Speaking of Pad 34... have you ever built one of those Pad 34Z (Z for Zooch) pads?? I thought you were asking about them at one point... (maybe I'm thinking of someone else, I dunno).
Those Zoochies just look FANTASTIC going off one of those suckers and they're rediculously easy to make-- just a REAL BASIC woodworking project, and VERY LITTLE material needed... Just a piece of a deck board (5/4 x 6 rounded over treated deck boards), a bit of 2x12 (to make a nice thick, steady base), and a couple feet of 2x2's (balusters for staircases or deck railings, treated). The rest is 12 deck screws to hold all the lumber together with four of them holding a soup can cut down one side and folded back on itself for a "Scale" blast deflector (painted bright yellow of course...) Hardest part is cutting the biggest hole you can in the deck-- but a jigsaw or regular door hole saw in a drill works great for that. The real trick the Doc uses is a little linkage kit for a bathroom lavatory that has the "pop up" stopper worked by a knob between the faucet handles-- you can get the "repair kits" for these at the big box indoor lumberyard type stores and it comes with a rod and knob and a little flat steel bracket with one end bent around on itself into a "C" shape with a thumbscrew through one side-- this is what holds the launch rod, making it movable in and out to center the rocket over the "blast hole" in the deck. You have to bend the thing 90 degrees with a pair of pliers but that's no biggie, then install a carriage bolt tighted down against the deck, with a couple washers, though one of the holes in the bracket (I cut the excess off mine) and then install a wingnut on top of that to tighten down once everything's set... works like a champ!
To tilt the rod, you use the highly technical "lumber scraps" or "door leveling wood wedges" method... LOL
I set mine up on a little plastic table for launching-- I don't like pads on the ground if I can help it... (don't like crawling around down there trying to hook things up, especially with fire ants (which you don't have to worry about in Jersey... )
You might think about doing one of those as a winter project...
Doc was gonna come out with a paper model of the Pad 39A/B that looked VERY realistic, but wasn't suitable to launch off of (paper launch pads don't hold up too well when flaming rocket engines ignite!) but he permanently shelved that project last time I talked to him about it... we discussed the fact that one COULD convert a paper model of the 39A/B pads (which are available on the internet from papermodeling sources, like jleslies Lower Hudson Valley Gift Shop IIRC (check the paper modeling forum or just google "paper models of NASA launchpads" or something). Putting a cardstock skin over a wooden core could make a very cool looking launch pad... which could be "refurbished" from time to time with a new "skin"....
The IB looks great... now you just need a cool looking pad to go with it...
Later! OL JR
PS. The Zooch pad is what I use for all the glamour shots of the rockets in my Zooch beta-build threads...
