Thanks OL JR
I tried a couple of different colours of spray paints, but they ended up looking very... toy-ish. I was afraid the thing was going to end up weighing too much if I put much more paint on, but then I found a bottle of Testors Model Master Acrylic in Yellow Ochre (#4214). I brushed it on, and it came out surprisingly smooth.
For the intertank section, I first painted it the same as the rest of the ET. Then I used another color of the Model Master paint, Panama Buf(#4221), with a bit of the Yellow Ochre mixed in. I used a fairly wide brush (with just a little bit of paint at a time) and lightly brushed perpendicular to the corrugations so the paint only caught the raised portions. Anywhere the paint got into the grooves, I gently scraped it once dry to expose the base color. I printed off some labels with a suitable color and cut strips for the upper and lower edges of the intertank section.
On the LOX cable tray, I cut tiny strips of label paper that I had printed a yellowish color on the computer and applied them to the ET. Then I used MS word to draw and print off the LOX cables (thin black line, a color close to the ET color, then another line), cut it with an exacto knife/steel ruler and applied it over the little strips from the previous step. I didn't go perfectly scale here, but it gives a good illusion. Anyone gets too close for a look while it's on the pad, and I'm launching the sucker!
I also added dowels along the outer sides of the SRBs, and the forward separation nozzles (also printed on label paper) and aft separation thrusters (sanded a couple of small pieces of balsa). Added a couple extra brackets to the aft shuttle attach assembly, and the point (tranquilizer dart to subdue the scale-critic types that get too close to all of this) on the tip of the nose cone as well.
I fashioned the ET aft dome from a piece of pink styrofoam insulation, then coated it with a layer of white glue to harden it and protect it from heat of lauch. Still pretty lightweight.
It would be impractical to make all of these details in a stock kit. The Doc gave us a great design, and it is an excellent canvas to play with for those of us with far too much time on our hands.
That's the BEST version of my shuttle kit I have EVER seen!
Thanks so much, Doc. This has to be my favorite kit ever!
Please tell me you compensated for the extra weight of the after-market wraps, because I don't want your orbiter to fly poorly.
I printed the fuselage, OMS pods, engines and nose section on 67lb cover stock paper. Printed the wing tops and bottoms and vertical stabilizer on inkjet label sheets... added a bit of white poster-mounting putty in the nose to balance, that's it. The Columbia orbiter that made the amazing glide on my most recent flight (seems like ages ago now) was constructed in this manner, so no worries there. It flew like a champ... fast and far... and probably didn't deviate more than 10 feet from a perfectly straight line. I don't have a sensitive scale, but it doesn't weigh much more than the stock version with the provided photorealisitc belly skin.
