Atlas Mercury 1/12 scale

[sodmeister]

Sweet ! That lazer cut tower looks great ,that`s some nice work.

I was looking st those decals and started getting bug eyed :eyepop: ,can you imagine applying those....sheesh LOL

I`m glad you are back at this build ,it`s a beauty !!

Take care


Paul T

 

[NJRick]

she is really coming together! awesome build!!!

 

[aerostadt]

Thanks, Paul, NJR.

I filled the top remaining portion of the upper transition section with Great Stuff, even though a different forum thread warned against doing this, because there is the possibility of the foam expanding and doing structural damage in hot weather. I drilled 3 vent holes and did not fill for very long. Foam oozed out of the 3 vent holes for about 45 minutes after the initial filling. Hopefully, this venting will alleviate any unwanted expansion after the material hardens. After trying a practice injection into an empty styro-foam cup, I thought that the can would no longer flow any foam, but I was able to clear the plastic fill stem and straw with a long thin plastic tie lock.

 

[aerostadt]

I painted the interior of the Mercury capsule with gray paint and I put in a forward thin aircraft plywood bulkhead. I am doing this with the thinking that I can find a way to have the capsule descend upright on a parachute. The bulkhead has a wire for a future ejection charge and a parachute line.



The astronaut's window actually consist of two windows. The outer window is somewhat flush with the capsule surface to prevent any unwanted aerodynamic forces. This window needs to be glued into place first. Then the inner window can be glued in.

 

[NJRick]

your capsule is looking SWEET!! beautiful work!

I painted the interior of the Mercury capsule with gray paint and I put in a forward thin aircraft plywood bulkhead. I am doing this with the thinking that I can find a way to have the capsule descend upright on a parachute. The bulkhead has a wire for a future ejection charge and a parachute line.

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The astronaut's window actually consist of two windows. The outer window is somewhat flush with the capsule surface to prevent any unwanted aerodynamic forces. This window needs to be glued into place first. Then the inner window can be glued in.

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[aerostadt]

your capsule is looking SWEET!! beautiful work!

Thanks, NJR ! Here are some more pictures of the Atomic City 6" diameter capsule. I was surprised when I saw that the control display console is not flush with the top of the escape hatch. I was wondering if I missed something in the instructions or if Atomic City did something wrong. Then I looked through some of my books and the internet and sure enough in real life the back of the control console was exposed when the escape hatch was open. In some photographs wiring cables can be seen. This strikes me as a crude design, however, it probably was functional. I suspect, too, that the US was so far behind the Russians at the time in the Space Race that prettier designs were probably dropped in the name of expediency.

Surprisingly, the model capsule is quite heavy for its small size weighing about 12 oz. I suspect that a large portion of this weight is the astronaut, which was a solid piece of plastic. This means that probably a large mylar parachute will be needed. Also, the capsule just barely fits on top of 6" diameter PML coupler tube, which means that the heat shield will not be used in the flying model. I am thinking of attaching the capsule to a bulkhead plate via screws.

 

[rocketguy101]

This is a shot of Liberty Bell 7 at the Kansas Cosmosphere (taken during NARCON 2012)---the instrument panel looks like your model

 

[aerostadt]

I put some PC-11 epoxy on the location where the outboard motor fairings meet the booster skirt and then sanded this joint down. For a hand sander I took some coarse sand paper and taped around a small piece of PVC pipe. It looks like with some more work this approach will work.

 

[aerostadt]

I did some work on the upper transition section. On some of the thin 1/64" plywood overlap joints I tried using some ideas that were recently on the TRF techniques thread. For these small overlaps I applied epoxy with clear plastic tape over the top. In a way I suspect that this acts like mylar, but is probably not as good. I tried this two ways. The first was just simply putting the tape over the wet epoxy. This works if the area to patch is small. I tended to do this when I was in a hurry. The bad part is when the tape is removed some of the tape adhesive stays on top of the epoxy. It seems like only sanding will remove this adhesive. The other way is to lay the non-adhesive side of the tape on top of the wet epoxy and tape it in place. This takes some extra time.

 

[aerostadt]

I developed this unwelcome wavy warping on the upper half of the transition section, which was filled with Great Stuff foam as shown below. I have been applying MinWax to all the 1/64" plywood. The outboard plywood fairings on the booster skirt are essentially hollow and the bottom half of the upper transition is two-part foam. However, this is the only place where warping has occurred. So, perhaps Great Stuff is the culprit. I had some 1/64" ply left over, so I just glued it on over the warp.



Lo and behold, I found some more warping. This time I decided to use some more left-over transition section paneling and covered it with clear plastic tape and applied this section on top of quick setting epoxy with micro-balloons.



I'm proceeding with bondo, patching, and sanding. I will need to quit soon and get ready to go to HellFire-18.

 

[MaxQ]

Great project, a great build and very nice craftsmanship.

I love scale projects and cluster motors.

 

[sodmeister]

That`s too bad about the warping ,but we all those little "flies in the ointment" during scratch builts ,and especially during very complicated scale builds like yours.

I know this is going to be a great looking rocket once finished !!

The craftsmanship is superb my friend !

Keep plugging along ,this is a great project to watch.

Cheers


Paul T

 

[aerostadt]

That`s too bad about the warping ,but we all those little "flies in the ointment" during scratch builts ,and especially during very complicated scale builds like yours.

I know this is going to be a great looking rocket once finished !!

The craftsmanship is superb my friend !

Keep plugging along ,this is a great project to watch.

Cheers


Paul T

Thanks, Paul! Coming from a master, your moral support means a lot! Thanks to you, too, MaxQ!

I'm breaking away from this project for a good week and going to Hellfire-18, soon. It looks like we will have a challenge to get to the launch site, which is dry, but we to need to cross a half-mile long water puddle first. I'm hoping that the puddle drys up soon.

 

[46u]

Looking good and very nice job!

 

[aerostadt]

Looking good and very nice job!

Thanks, 46u!

Putting on the stringers this week was actually kinda fun and relaxing. According to Peter's "Rockets of the World" the stringers on the Atlas Mercury just below the capsule are 3 Deg. 20 min. apart, which means that there is almost 120 stringers. If you look at Estes Atlas Mercury the section below the capsule is smooth with no stringers at all. In real life the stringers look like thin flat plates. I did not use anywhere near this many stringers and I used round 1/8" diameters dowels instead. In any case the final result is suggestive of the actual Atlas Mercury. For the vernier engines I used 13 mm tubes.

 

[rocketguy101]

looking fantastic! love the verniers....you going to stick mini engines to get the full scale effect at liftoff?

 

[aerostadt]

I have the option to use 13 mm A-motors (BP), however, they only burn for about 0.8 seconds at most and probably will ignite before the big composite motor. I thought about 18 mm motors, but they are too big for this scale and buy only about 1 second longer in burn-time.

 

[NJRick]

that turned out fantastic!! this rocket is going to be spectacular when she is done!!

Thanks, 46u!

Putting on the stringers this week was actually kinda fun and relaxing. According to Peter's "Rockets of the World" the stringers on the Atlas Mercury just below the capsule are 3 Deg. 20 min. apart, which means that there is almost 120 stringers. If you look at Estes Atlas Mercury the section below the capsule is smooth with no stringers at all. In real life the stringers look like thin flat plates. I did not use anywhere near this many stringers and I used round 1/8" diameters dowels instead. In any case the final result is suggestive of the actual Atlas Mercury. For the vernier engines I used 13 mm tubes.

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[aerostadt]

she is a big girl...but this rocket is going to look AWESOME with that neat Mercury capsule perched up there!!

Thanks, NJ, your encouragement is always welcome!

Fall is coming, so I need to start painting. I put on my last coat of MinWax Polycrylic water-based finish on the 1/64th inch plywood. After the Polycrylic dried I only sanded the surfaces that bubbled up. At first I thought I could buy aircraft plywood and make extra fins just for the purpose of painting, but after thinking about the added cost, I decided to mask the clear fins with wrapping paper and blue tape. Attached are photo's with the first coat of Rust-oleum Painter's Touch Ultra Cover flat gray primer.

 

[NJRick]

she is coming along great!! Aerostadt..how tall is she? I am only 5'5" tall..something tells me she is bigger than I am! (of course, that isn't saying too much ...)

Thanks, NJ, your encouragement is always welcome!

Fall is coming, so I need to start painting. I put on my last coat of MinWax Polycrylic water-based finish on the 1/64th inch plywood. After the Polycrylic dried I only sanded the surfaces that bubbled up. At first I thought I could buy aircraft plywood and make extra fins just for the purpose of painting, but after thinking about the added cost, I decided to mask the clear fins with wrapping paper and blue tape. Attached are photo's with the first coat of Rust-oleum Painter's Touch Ultra Cover flat gray primer.

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[Rich Holmes]

she is coming along great!! Aerostadt..how tall is she? I am only 5'5" tall..something tells me she is bigger than I am! (of course, that isn't saying too much ...)

Says here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_LV-3B the original was 94.3 feet (I don't know if that includes the capsule), so 1/12 scale would be 7'10". Taller than MANY people!

 

[Cl(VII)]

That is really nice, excellent workmanship. Can you imagine how many people drove down your street and started "WTF was that" conversations?

 

[aerostadt]

Thanks everyone!

I measured 5' 10" from the aft skirt to the top of the adapter section before the capsule. (From the bottom of the clear fins to adapter section top is 6' 4".) From the base of the capsule (without the heat shield and retro rockets) to the top of the escape tower I measure about 2' 1". So the total length is about 7' 11", which is very close to Rich's estimate. I placed the capsule and the escape tower loosely on top and took some pictures.

 

[AlphaSigOU]

Are you going to show it with 'simulated' LOX frost or straight bare metal?

 

[NJRick]

this is turning out so sweet! she is beautiful aerostadt!!

Thanks everyone!

I measured 5' 10" from the aft skirt to the top of the adapter section before the capsule. (From the bottom of the clear fins to adapter section top is 6' 4".) From the base of the capsule (without the heat shield and retro rockets) to the top of the escape tower I measure about 2' 1". So the total length is about 7' 11", which is very close to Rich's estimate. I placed the capsule and the escape tower loosely on top and took some pictures.
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[aerostadt]

Are you going to show it with 'simulated' LOX frost or straight bare metal?

Charles, my plan is to use the bare metal coloration scheme. This has always been my intention. Earlier in this year someone had a scratch Atlas/Mercury with the white LOX scheme and I think that it looked pretty good and, of course, this what the vehicle really looked like at lift-off. Nevertheless, I am moved to do the shiny aluminum assembly line look. This is the same style that Estes used in their kit and the same as Matt Johnson, who I referenced earlier in this thread.

this is turning out so sweet! she is beautiful aerostadt!!

Thanks, NJ! I've still got a long way to go.

 

[thobin]

Man cant wait to see this fly, this is awesome. You should do a write up in one of the rocket magazines, this is definitely worth a front cover.


TA

 

[Jmhepworth]

Bob,

I agree. This is amazing. Be sure to let us know when you plan to launch it. Don't want to miss that one. By the way, I stopped by last time we were in town to say, hi, but no one came to the door. You were in the yard earlier in the day, so you must of seen us coming.

Joe

 

[aerostadt]

Man cant wait to see this fly, this is awesome. You should do a write up in one of the rocket magazines, this is definitely worth a front cover.

Thanks, Thobin! Looking to fly this at the next Hellfire next summer.

Bob,

I agree. This is amazing. Be sure to let us know when you plan to launch it. Don't want to miss that one. By the way, I stopped by last time we were in town to say, hi, but no one came to the door. You were in the yard earlier in the day, so you must of seen us coming.

Joe

Thanks, Joe! I'm sorry I missed you. I talked to your mother yesterday. She was working hard pulling weeds in the yard.

 

[r12ski]

Looking sweet! I never knew Syracuse could look so green :roll: (SU alum). Actually, if you fly it at URRF next year I might be going. Went to LDRS 31 and like that field even though it is a bit of a drive.