A trial fit of the heat shield, engines and insulation collars

Using David Weeks excellent set of drawings the boat tail was marked up ready for masking off the roll pattern

Using David Weeks excellent set of drawings the boat tail was marked up ready for masking off the roll pattern

Also masked up was the interstage section of the SI-VB stage. 1mm by 1mm strip was inserted between the stringers adjacent to the demarcation line to give the masking tape a solid base 

All masked up and ready to go, doesn't look a lot, but a fair few hours spent

Painted up, fingers crossed that the drawings had been interpreted correctly, and a check revealed all was good

The interstage checked. found that on two sections above the ullage rockets an extra stringer needs covering with black. An easy fix, thankfully it was that way round and didn't have to go back and paint a black stringer white

The SI-VB Stage had the masks applied in readiness to paint the USA markings 

The finshed result

As mentioned before Scott's solution for masking the stringers crossways is by not having to. He has achieved that by supplying panels that are then pre-painted before installation. A great solution.

I am using the Cameo more and more these days to create paint masks. When I first used it the primary usage was for logos and lettering. I then came to a realisation that creating masks for other applications is a great method to employ. In this case masks were made for painting the antenna yellow

 The LES Skirt and Solid rocket motor engine bells were painted black for this flight. There was no way i could paint thee assembly as it was so close to the lattice framework. As anyone who has worked with 3d printed resin will know it is extremely delicate and brittle. I decided to separate the section that needed painting black. So with much trepidation i took a razor saw to it. Thankfully it came apart without getting damaged. The skirt and engine bell section were painted black and the assembly glued back together

 A few sessions were devoted to painting most of the remaining smaller items, plus the only outstanding larger piece (the SLA)

 The only items left to paint were the J2 engine, the Service Module RCS thrusters and the first stage fins. As the fins are each painted differently a "road map" was made using David Weeks drawings and looking at reference photos. this was printed as a handy reference

It has reached that time in the build that decals are being considered. with that in mind drawings and photographs are again scrutinised. The drawings by David Weeks and the decals by Rick Sternbach all come with the rider that it is wise to consult pictures of the real vehicles as each had its little quirks, This can be seen in the graphic above where on of the fins has a small black section that is not shown on the drawing set

As with the fin road map decal placement guides were created. These were then crossreferenced to the very comprehnsive instructions that came with the decal set

 During this close scrutiny of the drawings I noticed another detail that I had not realised previously. This being that on later flights only 3 of the four fuel tanks sported and external cable duct. As the kit is a later version the cable duct was not present on the F4 tank. The duct was measured up and a packet of evergreen styrene strips ordered. One strip cut to length and scribed to create panel lines should do the trick

 Scots kit allows for various internals of the rocket to be looked at by not gluing the stages together. He used  a combination of tabs and magnets to achieve this. I did not go down this route. In two places the tabs were not replicated, and for the CSM i have gone for a locating dowel. The model will still engage together but will need to be "manually" lined up. To this end another guide was made 

 Another detail that was picked up from looking at reference photos was the colour of the antenna on the instrument unit. a couple of views taken from images of the vehicle on the pad show that the antenna were painted. and in the lower image it is apparent that the colour was yellow. this is in line with the antenna on the first stage. As with the first stage antenna a set of masks were made and the antenna painted

The fins were painted white & then masked ready for painting the black areas

A shot of the right hand side of the fins

A shot of the left hand side of the fins

Over a couple of sessions the whole exterior of the model was clear-coated using MR Color 181 Semi gloss clear.

With that complete it was time to start applying decals .

The application went well the only difficult parts were where the decals went over the stringers. 

The vertical motion target (The four rectangular black sections on the picture below) were the hardest decals to apply. Each section ended up being a composite of about four to five pieces of decal, and a lot of strong decal solution to make then settle snug to the stringers

All of the decals were then over-sprayed with Mr Color  GX-113 Flat clearcoat to mask any glossiness. and any slight silvering effects. Finally the areas were then resprayed with semi gloss clear to restore the overall satin finish

As mentioned previously all four of the fuel tanked were fitted with cable tunnels. This meant fabricating an extra one to fit to the tank that did not have one. Evergreen styrene strip of the correct size was purchased. The top tank in the picture below is the one to get the tunnel. the lower tank shows the tunnel that is present on the oyher three tnks

As can be seen the tunnel has a series of panel lines. These will be made by scribing the surface of the strip. To get the scribing evenly spaced without having to measure and individually mark out 70 or so lines a template was made up. It was drawn as a 2d sketch in fusion. A screen shot was taken and then imported to excel. The image was then manipulated and printed (about 5 or six times until the lines on the image matched up with the lines on the  tank.

The scale was attached to a scrap sheet of styrene along with the strip to be scribed. This in turn was clamped to the bench and the scribing was started

Scribed up and ready for paint

The finishing line was in sight. and final construction was started

The magnets on the spacer plate were screwed to a piece of wood to create a temporary base

The RCS thrusters were trial fitted, and the LES tower was glued together

The kit was mainly complete at this stage. but I have held off from attaching the fins, exhaust turbine fairings, Service Module RCS thrusters & hold down arms. The will go on when the model is installed to the display base.

There were a few outstanding items, detailing to the APU's & command module. along with the hold down posts. 

As can be seen from the images below the APU's had red covers on the thruster ports, and the command module was covered in what looked like black dots. The black dots were in fact temperature sensors to monitor the heat of the capsules surface during re-entry    .

I obtained a set of "dot" decals from E Bay and set to work  .

The decals were not he best quality and very difficult to work with. They had a very pronounced film which would be very difficult to hide. To counter this is used my circle cutter to cut out circles from circles!!! . In retrospect i would have been better off using sheet decal and cutting the circles

This stage of the build was reached in November 2024.With the completion of the display base in January 2025 it was time to install the final  items. These items were left off to ensure no damage was done during repeated handling whilst fit check of the rocket to the pad were being done

The heatshield overlay was glued into place, followed by the first stage engines

The hold down braces were glued into the fins, and the engine bell plus RCS quads attached to the service module. 

For small gluing jobs like this where the parts are not structural I have started using mig ammo Ultra glue. It is water soluble and will glue parts that are painted without melting the paint

This concluded the build on the 9th January 2029