Sorry Mohammed, but I really didn't want to tease you. Don't worry, be happy.
Then let's unravel that mystery. And here is the detail, which it concerns. There is this small ventilation screen in the
Bay 7 of Side 4:
Source: NASA
And it looks like this on a scale 1:160:
But first of all few preliminary tests for the most favorable handling were necessary. In the final version I cut first the internal window opening of approx. 6,2x6,8 mm with a cutter from a piece of paper and glued then a somewhat larger piece of the priming ribbon over it. Afterwards I drew the outside edge (7,5x8 mm) around the lattice opening, and cut these out then carefully, from which finally a framework strength of < 1 mm results. And after the concluding brushing finish the work was then achieved and had to be glued only carefully between the 1x1 mm of bracket sections in Bay 7.
It is in the long run only a small detail, could one now mean, who is hardly still noticeable in the MLP wall, but rounds it somehow off nevertheless the overall view, finds I. And in addition I wanted to try myself times at such a tiny structure.
And now only the
Side 1 stands so completely naked and without everything there, but that will now soon change also. But there is a lot of tiny equipment to build.
Here is a picture of the real thing in full beauty. There are already alone four Access Platforms in different height with various equipment, walkways, stairs, railings and a lot of pipes and valves.
Source: NASA
But first were to be attached into already well-known way the vertical reinforcement profiles, thus a comparatively rather lighter exercise.
And thus to the longest of the four Access Platforms, that is at the left side, above the MLP-1 No., here in the original.
Source: NASA
These are the individual parts of the paper kit template (left side):
Actually it should go on with the
Access Platforms at the Side 1, and I had begun thereby already.
I strengthened the upper section of the platform (in front) again with 2 mm of Balsa. Behind it the bottom side of the platform lies. The two recesses on the right and left were suggested in D. Maiers kit template only as such, what does not please me however, and therefore I've cut it out. Above the right recess (arrow) a long stairway leads to the upper deck (0 Level) of MLP-1.
Since I found out however in the meantime, that there was no stairway at the
MLP-2 with the
STS-6, and therefore I had to omit it.
Source: Retro Space Images.com
With more exact regarding of the platform parts I've got the question, how the platforms in reality looked, whether are closed, or whether it concerns broken through gratings, which I thereupon followed.
After I looked at myself some NASA photos exactly, I found out that it concerns open gratings, as one can see in this photo.
Source: NASA
And after I had found that out, I had following idea: Why I should not try whether the top sides of the Access Platforms would drive themselves out not also as gratings leave. And there I was with my thoughts immediately again with the small ventilation screen on the Side 4, which I had scratch built from a ribbon.
I am some more considering, whether I am to really do myself the expenditure, but would already provoke me that. And therefore I'll plan that next times. If it folds, I could build all other Access Platforms also in such a way.
That however would mean that I must build also the underbody for the gratings themselves, and for it I need the necessary profiles. Those are essentially I-beam sections, on the basis of photos I estimate approx. 1,5x2,5 mm (1:160). And then it would also present itself to likewise build the struts from plastic profiles and do without the paper struts.
Completely so fast I will be able to start thereby not yet. After careful consideration I mean textile variant envisaged with the ribbon for the gratings probably nevertheless to reject and the walkways instead from metallic grating to make. That would then in any case be the more solid and more durable solution, as I find.
