Atlas Mercury 1/12 scale

[NJRick]

Aerostadt.....the tower is looking great!! ya gotta love the Mercury tower...that bright red or orange just adds a nice touch of color to the overall project....plus it looks cool too! GREAT job!

Previously, I bought laser-cut parts from Matt Johnson. He was going to use similar parts for his back-up tower. I decided to use Matt's parts as a pattern. That way if I break my tower I can build a new one. Otherwise, if I change my mind I can go back and use Matt's parts and make a new tower. I am using 3/16" diameter wood dowels for the main struts and 1/8" diameter wood dowels for the cross pieces. The new tower will have thicker struts then the plastic model, but this is really sports-scale and a robust design should be good.
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[aerostadt]

Aerostadt.....the tower is looking great!! ya gotta love the Mercury tower...that bright red or orange just adds a nice touch of color to the overall project....plus it looks cool too! GREAT job!

Thanks, NJ! I will see what I can do about making a connection with Matt. A long time ago, I dreamed about making a Mercury/Redstone model with the Atomic City's capsule and I ended up going this direction instead. This monster has been a lot of work, so I don't think I will go back and make the same scale Mercury/Redstone, although I would love to see the two same 1/12 scale models together.

I did a little bit more on the tower today. Matt has the lower truss pieces separate from the upper structure. This is the same way that Atomic City's escape tower goes together. I assembled the Y-structure using Matt's pieces as a template. I then found some 7/32" diameter aluminum tubing (It has a label Stock #106, but that doesn't means anything to me.) in my loose-parts drawer. Sometime in the past I picked up this tubing from the hobby shop. I found that if filed down the 3/16" diameter wood dowels slightly, I can slide the aluminum tubes into the dowels. This works great. I can then move things around to make adjustments.

 

[aerostadt]

Kris, I'm glad you got the pm for Matt's address. I made some more progress on the escape tower. I glued the Y-joints in place to the upper structure with wood (yellow) glue. I cut out 2 small gusset plates for each Y-joint from 1/64" thick plywood and glued them in place with wood glue. I dabbed a small drop of epoxy in between each set of gusset plates. I also attached cross bars on the lower truss with wood glue.

 

[NJRick]

looks good aerostadt!!

Kris, I'm glad you got the pm for Matt's address. I made some more progress on the escape tower. I glued the Y-joints in place to the upper structure with wood (yellow) glue. I cut out 2 small gusset plates for each Y-joint from 1/64" thick plywood and glued them in place with wood glue. I dabbed a small drop of epoxy in between each set of gusset plates. I also attached cross bars on the lower truss with wood glue.

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[aerostadt]

Thanks, Rick. I made some more progress today on the escape tower. Remember that the tower will be jettisoned during ascent. I made a motor mount for 18 mm motors. This way I have the option to use 13 mm or 18 mm BP motors. I did use 13 mm motors on the Neubauer Mercury/Redstone, but if I jettison while the Atlas/Mercury is traveling at 250 fps, the 13 mm motors may not be enough. I found a paper tube for the escape motor housing that is similar in size to the Atomics City's plastic model. It's close to a BT-55 tube, because the Semroc BT-20 to BT-55 centering rings (see first photo with motor mount) are a close fit. Later, I found a 3/16" centering ring from Public Missiles Limited (PML) in my inventory to use as an attachment point to connect the tower structure to the motor tube.

 

[Owen Eldridge]

Wow! That looks awesome!

 

[aerostadt]

Thanks, Owen. I made a little bit more progress today. For $15 I bought a few extra plastic model parts from Model Rectifier Corp. This is the second time that I have bought parts from the company that handles the plastic Mercury capsule.



Hopefully, with these parts I can figure out what I want to do with the flight version of this Atlas/Mercury model. For now I glued the 3 nozzles on to the flight version escape tower that will be jettisoned.

 

[Astronot]

Very impressive. Thanks for sharing. You have mad modeling skills.

David

 

[NJRick]

that really looks fantastic!!

Thanks, Owen. I made a little bit more progress today. For $15 I bought a few extra plastic model parts from Model Rectifier Corp. This is the second time that I have bought parts from the company that handles the plastic Mercury capsule.

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Hopefully, with these parts I can figure out what I want to do with the flight version of this Atlas/Mercury model. For now I glued the 3 nozzles on to the flight version escape tower that will be jettisoned.

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[Owen Eldridge]

So fun to watch!

 

[aerostadt]

So fun to watch!

Thanks, Owen! I returned to working on the hopefully jettisonable escape tower today. I drilled three holes in the plastic mercury capsule and touched up the holes with a small circular file. I found that the PML part CT-2.1, which is the phenolic coupler tube for the phenolic tube PT-2.152, was the diameter that I needed to glue (or epoxy) internally into the upper Mercury capsule. Before doing so, I glued on three 1" lengths of 1/8" dia. copper tubing that I found sometime ago at a real Hobby shop (yes, the shop still exists, but it is about 70 miles away from me). I think model airplane enthusiasts use this kind of stuff. The paper label says that it is from K&S Engineering, Chicago. The nice thing is that I have some more copper tubing from the same company that fits into the 1/8" dia. tubing. It looks like it is about 1/16" or 3/32" diameter. I will mount the smaller tubing into an escape tower attachment ring that goes right above the mercury capsule.

 

[gr3456]

Ha! That looks nice! I have the Atomic City Capsule too for something like this. It makes me think about doing something with it.

 

[NJRick]

Aerostadt....that capsule looks fantastic...in the last picture with it all buttoned up I kept waiting for John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra or Gordo Cooper to climb out of it (just think of the names of the guys that flew this...all were legends.)( and maybe they had a ton of press, but still, you can only tip your hat to these guys who had the b@lls to climb into a glorified nose cone on a missile that had a history of blowing itself to bits....these guys were incredible)

she is great build Aerostadt!

Thanks, Owen! I returned to working on the hopefully jettisonable escape tower today. I drilled three holes in the plastic mercury capsule and touched up the holes with a small circular file. I found that the PML part CT-2.1, which is the phenolic coupler tube for the phenolic tube PT-2.152, was the diameter that I needed to glue (or epoxy) internally into the upper Mercury capsule. Before doing so, I glued on three 1" lengths of 1/8" dia. copper tubing that I found sometime ago at a real Hobby shop (yes, the shop still exists, but it is about 70 miles away from me). I think model airplane enthusiasts use this kind of stuff. The paper label says that it is from K&S Engineering, Chicago. The nice thing is that I have some more copper tubing from the same company that fits into the 1/8" dia. tubing. It looks like it is about 1/16" or 3/32" diameter. I will mount the smaller tubing into an escape tower attachment ring that goes right above the mercury capsule.

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[aerostadt]

Thanks, Rick! I still can't get over how the back of the control panel is not flush with the top of the escape hatch. That configuration says to me that the early space program was in a rush to keep up with the Russians.

The wooden adapter ring that connects the escape tower to the plastic capsule is made of two rings glued together with epoxy. The smaller ring is from Matt Johnson, but the inside diameter was cut a little bit larger with my scroll saw. I drilled holes in the adapter ring to connect with the escape tower later. I want to complete the adapter ring and paint it black and then join it with the escape tower painted red. Today I glued the mating small copper tubing (about 1 1/4" long) into the adapter ring with 30 minute epoxy. This epoxy is really more like 5 or 10 minute epoxy, although the final tackiness may take 1 or 2 hours to be gone. I put scotch tape on the mercury capsule mating plastic surfaces and then put a small amount of epoxy into the adapter ring holes around the copper tubing. This worked pretty good. I separated the pieces while the epoxy was still in a plastic state and found some epoxy out of place, but it came off easily with a pointy Xacto knife. The copper tubing pins may be a little bit long, but I figure that I can cut them later, if I want, with a Dremel tool. I think that I will build up the external copper posts with some sleeves later filled with epoxy.

 

[luke strawwalker]

Thanks, Rick! I still can't get over how the back of the control panel is not flush with the top of the escape hatch. That configuration says to me that the early space program was in a rush to keep up with the Russians.

The wooden adapter ring that connects the escape tower to the plastic capsule is made of two rings glued together with epoxy. The smaller ring is from Matt Johnson, but the inside diameter was cut a little bit larger with my scroll saw. I drilled holes in the adapter ring to connect with the escape tower later. I want to complete the adapter ring and paint it black and then join it with the escape tower painted red. Today I glued the mating small copper tubing (about 1 1/4" long) into the adapter ring with 30 minute epoxy. This epoxy is really more like 5 or 10 minute epoxy, although the final tackiness may take 1 or 2 hours to be gone. I put scotch tape on the mercury capsule mating plastic surfaces and then put a small amount of epoxy into the adapter ring holes around the copper tubing. This worked pretty good. I separated the pieces while the epoxy was still in a plastic state and found some epoxy out of place, but it came off easily with a pointy Xacto knife. The copper tubing pins may be a little bit long, but I figure that I can cut them later, if I want, with a Dremel tool. I think that I will build up the external copper posts with some sleeves later filled with epoxy.

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The control panel in the Mercury was removable after the mission so that the astronaut could exit out the top of the capsule if so desired... the parachute was stowed up there in a half-round "can" and a pressure bulkhead would be removed and this parachute canister pushed out through the top, opening up the tunnel for the astronaut to egress...

That's probably why the control panel wasn't "flush" with the top of the entry hatchway... rather than being "rushed" (but of course maybe it was rushed-- but the other seems a more likely reason to me... that or they just plain didn't worry about stuff being "flush" so long as a guy could squeeze in and they could get the hatch on...)

Later! OL JR

 

[aerostadt]

Thanks, JR! Yes, I see it now on Google for Mercury capsule egress. Rather than wait 3 hours for his sea pick-up Scott Carpenter went out the top (2nd US orbital flight). It sounds like the astronaut had to push the back-up parachute out of the way and it helped if the waters were calm so the capsule didn't tip into the waves when the astronaut climbed out. On Gus Grissom's water recovery (2nd sub-orbital flight) the side escape hatch blew open with explosive bolts prematurely. His capsule filled with water before a helicopter could pull it up and sank to the bottom of the sea to be recovered decades later.

 

[luke strawwalker]

Thanks, JR! Yes, I see it now on Google for Mercury capsule egress. Rather than wait 3 hours for his sea pick-up Scott Carpenter went out the top. It sounds like the astronaut had to push the back-up parachute out of the way and it helped if the waters were calm so the capsule didn't tip into the waves when the astronaut climbed out. I take it that later the side escape hatch was introduced with explosive bolts. Gus Grissom chose this method and almost drowned. His capsule filled with water before a helicopter could pull it up and sank to the bottom of the sea to be recovered decades later.

Yep... The explosive hatch was added after Shepard's flight... Gus claims he never hit the plunger to activate it, though, and that he was just sitting there awaiting recovery when the hatch suddenly blew. While the safety lock pin HAD been pulled from the plunger (which was SOP in case of an emergency egress was necessary) when the capsule was recovered decades later they couldn't tell whether it had been activated or not...

During the ensuing investigation, Wally Schirra said that he thought that Gus didn't trigger the hatch, but despite numerous attempts to get it to malfunction, they couldn't... Gus said that every time he or the other astronauts simulated an escape, the plunger (which basically set off the charge via firing pin or something of that sort) would kick back and make a specific type of impact bruise on the elbow of the man pushing the plunger. Gus had no markings of any kind on his arms that would have resulted from the plunger being pushed, accidentally or otherwise.

Of course the hatch incident would have ironic and tragic consequences, as Grissom, White, and Chaffee died, trapped in their Apollo capsule that had been specifically designed to open only from the inside TO the inside, to make just the sort of accident that happened in the Liberty Bell 7 impossible. Of course with the fire causing the capsule to overpressurize, there were literally TONS of force pushing the capsule hatch outward and holding it in place, despite White's superhuman efforts to remove the bolts and get the hatch open (he was found to have removed a number of the bolts and was working feverishly to open the hatch when he succumbed to the toxic gases). Even if he had removed all the bolts, he could hnot have opened the hatch due to the extreme pressure holding it in place.

Anyway, it was a bad situation...

Later! OL JR

 

[aerostadt]

I have made the upper Mercury capsule blast deflector out of Durham's rock hard water putty. I made the mold out of Loctite Repair Putty and cast it in a BT-60 tube and another tube around it. I greased the mold with paraffin wax and motor grease for easy release purposes. I could then cast the Durham's Rock Hard water putty into this mold. The water putty casting is not perfect, but I can live with it. It has a slight dimple in the top probably due to trapped air in the mold. I drilled a small hole into the base of the putty casting so that it will fit into a spindle that protrudes from the top of the capsule.

 

[aerostadt]

I have painted the escape tower adapter ring along with escape tower and blast deflector. The escape tower has some fixtures to direct the electrical wiring for firing and jettisoning the escape tower. I will coat the tower structure and blast deflector with silicon silicate solution. The flight escape tower mounted on the capsule is shown next to the plastic kit model escape tower.

 

[dixontj93060]

Well done!

 

[NJRick]

looks fantastic!! just beautiful work!

I have painted the escape tower adapter ring along with escape tower and blast deflector. The escape tower has some fixtures to direct the electrical wiring for firing and jettisoning the escape tower. I will coat the tower structure and blast deflector with silicon silicate solution. The flight escape tower mounted on the capsule is shown next to the plastic kit model escape tower.


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[TopRamen]

Most impressive indeed!!!:clap:

 

[Owen Eldridge]

Pretty incredible.

 

[aerostadt]

Some time ago I epoxied blocks of wood at three locations on the bottom of the Mercury capsule. This allows the capsule to be attached to a base plate by screws that will be attached to a 2" length of PML 6" diameter coupler tube. If I ever want to to put the heat shield back on the capsule, I can disconnect the capsule from the coupler tube arrangement.

Shown below is the process of finding the drill hole locations on the base plate. Excuse the messy workshop table. I put a piece of aluminum foil on top of the wood blocks (so nothing would stick to the blocks) followed by a small piece of clay that sticks to the base plate. The base plate is then centered and placed on top of the blocks. I then used a nail to make the hole locations.

 

[NJRick]

looking good Aerostadt!

Some time ago I epoxied blocks of wood at three locations on the bottom of the Mercury capsule. This allows the capsule to be attached to a base plate by screws that will be attached to a 2" length of PML 6" diameter coupler tube. If I ever want to to put the heat shield back on the capsule, I can disconnect the capsule from the coupler tube arrangement.

Shown below is the process of finding the drill hole locations on the base plate. Excuse the messy workshop table. I put a piece of aluminum foil on top of the wood blocks (so nothing would stick to the blocks) followed by a small piece of clay that sticks to the base plate. The base plate is then centered and placed on top of the blocks. I then used a nail to make the hole locations.

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[gerbs4me]

That looks sooo awesome!

Great job so far!

 

[aerostadt]

Thanks, NJ, gerbs4me, and Owen. I have made an attachment section to the capsule bottom. It does not fit flush with the bottom of the capsule, but when the capsule is fitted into the booster, it does fit flush, which is what really counts. I have made a lip from a section piece of PML phenolic tube as shown in the pictures. This will allow a base plate to fit for holding the electronics to fire the escape tower.

 

[aerostadt]

I have placed 2 large rail buttons on the model. I think that I seen models with just 2 buttons and I am thinking that is enough, although, I did have 3 rail buttons on my 5-inch diameter Gemini-Titan. On the GT model the aft 2 buttons were close together. It looks like I need an offset on the buttons to clear some of the Atlas aft skirt details. I am thinking that I can do the offset with washers. So far, I have not attached the buttons with epoxy and the buttons can be moved.

 

[K'Tesh]

This is a thing of Beauty... I can't wait to see videos of it in action.

With all the surface detail, would there be a chance of hiding a periscope inside of something to give you a Cineroc/Astrovision like video from the rocket's POV?

 

[gerbs4me]

Making great progress, looks beautiful!!