Atlas Mercury 1/12 scale

[aerostadt]

I glued the cylindrical part of the sustainer body into place today with Aeropoxy. Before putting the main body in place I drilled a hole in the small wood block for the upper rail button as shown in the first photo. The cardboard coupler tube at the top of the sustainer fuselage as shown in the other photos is not glued in place. I just put it there as a dry fit with a centering ring to see that the parachute tube is properly aligned.

 

[thobin]

Way cool!

TA

 

[aerostadt]

Way cool!

TA

Thanks, Thobin! BTW I love your avatar. I had a poster exactly like this painting when I was in college.

I am currently wrestling with the plan to build the upper transition section, specifically, the amount of lead weight ballast to put in this section. Part of this planning involved going back and updating the RocSim simulation with weight distribution estimates, etc. Currently, the weight of the model is about 23 pounds, but the final motor-loaded weight will be on the order of 35 pounds. I have decided to add 5 pounds of lead weight in the upper transition section. I went to a well stocked fishing tackle store in a nearby town and bought 2 pounds of 1/4" hollow lead wire and 3 pounds of 3/16" hollow lead wire as shown below.



The bottom photo shows a rough idea of how the lead weight will be used. The exact configuration will be different.

 

[NJRick]

she is looking great so far!! what an awesome build!

Thanks, Thobin! BTW I love your avatar. I had a poster exactly like this painting when I was in college.

I am currently wrestling with the plan to build the upper transition section, specifically, the amount of lead weight ballast to put in this section. Part of this planning involved going back and updating the RocSim simulation with weight distribution estimates, etc. Currently, the weight of the model is about 23 pounds, but the final motor-loaded weight will be on the order of 35 pounds. I have decided to add 5 pounds of lead weight in the upper transition section. I went to a well stocked fishing tackle store in a nearby town and bought 2 pounds of 1/4" hollow lead wire and 3 pounds of 3/16" hollow lead wire as shown below.

View attachment 123633View attachment 123634

The bottom photo shows a rough idea of how the lead weight will be used. The exact configuration will be different.

View attachment 123635

 

[aerostadt]

she is looking great so far!! what an awesome build!

Thanks for the moral support, NJR! I made a little progress today before starting to glue things in for the upper transition section. First I took a 4" long section of 10" diameter cardboard coupler tube and tacked in the centering ring with 30 minute epoxy. I used some small pieces of cardboard tube to make ledges to hold the centering ring in place. I then turned the coupler over and used Aeropoxy to attach the opposite side of the centering ring to the 4" long cardboard coupler as shown in the first photo. I used two short pieces of fiberglass to help on this attachment. I had some Aeropoxy left-over, so I decided to glue this coupler/centering-ring piece into place flush with the top of the main body as shown in the next two photos. The centering ring is recessed about 1/2 inch from the top of the main fuselage to help a little bit with the next step of gluing some more parts in place. It takes about 24 hours for this Aeropoxy to cure. I have attached the latest RocSim file. This file does not have exactly all the actual model details, but should have enough to give an idea of the current model performance.

 

[thobin]

Thanks, Thobin! BTW I love your avatar. I had a poster exactly like this painting when I was in college.

You still can buy it. I have considered it (still am). A scratch 4" build of this rocket is on my list too.


https://www.plan59.com/av/av452.htm


TA

 

[aerostadt]

Thanks, Thobin! I had this poster more than 45 years ago. I just ordered a new one from the website that you posted.

 

[sodmeister]

Brilliant job....and BIG !!!!

I love this project of yours ,it`s going to be a real head turner when done !

Keep up the good work ,as I`m enjoying your build !

Sincerely

paul t

 

[aerostadt]

Brilliant job....and BIG !!!!

I love this project of yours ,it`s going to be a real head turner when done !

Keep up the good work ,as I`m enjoying your build !

Sincerely

paul t

Thanks, Paul! I'm being distracted by other activities right now, but I am still working on this project at a slower pace. I'm looking forward to updates on your HellFire and Redstone projects.

 

[aerostadt]

I got my Atlas poster today. Looks like quality paper suitable for framing.

 

[aerostadt]

I finally decided to cut wood for the upper transition section. Hopefully, the upper transition will be the last major hurdle. I decided not to have all 5 lead coils within the one long notch on the triangular supports. It appeared that adjusting all the lead coils in this one spot was too difficult to handle. So, I decided to make one extra notch at the base of the triangular supports and move one of the 1/4" lead coils to that location.



I then used 30-minute epoxy to tack the supports into place. For the time being I am avoiding any contact of the lead coils with epoxy. This allows me to move the coils around slightly to adjust the fit. I will make things more secure later. I just opened new bottles of epoxy for this construction step. As I recall I ordered this epoxy from Hobby Lobby and it was delivered by regular mail. The epoxy is setting up in about 30 minutes or a little less. This is a welcome event for me. The old bottles before they ran out seemed to take more than an hour to set.

 

[NJRick]

she is really looking sweet aerostadt!! you can tell how much planning you have put into this build!

I finally decided to cut wood for the upper transition section. Hopefully, the upper transition will be the last major hurdle. I decided not to have all 5 lead coils within the one long notch on the triangular supports. It appeared that adjusting all the lead coils in this one spot was too difficult to handle. So, I decided to make one extra notch at the base of the triangular supports and move one of the 1/4" lead coils to that location.

View attachment 125400

I then used 30-minute epoxy to tack the supports into place. For the time being I am avoiding any contact of the lead coils with epoxy. This allows me to move the coils around slightly to adjust the fit. I will make things more secure later. I just opened new bottles of epoxy for this construction step. As I recall I ordered this epoxy from Hobby Lobby and it was delivered by regular mail. The epoxy is setting up in about 30 minutes or a little less. This is a welcome event for me. The old bottles before they ran out seemed to take more than an hour to set.

View attachment 125401View attachment 125402View attachment 125403View attachment 125404

 

[sodmeister]

I love watching this build ,very enjoyable !

Keep up the great work on this fine project and post plenty of pictures !

Take care


Paul t

 

[aerostadt]

I love watching this build ,very enjoyable !

Keep up the great work on this fine project and post plenty of pictures !

Take care


Paul t

Paul, thanks for the encouragement! I am still wrestling with this upper transition section. I simply put in epoxy to hold the triangular struts and lead weight firmly in place. I decided not to do anything fancy here and just used more epoxy. In two opposite quadrants I used 30 minute epoxy, which set up fast. In the other two opposite quadrants I used Aeropoxy ES6209, which takes at least 20 hours to set.




I am planning to make the shroud from 1/64" ply. I have a large enough piece that it could be done all in one piece, but I am not sure that I want to do this.

 

[thobin]

I got my Atlas poster today. Looks like quality paper suitable for framing.

View attachment 125327

Nice! Builds looking good.


TA

 

[aerostadt]

Thanks, Thobin. For the moment I have decided on a strategy for the upper transition shroud. Since the model is large, the shroud turns out to be larger than any I have done before. I first used the Shroud/Transition Calculator in Rocket Reviews (EMRR). The upper tube diameter is 6.155" (I used 6.0") and the lower tube diameter is 10.2655" and the height of the transition section (or frustum of a cone) is 11.9167". The calculator ends up giving a small radius of 17.0288" and a large radius of 29.1348" and an angle of 63.422 Deg. I have a large compass set from my college days for drawing arcs, but it is not this large. So, I had to use a string to draw the arcs after I found a piece of paper large enough. In dry fits of this paper shroud I found that it was awkward and unwieldy. I thought the problem might be the crudeness of the shroud drawing, so I went back to the RocSim template to make sense out of it. I came to realize that RocSim prints out the transition template even for large models, however, it is somewhat of a jigsaw puzzle to put together. For this template RocSim printed 15 pages of 8.5" x 11" paper with 4 corners printed to mark the boundaries (or margins) inside each 8.5" x 11" piece of paper (or jigsaw piece). Two examples are shown below although the lines may be very hard to see.


It took 15 pages to make the full template as shown below.

 

[aerostadt]

I compared the two different paper shrouds and decided that they were not that much different. (The first shroud had a few additional inches taped to it to aid in dry fitting.)



I then decided to put some ribs on the cross-sectionals pieces and cut some from aircraft plywood.



I was not very fancy on constructing these ribs or attaching them. I would ask that the better craftsman on this forum close their eyes at this point. This could have been done better perhaps even using interlocking pieces.

 

[aerostadt]

I needed a very large piece of 1/64" thick plywood for the shroud. I found a place in Tacoma, WA that sold what I needed.



I then decided that doing the entire shroud as one piece was too hard to control and it would be better to do it in two parts. The nice thing about RocSim is that I could make a short file just for doing half of the shroud.



I then cut and taped my new jigsaw puzzle from RocSim and finally cut the half-shroud for the 1/64" thick plywood. I then put 30 minute epoxy on the triangular cross-sections and ribs and wrapped the shroud around this structure and taped the shroud until the epoxy cured. Unfortunately, the epoxy cured in about 5 or 10 minutes and the shroud placement is off a little bit. Hopefully, this can be adjusted later. The ribs are open enough that polyurethane foam can be poured in. This will be the next step.

 

[gdjsky01]

Ah that is nuttin'
I could do that build with both hands tied behind my back.
But seein' hows it's your build. I'll just kick back and watch... I mean I don't want to ruin it for ya right?

:wink::wink::wink:

 

[aerostadt]

Ah that is nuttin'
I could do that build with both hands tied behind my back.
But seein' hows it's your build. I'll just kick back and watch... I mean I don't want to ruin it for ya right?

:wink::wink::wink:

The build may be easy, but it is also time-consuming. Sometimes it seems to be more fun and perhaps more relaxing to kick back and watch reruns on TV. I finally took the plunge and put the second half of the upper shroud on. Before doing that I touched up a few places with the Dremel tool, which seemed to help a little bit after pouring in the PML two-part polyurethane and letting it harden. Obviously, the upper half does not have foam filler so it won't be quite as strong.

 

[gdjsky01]

The build may be easy, but it is also time-consuming.

You did see the winks and cheers right? :confused2::shock:

 

[aerostadt]

Yes, I did, Jeff. I'm just disappointed with myself. I watched too many snippets today of old movie reruns on TV just to see my favorite parts. I could have gotten a lot more things done.

 

[gdjsky01]

Man doth not live by rockets alone... well that's BS. But still, even I paused to practice hovering on Real Flight.

 

[aerostadt]

I am in the process of adding details. There is still a lot to do.

 

[NJRick]

Aerostadt....she looks awesome! beautiful work!

I am in the process of adding details. There is still a lot to do.

View attachment 130474View attachment 130475View attachment 130476

 

[krusty]

Woah! I have no idea how I missed this

Stunning

Krusty

 

[aerostadt]

I have started to assemble the Atomic City Mercury capsule. The plastic capsule parts come in 4 colors as follows: clear (for astronaut's visor, etc.), an off-white, black, and red. Basically, the colors correspond correctly to the actual capsule. However, probably for the economy of making parts some and perhaps all will need to be painted. The instructions are detailed, but some things seem not to be called out. I was surprised that the instructions did not call out painting the astronaut's face. I had an old bottle of Testor's Light Tan, which looks like flesh color. I used this before on the Revell Gemini astronauts and it looks good. The astronaut is all one solid piece. I think it is vinyl plastic and it is heavy. On the order of about 6 oz. This is good, because it moves the c.g. forward. Every little bit helps. As far as I can tell there are no decals that go on the astronaut. There are some hoses that are need to be glued on separately.

 

[aerostadt]

I made a glue-smugged goof on one of the clear plastic parts, but I was able to buy a replacement part for a small fee from the manufacture. Part of the capsule control panel is clear plastic, which obviously must be painted white. I did not see anywhere the decal placement for the control panel, but it was obvious how they could be placed. Close inspection of the attached photo shows some of the clear plastic control panel parts that must be painted.

 

[aerostadt]

Obviously, the capsule and escape tower will need to be painted also.

 

[aerostadt]

It looks like if you want to use the zebra decals for the retro-rocket pack, you need to look at the specific instructions in advance. Obviously, I did not do this. This is not a critical application for me, because the retro-pack will not be seen in my application.



I bought a set of laser cut parts for the escape tower from Matt Johnson. A special thanks go out to Matt! He has been very supportive. Matt flew his 1/12 scale Atlas/Mercury last year. Matt made parts for a back-up tower to be used for flight, although, as I recall Matt said he used the actual Atomic City escape tower on his first flight.