This revealed a slight mismatch of the two diameters, the stage was about 1mm larger than the SLA. Rather than trying to chamfer the stage I decided to use a small section of the kit part as this was tapered and designed to fit to the stage. I rigged up a blade set to the correct height with a plastic shim and carefully sliced off a 1mm thick section

The New Ware set include photo etched cross braces which are extremely fiddly. Adding the ribbing has the advantage of giving them something to locate to

With all the ribs installed a fit check was carried out to ensure that it could all be put together later. All works well. The plan will be to paint the inners of the fairings silver, the base will be painted white as the Photo etch heatshield covers 99% of the area, so the white will be required. The heatshield can be pre painted, and then installed, followed by the engines and finally the cross braces.

The next jobs were seam filling & to repair the areas that were damaged during removal of the unwanted original detail.

After what seemed like a never ending cycle of filling, sanding, spot priming, checking was completed the next task was to apply the new ware photo etch & resin details to the stages.

The whole assembly was put together as a final fit check. This is as far as fitting external details goes for now. The remainder of the parts will be fitted after the rocket has been painted. Doing it this way will save a lot of masking off

The painting phase can now be started as all the repairs & detailing are pretty much done

The first stage after a final coat of primer

Looking at reference photos the second stage appears to be a slightly off white colour. This may have something to do with the insulation that was bonded to the surface of the tank walls. I decided to paint it a slightly different colour to the rest of the rocket

After multiple coats of white most of the basic paintwork was complete.

The launch platform was next up to receive some detail. Masks were cut using the Cameo 4 and applied.

The results were good

The CSM was masked and painted, a very labour intensive job, very fiddly, and took a long time to do. The results were worth the effort.

The S-IVB third stage roll pattern was masked, and then painted .

The first stage was masked and the silver sections of the engine fairings were painted .

The second stage had the forward roll pattern masked & painted. Yet again the Cameo 4 came up trumps with cutting masks. I missed a trick with the small fairings on the conical section as in all four of them are white and partially sit in the black sections. I should have left them off and stuck them on after the black was painted

The first stage had the roll patterns masked & painted.

Removing the masking has been likened to opening a Christmas present, you never know what you are going to get. Masking the Saturn V is acknowledged as one of the trickier jobs in the space modelling genre due to the corrugated stringers. As with many things in life you only get back what you put in, this is very true when it comes to masking.

After all that waffle here is the finished result,  apart from a very few minor touch ups it turned out quite well 

The next job up was to apply the decals, but prior to that a coat of clear was applied. There has and probably will be in the future great debate surrounding the need/not need for a clearcoat prior to adding decals. The debate also revolves around which clearcoat to be used. The "traditionally" held view is that a gloss coat is the way to go as it's proponents say that it will stop silvering of the decals and give a smooth surface for them to adhere to. As with most things in modelling I will test out and try different methods, and have successfully applied decals with and without clearcoat. I have however adopted the gloss before decals method now, purely because I would rather get a coat of clear on to seal the model sooner rather than later and make it more robust for handling. A coat of Mr Color GX-112 was applied

The decal set used was one of Rick Sternbachs "Ultimate" sets. These are acknowledged as the best on the market. They come with a comprehensive set of application instructions, that are an education in themselves

All set up and the first decal is being applied

8 hours later and the application completed, at this scale some of the decals are absolutely miniscule

The models was left for 24 hours and a coat of GX-113 was applied. This is a flat matt finish, and is applied to "hide" the decal backing film. The model will then require a coat of Satin (semi gloss) varnish. There is not a semigloss in the Mr Color GX range, so i will try andf see if i can mix some gloss & matt together to make a semi gloss

Whilst the clearcoat was curing attention was given to the detail works that needed completing 

The base heatshield was clear coated and then grey panel liner was added. The three pics below show a before during and after

The S-II heatshield required some support legs and a means of attachment. The legs were made from 1mm rod, that was stiffened with some washers cut from tube The thrust structure had small packers inserted and Epoxy glue added to the underside. Then holes were drilled to accept the heat shield support legs

The J2 engines were detail painted

The  CSM was dressed with the RCS thrusters and the Launch Escape tower

The whole rocket was given a final clearcoat, a mix of GX 112 gloss & GX113 matt was mixed (2 gloss to 1 matt).

The launch platform was finish assembled, the hold downs were glued in place, followed by the right angled braces 

The tail service masts assemblies were added. A positioning template was made and they were drilled on the underside. Then with the template under them they were placed into position. The mast was removed leaving the template in place, and the base was drilled.

Finally  styrene rod was glued into the bottom of the masts and they were placed on the base.

The fairings on the second stage were drilled and styrene rod inserted. The stage was then marked up and small holes drilled to allw them to be fixed in place

The base heatshield installed, followed by the engines, and lastly the fairing braces

Small detail pieces glued into the top of the stages

The second stage was finish assembled. The tank dome installed, followed by the thrust structure. With the structure in place the heat shield and the engines were installed

The third stage had the thrust structure and engine added, plus the APS clusters fixed to the outside, The SLA and the CSM were fixed into position

The final job was to attach the fins to the first stage. All that is left to do is take some photos and find a place for it to live.