... and it forced the rocket to be the diameter of the spherical tank needed to contain a specific volume of propellant. It also made the "intertanks" unnecessarily large, extending AT LEAST from the equator of one tank to the equator of the other-- hence basically NONE of the exterior of the tank is used for the airframe... unlike the Saturn V in which basically everything that's NOT corrugated is a propellant tank wall used as a pressure-strengthened aerostructure for the vehicle, which greatly increases mass efficiency.

Had Korolev chosen to build large core tanks as big as could possibly fit through the USSR rail tunnels and then ship them to Baikonur, and then assemble them in various sizes of clusters of tanks to construct the final booster, N-1 might well have worked... it would still be mass-inefficient (as a single monolithic propellant tank for each of the oxidizer and fuel is the most mass-efficient storage possible) but it would have led to a more unified design, with greater quality control and lower costs...

Later! OL JR :)

PS. Great tips on rolling the tanks!
 
If you can't boil water you won't be able to make the perfect Zooch 1B tank. By rolling the paper without creasing you are taking your first steps into a much larger world. Now you really want to "Put The Kettle On!"
 
OK...now its time to start the actual construction of the 1b....we'll start where Wes of Dr. Zooch starts off, building the engine mount and spider beam assembly. The first step is to select you BT 20 engine mount tube and mark off 8 lines along the length tube...these will be for the spider beam placement

000_0108a.jpg

following this, take a straight edge and draw your lines

000_0111a.jpg


the next step is cut a slot 2 1/2" from the bottom of the tube and place the four centering rings onto the engine mount tube. The bottom rings are slotted for the engine hook, the bottom-most ring (ring #1) should be placed 1/8" from the bottom of the tube and the next slotted ring (ring #2) should be 1/2" above the bottom ring....be careful on this step because the graphic in the instruction sheet indicates the ring should be 5/8 of an inch above ring #1 and the printed instructions state 1/2". I went with the printed language and placed ring #2 1/2" above ring #1. Ring #3 should be placed 5 1/4" above ring #2 with the final centering ring, ring #4, being placed at the top edge of the tube. I deviated from the instructions here and I won't glue ring #3 into place until I have set the tanks in the following step. After setting the tanks in, I will move ring #3 down and glue it into place. This allows you a little leeway with the tank placement. Finally I glued the engine block ring inside the tube

000_0112a.jpg000_0113a.jpg000_0115a.jpg
 
What the H#@@...I almost missed this build !!!!

Great build Rick ,and I love your step by step photographs ,I could learn something from you !

AND look at all those tubes :y:

I`m glad I found this ,I`ll be following along !

I have a SEMROC B-1 that needs building ,so this should come in handy.

Take care friend !

Paul T
 
the next step is to cut 8 spider beams out of the small sheet of the two sheets of balsa that Dr. Zooch provides with the kit. I use a balsa stripping tool for this step and want to thank Luke Strawalker for the suggestion to buy this little tool...it comes in handy and I find myself using this thing in many kits..thanks Luke!

000_0116a.jpg000_0119a.jpg


then its simply a matter of carefully gluing the spider beams on the lines that were drawn in the earlier steps. The "spider beams" help align the fuel/lox tanks in the upcoming step.

000_0120a.jpg000_0121a.jpg000_0122a.jpg

at this point, I like to put a strong glue fillet on my centering rings, with the exception of ring #3 and let that dry up. I will then spray a coat of black paint on the completed spider beam assembly....this helps hide the interior surface in the event that you have some gaps between your fuel/lox tanks...so I'll let the glue fillets dry and then will shoot a coat of black paint. we are getting there!
 
very cool stuff Luke...I am going to look up what the Proton looked like.....what always amazes me with the Saturns, both the 1b and the Saturn V, is how reliable these things were...I mean, as complex as they were, and in ways ground breaking in terms of all up testing and fully automated check out and launches and all.....they flew pretty much on time every mission....just amazing how good the engineering was with these rockets....and all done with slide rules too!

as for the ASTP mission, I was 11 years old (turn 12 a month later)...I was a paper boy and I can remember cutting out the articles that were in the paper for that mission. I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and delivered the Evening Bulletin....an afternoon published paper....go figure..but back at the time they were the prime rival of the only paper left in Philly now, the Inquirer....but this paper came out in the afternoon and would be dropped at my driveway @2 pm in the afternoon... this mission got a lot of coverage back then because of the cooperative nature of it....it was at this time that I saw that Estes Saturn 1b at the shop I bought my rockets...I did not have enough money to buy it and after saving up my paper route money and much carrying on..I finally got my mom to drive me over to this store....it was an aquarium that sold fish...and model rockets....I can only guess the guy was a rocketeer as well because the two don't seem to mix...but when I finally got back to the shop, that 1b was gone!! gone and never to be seen again...I was crushed!:cry: As I look back on it now, there is no way I would have been able to make that rocket at age 11...but man I wanted that thing in the worst way....I actually saw one in a hobby shop 20 years later or so....I looked at that kit, held it in my hands and let them memories flow back and then thought....man, its like $100 or so and I still don't have the money for this!! :sigh:.....and that is kinda what led me to the Zooch 1b....if you read his advertisement for the Zooch 1b and how it won't cost you an arm and a leg and if it crashed you can buy another and your wife won't yell at you etc...I mean...that ad was written for me! I guess everyone has childhood memories....that paper route was a great job...always being a history buff, I had a Pearl Harbor veteran on that route and a D-Day veteran (101st airborne) as well....just great people!

Yep... sadly I was only about 4.5 when the last Ib went up on ASTP... so this was before my time. I think that visually the Saturn Ib is probably the most interesting looking rocket ever produced, and to be composed out of "used parts" probably one of the most capable! Not bad for a test program from the dawn of the space age!

I wish the good Doc would come out with a Russian Proton in this same scale, to go with the Soyuz and Saturn IB (which are both in the same 'ant-scale') That would be really cool. The Proton is basically the same design philosophy as the Saturn IB-- a central oxidizer tank surrounded by six (instead of 8) fuel tanks... (and just fuel, instead of a mix of fuel and oxidizer in alternating tanks like on the Ib). The Proton was designed that way to fit through the Russian railway tunnels between the factories near Moscow in the west and the launch range at Baikonur in the East... Ship the vehicle core tank completely manufactured in one peice, and the outer fuel tanks complete but unattached on another train. Connect up the complete tanks at the launch site, and presto-- "instant" large booster...

It's strange that Korolev didn't pursue such a design for the N-1... I've been reading Asif Siddiqi's "Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge" and he points this out... N-1 had its propellant tank gores manufactured back west, but the completed tanks were far too large to transport by rail, so the panels and sections were shipped east and then welded together at the launch site. This required very conservative design, in that the most efficient design for a pressure vessel, hydrodynamically speaking, is a perfect sphere, which distributes the loads equally on all of the interior surfaces. This of course made for a VERY mass-inefficient vehicle structure, since it ruled out the possibility of things like common bulkheads, or cylindrical tanks of different length/diameter ratios... and it forced the rocket to be the diameter of the spherical tank needed to contain a specific volume of propellant. It also made the "intertanks" unnecessarily large, extending AT LEAST from the equator of one tank to the equator of the other-- hence basically NONE of the exterior of the tank is used for the airframe... unlike the Saturn V in which basically everything that's NOT corrugated is a propellant tank wall used as a pressure-strengthened aerostructure for the vehicle, which greatly increases mass efficiency.

Had Korolev chosen to build large core tanks as big as could possibly fit through the USSR rail tunnels and then ship them to Baikonur, and then assemble them in various sizes of clusters of tanks to construct the final booster, N-1 might well have worked... it would still be mass-inefficient (as a single monolithic propellant tank for each of the oxidizer and fuel is the most mass-efficient storage possible) but it would have led to a more unified design, with greater quality control and lower costs...

Later! OL JR :)

PS. Great tips on rolling the tanks!
 
thanks Daddy....I figured out how to boil water the hard way...took out our old tea pot that had not been used in years and boiled away with it to roll tanks and then broke the handle....I did the first thing any married man would do....hide it back up on the shelf....took less than a week for SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED to discover it...so the tea pot you see in those pictures was purchased by yours truly at Bed Bath & Beyond solely for the purpose of rolling Dr. Zooch Saturn 1b tanks....I sucked it up and waded into that store with my wife...only to emerge 2 hours alter with that tea pot....too much estrogen in that store for me...my shopping philosophy can be patterned to Seal Team 6....get in, get the target and get the %&#@ out...my wife's shopping philosophy?, not so much....

If you can't boil water you won't be able to make the perfect Zooch 1B tank. By rolling the paper without creasing you are taking your first steps into a much larger world. Now you really want to "Put The Kettle On!"
 
thanks Chris....without your blog I would probably have tossed the kit.....it was a life saver! That first Zooch 1b, my BAR rocket kit...was the first rocket I had made in 30 years...back to 1981 when I made the Estes Space Shuttle...

View attachment 113662

Sheesh! That looks like my work table when I'm making a Zooch 1B.
Glad the steaming tip helped out. It's the only way I could get it right!
 
Thanks Paul! its a neat kit and a fun build...I hope I don't screw it up in prime time here! just kidding...I have as much fun building them as I do flying them. I love this little kit! Your Hellfire is looking amazing!

What the H#@@...I almost missed this build !!!!

Great build Rick ,and I love your step by step photographs ,I could learn something from you !

AND look at all those tubes :y:

I`m glad I found this ,I`ll be following along !

I have a SEMROC B-1 that needs building ,so this should come in handy.

Take care friend !

Paul T
 
I think you`re going to need another couch soon ,so you can display your ever growing collection !


....you thought I forgot about the comfy couch full of rockets didn`t you LOL


Paul T
 
LOL...I am thinking I may need to retire some of my early Zooch rockets and make new ones incorporating what I have learned....:grin:

I think you`re going to need another couch soon ,so you can display your ever growing collection !


....you thought I forgot about the comfy couch full of rockets didn`t you LOL


Paul T
 
very cool stuff Luke...I am going to look up what the Proton looked like.....what always amazes me with the Saturns, both the 1b and the Saturn V, is how reliable these things were...I mean, as complex as they were, and in ways ground breaking in terms of all up testing and fully automated check out and launches and all.....they flew pretty much on time every mission....just amazing how good the engineering was with these rockets....and all done with slide rules too!

as for the ASTP mission, I was 11 years old (turn 12 a month later)...I was a paper boy and I can remember cutting out the articles that were in the paper for that mission. I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and delivered the Evening Bulletin....an afternoon published paper....go figure..but back at the time they were the prime rival of the only paper left in Philly now, the Inquirer....but this paper came out in the afternoon and would be dropped at my driveway @2 pm in the afternoon... this mission got a lot of coverage back then because of the cooperative nature of it....it was at this time that I saw that Estes Saturn 1b at the shop I bought my rockets...I did not have enough money to buy it and after saving up my paper route money and much carrying on..I finally got my mom to drive me over to this store....it was an aquarium that sold fish...and model rockets....I can only guess the guy was a rocketeer as well because the two don't seem to mix...but when I finally got back to the shop, that 1b was gone!! gone and never to be seen again...I was crushed!:cry: As I look back on it now, there is no way I would have been able to make that rocket at age 11...but man I wanted that thing in the worst way....I actually saw one in a hobby shop 20 years later or so....I looked at that kit, held it in my hands and let them memories flow back and then thought....man, its like $100 or so and I still don't have the money for this!! :sigh:.....and that is kinda what led me to the Zooch 1b....if you read his advertisement for the Zooch 1b and how it won't cost you an arm and a leg and if it crashed you can buy another and your wife won't yell at you etc...I mean...that ad was written for me! I guess everyone has childhood memories....that paper route was a great job...always being a history buff, I had a Pearl Harbor veteran on that route and a D-Day veteran (101st airborne) as well....just great people!

Cool story... :) Back when I was in high school my big project was to try to hack an 8mm movie camera the old folks got for touring a time share and listening to the two hour sales pitch... they used to do that sort of thing every weekend for about a year... sort of a hobby I guess... they used to send out these big colorful brochures and packets with all these "fabulous" prizes you'd already been "guaranteed" to win ONE of... from motorhomes to luxury cars on down... We'd used that old Bell and Howell to shoot some home movies and then relegated it to the closet for years... by this time we'd gotten a camcorder (one of those 25 pound full VHS ones LOL:) I wanted a Cineroc but by the time I had part of the money and knowhow to actually potentially get one and make it work, they were LONG gone!

I cleaned the battery gunk out of the old movie camera and got it going, but it was TOO heavy to fly-- had to hack it and get rid of as much weight as possible... because of it's big size/shape, I came up with a rocket design that would have had it looking out the bottom of a "cargo pod" in the center, like a shuttle ET, surrounded by three or four "SRB's" having the motors in them... and venting to the upper section of the central cargo pod that would house the parachutes. Tinkered with the camera and design for a few years, but there's no way I could have ever gotten it to work, in hindsight... now we can get a digital movie camera the size of a keyfob for $20 bucks... amazing!

Anyway, here's a link to the Proton...

https://images.search.yahoo.com/sea...icle&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-701-1

https://www.astronautix.com/lvs/proton.htm

https://www.spacelaunchreport.com/proton.html

It's a cool looking rocket... large central core tank is for oxidizer (IIRC, using storable propellants, so nitrogen tetroxide) and the outer six smaller tanks (which look like strap-on boosters but aren't-- they're fuel tanks like on a Saturn IB, just sticking out the sides with canted nosecones on them, for unsymmetrical di-methyl hydrazine storable fuel). The Proton uses six RD-253 or RD-275 engines, mounted off-center on the fuel pods. The Proton was originally designed as an ICBM to launch gigantic hydrogen bombs (in the 50-100 megaton range) over the SOUTH pole and attack the US from the opposite direction than it's radars were pointing (toward the north). Proton was never put into service in this configuration (which later was attempted, under the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS). Proton has been the primary Russian "Heavy Lifter" (roughly approximating our Delta IV Heavy) for decades, and launched the first sections of ISS (the Russian modules Zarya (Sunrise) and Zvezda (Star). Other than the ill-fated N-1 and the short-lived Energia, the Proton has been the main "heavy lifter" in the Russian space program and will remain so until the Angara launch vehicle comes into service (if ever).

Anyway, great work on the Saturn IB... looking forward to the rest of your build thread... BTW, yer welcome for the tip on the balsa stripper... handy little tool!

Later and KUTGW!!! OL JR :)
 
thanks Daddy....I figured out how to boil water the hard way...took out our old tea pot that had not been used in years and boiled away with it to roll tanks and then broke the handle....I did the first thing any married man would do....hide it back up on the shelf....took less than a week for SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED to discover it...
Yep... hiding stuff NEVER works... ya got to either get rid of the evidence (bury it deep somewhere, throw it in the river, dump in way out in the woods, etc... females can find busted stuff around the house that ya shouldn't have been messing with in the first place like a bloodhound...

so the tea pot you see in those pictures was purchased by yours truly at Bed Bath & Beyond solely for the purpose of rolling Dr. Zooch Saturn 1b tanks....I sucked it up and waded into that store with my wife...only to emerge 2 hours alter with that tea pot....too much estrogen in that store for me...
HA! That's for sure!! After awhile it starts soaking into your skin, along with that foo-foo smell from all the estrogen-laced female soaps, perfumes, and lotions in there... It's a conspiracy to emasculate us I tell ya!!!

my shopping philosophy can be patterned to Seal Team 6....get in, get the target and get the %&#@ out...
HA! You and every other male... unless it's farm equipment, cars, guns, or home electronics... IOW VERY IMPORTANT purchases that require considerable deliberation and "research" to weigh options before making any purchase... everything else is just disposable necessities not worth wasting time on... grab-n-go and be done with it!! (including anniversary gifts LOL:))

my wife's shopping philosophy?, not so much....

HA!! Her and every other female on the freakin' planet-- they can stand there two hours deliberating which shampoo to get... "do you like this one or that one??" I DON'T FLIPPIN' CARE!!!!!! LOL:)

Women... Later! OL JR :)

PS... next time, go to the kitchen store... most malls have one, sorta like an Alton Brown kitchen-nerds paradise... seems like women won't spend too much time in there... sorta like garlic to a vampire or something... LOL:) At least you can see neat stuff that can be handy around the kitchen when we inevitably end up on KP duty...
 
Last edited:
LOL...I am thinking I may need to retire some of my early Zooch rockets and make new ones incorporating what I have learned....:grin:

Make your own little "rocket garden" combining the displays at USSRC and KSC's rocket garden... a little diorama with lots of paths between rockets and little kids standing there gawking at all the displays... (maybe little HO scale train figures from Hobby Lobby??)

Later! OL JR :)
 
I just found this thread today and will be checking in and watching it. I've built a few Zooch rockets in the past and this thread makes me want to build a 1B for sure. Unfortunately I still have 5 other kits at the house that I haven't even opened yet and I swore to myself that I wouldn't buy another one until I get these cranked out.

I remember a thread a while back polling people on how many unopened kits folks had in their build que, and I was AMAZED at the fact there were more than 2 or 3. Some folks claimed to have 20, 30, and even 50 waiting on them. It's easy to see that you would want to build a lot, but hard to understand letting that many pile up. But... I'm hijacking your awesome build thread. Sorry.

When I was rolling the tanks for my Zooch Vostok I didn't use the steam kettle, but I believe someone made that suggestion. I remember a line from Zooch's instructions talking about how big of a pain it was making 4 tanks, but to just think of the Russians that are cussing because they're rolling 8 tanks for the Saturn 1B.

I know that Dr. Zooch models are built to Ant Scale and not to any actual scale, and that his scale models are not supposed to be at the same scale to each other either - but do you know if this Saturn 1B is at the same scale (or close to it) as his Saturn V? I would think that it's possible, since the tops of the two rockets are the same, and he probably uses the same parts and methods to make those sections. But are the heights of these finished models as they stand next to each other to the same ratio as the real life 1B and V?

Anyway, I'll be referencing this thread in the Summer when I'm building a 1B. Ha!!
 
Oh, and kudos for posting a lot of pictures! I still consider myself new at rocketry and build threads, but I figured out early that for me the most interesting build threads are the ones that have a lot of pictures in them That's why I try and post a lot of pictures in mine, and I'm happy that you're doing the same.

The worst "build" threads are those that post a picture of the bag with the parts in it first... and then the next post has the model completely built and ready for paint... and the third and final post includes a picture of the rocket sitting on a launch pad ready to go. Zzzz... zzzz...zzzz...zzzz...
 
Luke, the Proton is pretty cool looking! your one link indicated that the "Saturn 1/1b class Proton" had completed its 325th mission in 2007....sigh....you have to give the Russians credit...they find a rocket that works and they stick with it....


Cool story... :) Back when I was in high school my big project was to try to hack an 8mm movie camera the old folks got for touring a time share and listening to the two hour sales pitch... they used to do that sort of thing every weekend for about a year... sort of a hobby I guess... they used to send out these big colorful brochures and packets with all these "fabulous" prizes you'd already been "guaranteed" to win ONE of... from motorhomes to luxury cars on down... We'd used that old Bell and Howell to shoot some home movies and then relegated it to the closet for years... by this time we'd gotten a camcorder (one of those 25 pound full VHS ones LOL:) I wanted a Cineroc but by the time I had part of the money and knowhow to actually potentially get one and make it work, they were LONG gone!

I cleaned the battery gunk out of the old movie camera and got it going, but it was TOO heavy to fly-- had to hack it and get rid of as much weight as possible... because of it's big size/shape, I came up with a rocket design that would have had it looking out the bottom of a "cargo pod" in the center, like a shuttle ET, surrounded by three or four "SRB's" having the motors in them... and venting to the upper section of the central cargo pod that would house the parachutes. Tinkered with the camera and design for a few years, but there's no way I could have ever gotten it to work, in hindsight... now we can get a digital movie camera the size of a keyfob for $20 bucks... amazing!

Anyway, here's a link to the Proton...

https://images.search.yahoo.com/sea...icle&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-701-1

https://www.astronautix.com/lvs/proton.htm

https://www.spacelaunchreport.com/proton.html

It's a cool looking rocket... large central core tank is for oxidizer (IIRC, using storable propellants, so nitrogen tetroxide) and the outer six smaller tanks (which look like strap-on boosters but aren't-- they're fuel tanks like on a Saturn IB, just sticking out the sides with canted nosecones on them, for unsymmetrical di-methyl hydrazine storable fuel). The Proton uses six RD-253 or RD-275 engines, mounted off-center on the fuel pods. The Proton was originally designed as an ICBM to launch gigantic hydrogen bombs (in the 50-100 megaton range) over the SOUTH pole and attack the US from the opposite direction than it's radars were pointing (toward the north). Proton was never put into service in this configuration (which later was attempted, under the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS). Proton has been the primary Russian "Heavy Lifter" (roughly approximating our Delta IV Heavy) for decades, and launched the first sections of ISS (the Russian modules Zarya (Sunrise) and Zvezda (Star). Other than the ill-fated N-1 and the short-lived Energia, the Proton has been the main "heavy lifter" in the Russian space program and will remain so until the Angara launch vehicle comes into service (if ever).

Anyway, great work on the Saturn IB... looking forward to the rest of your build thread... BTW, yer welcome for the tip on the balsa stripper... handy little tool!

Later and KUTGW!!! OL JR :)
 
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!

100_2767a.jpg


Oh, and kudos for posting a lot of pictures! I still consider myself new at rocketry and build threads, but I figured out early that for me the most interesting build threads are the ones that have a lot of pictures in them That's why I try and post a lot of pictures in mine, and I'm happy that you're doing the same.

The worst "build" threads are those that post a picture of the bag with the parts in it first... and then the next post has the model completely built and ready for paint... and the third and final post includes a picture of the rocket sitting on a launch pad ready to go. Zzzz... zzzz...zzzz...zzzz...
 
I just found this thread today and will be checking in and watching it. I've built a few Zooch rockets in the past and this thread makes me want to build a 1B for sure. Unfortunately I still have 5 other kits at the house that I haven't even opened yet and I swore to myself that I wouldn't buy another one until I get these cranked out.

I remember a thread a while back polling people on how many unopened kits folks had in their build que, and I was AMAZED at the fact there were more than 2 or 3. Some folks claimed to have 20, 30, and even 50 waiting on them. It's easy to see that you would want to build a lot, but hard to understand letting that many pile up.

I have at least one of EVERY Dr. Zooch kit, either built or stored in the boxed waiting to be built. I liked them so much I bought one of everything! I also have a lot of "clearance" rockets I've picked up at Hobby Lobby and other places... So yeah, you find some deals and stuff you like and start picking up some, and it stacks up on you...:)

I know that Dr. Zooch models are built to Ant Scale and not to any actual scale, and that his scale models are not supposed to be at the same scale to each other either - but do you know if this Saturn 1B is at the same scale (or close to it) as his Saturn V? I would think that it's possible, since the tops of the two rockets are the same, and he probably uses the same parts and methods to make those sections. But are the heights of these finished models as they stand next to each other to the same ratio as the real life 1B and V?

No, they're not. The Zooch Saturn IB and Soyuz are the same "ant scale" but the Saturn V and shuttle are NOT. The Saturn IB is built on the BT-60 tube for the S-IVB (260 inch diameter) where the Saturn V is built on the BT-60 for the S-II and S-IC stages (396 inch diameter). To get a Saturn V in the same scale as the Zooch Saturn IB, you have to scratch build one with a BT-80 (2.60 inch diameter) first and second stage, and the BT-60 S-IVB third stage. Then they use the same LM adapter and Apollo CSM/tower. That's why I started (and need to get back to) my BT-80 Saturn V build...

Similarly, the Zooch shuttle uses the BT-60 (1.637 inch diameter) body tube for the ET and BT-20's for the SRB's. For it to be in the same "ant scale" as the Saturn IB, it would need to use a BT-70 (2.21 inch diameter) tube for the ET, and the SRB's would be a LITTLE smaller than a BT-50... (probably close enough for gov't work). Of course the orbiter would have to be similarly upscaled.

Later! OL JR :)
 
Luke, the Proton is pretty cool looking! your one link indicated that the "Saturn 1/1b class Proton" had completed its 325th mission in 2007....sigh....you have to give the Russians credit...they find a rocket that works and they stick with it....

Yep, quite true...

Proton hasn't always had such a great history... and they still have failures now and again... A Proton crashed last year with some satellite or other on it, and even the venerable Soyuz launcher suffered a staging failure and crashed in the Altai region with a Progress freighter going to ISS...

Between 1967 and 1970, ten of nineteen four-stage Proton launches (bearing lunar vehicles) crashed due to various failures, including several failures of the upper stage to fire the second time to boost the payload out of LEO. They finally did a "recertification" of the vehicle and have flown it more or less successfully since. All the Russian space stations, the Salyuts, Mir, and the first sections of ISS supplied by the Russians, were launched aboard Proton. Proton is due to be retired and replaced by the Angara launch vehicle, which uses kerosene/LO2, instead of the hypergolic storable propellants Proton uses, which are highly toxic.

What's interesting to me is that the same solutions are found by competing powers continents apart, albeit for different reasons... For the US, clustering tanks on Saturn IB made for a quick and easy method to use existing tooling and parts to make a million pound thrust demonstration booster... (that they did the job well enough that it could be turned into a flight stage is a testament to Von Braun and his team!) For the USSR, clustering tanks around a central tank made a booster that was still capable of being manufactured in the factories of the more developed region near Moscow, and then transported long distances over the Soviet railway system to the remote Baikonur Cosmodrome launch facilities in Kazakhstan... and the outer six fuel tank modules could then be integrated with the vehicle core to make a large first stage there, in a fairly straightforward operation.

Don't want to drag your thread too far off course... let's see more of this cool Saturn IB...

Later! OL JR :)
 
Back
Top