Space: 1999 mark ix hawk

[bgt01]

The detailing for this part was really hard as I was working with an unfolded part. I designed the panels as flat, separate pieces and scaled the to the approximate sizes I needed. Starting at the rear, I glued the parts to the very bottom and slowly worked the panel until it folded along the hull. Then I trimmed away the excess as flush as possible to follow the join line between the bottom and command module. The two forward sections were the hardest as they angle in the most toward the nose. Those I had to cut off at the fold line, trim, and glue them on separately otherwise the angle of the fold was way off toward the rear. They aren’t perfect, but they’re pretty good for making it up on the fly.

The final detail was to add the nose gun. It’s the only gun seen firing on screen. On the original model this was just a small light at the end of a tube. My replication is just a piece of hard, black wire cut to length and inserted in a small hole I made with my metal pick. I carved out the hole with an X-acto just enough to get the wire to lay flat against the hull and glued it in place with a drop of Super Glue gel.

[bgt01]

MAIN BODY ASSEMBLY

The 3 main body pieces are now lined up and glued together!

[bgt01]

WING GUNS

On to the wing guns! Again, all the details were redrawn. The middle is a simple tube with the long tab removed, remade in printer paper and glued from behind. I used a little orange marker on the tab to further hide the seam. Both ends are made onto the original part. I find that harder to work with and get a nice curl and/or a clean glue edge, so I cut both off and assembled them separately. On both ends I cut off the tabs and made 1 new tab for the side pieces. I was going to try and recess the areas on the front piece for the gun barrels, but I decided that was too small and it would likely be a lot of time spent on a part I wouldn’t like the looks of.

[bgt01]

The guns were assembled easily. The rear is supposed to have a white grooved band wrapped around it with a flat white rectangle at the seam, which is missing on the original part. I drew up the band and made it out of card stock. The rectangle is just a piece of 67 lb. white cover. On the studio model, the guns’ rear have a circular end cap with some raised detail. I drew up a version of this and glued the parts to layered 1mm chipboard to make a 2mm tall part. I edge colored this with silver Sharpie. I printed out a second set of parts, glued it to 67 lb. white cover and used a hole punch and scissors to trim out the raised ring. Both parts were glued together and I got a nice representation of the actual end piece.

[bgt01]

The final step was to make the front barrel end. On the model, this is a tube with a small notch cut out of the forward end. I made this using the barrel section from the original part. I colored the back side with silver Sharpie and cut some notches out of both sides. I curled the part, glued the seam and glued both ends on with Super Glue gel.

[bgt01]

BOOSTERS

Like the other parts, the boosters got a complete repaint. Also like the other parts, these are not mirror images of each other. They are largely the same but the studio model has several hand-drawn details on each. The original part is missing almost all this detail. Most of it became raised detail, including some liberties I took with the “freehand” parts. The areas that face into the hull are somewhat covered and hard to see, but it looks like the parts are mostly plain in those areas. This would make sense because the model was rushed and studio modelers don’t often spend time detailing areas the camera won’t see.

[bgt01]

I stared by cutting off the rear cones where the exhaust mounts. I cut off the tabs, made a new one for the sides and glued it from behind. I curled and glued the sides and glued the flat ends flush. There are some tiny gaps on the ends, but I believe the exhaust will help hide this.

Next I made the forward ends. These are a little tricky because they cones with a flat section that faces outward. I cut them off the center and curled the curved areas like normal, then glued the small cut areas where the flat sections end, Next I glued the seams together using a new tab glued from behind. You really need to go slow to avoid really bad creases or misshapen bases. Also, leave the forward end open until the part is attached to the center. It gives you a good place to hold it and you can poke it in place from the inside if you need to.

Next I curled and glued the center sections, again with new tabs made from 20lb. printer paper glued from behind. Then I glued two oversize pieces of card to both ends of the center sections and cut them to size with scissors. This gave me a flat surface to edge glue both ends. Rawen’s Starfleet models use these for the bussard collectors and it works great.

[bgt01]

Next up was adding the raised details. This was straightforward with a few exceptions. For the small orange stripes I made some that were longer than needed. I glued one end toward the top where you can see it then wrapped it around to where it ended at the seam. The longer piece let me trim the stripe exactly where I needed it instead of winding up short like printing a copy of the part would have done.

On the studio model the gray section on the top is rather thick and looks sort of like a vent. I think it’s ribbed plastic. For this, I glued a copy of my part, which I redrew using gradient for shading, to 1mm chipboard and edge colored it with silver Sharpie. Then, I cut another copy into strips and glued them in place, matching the texture. This gives it a raised look somewhat like the studio part. I trimmed the excess off the edges, curled it and glued it into place.

The studio model has some small signage at both ends that can’t be read. Since most of the stickers on the studio model are from the Airfix Harrier kit they probably say something about “jet blast.” Since they are near the exhaust and where the maneuvering thruster goes I went with that and made some that say, “DANGER. JET BLAST. STAND CLEAR.” Ironically, at this size you can’t read mine either! But I know they are there.

One goof I made you can see in picture i_5. Look at the end and you’ll see a white area on the flat side toward the front. This should have been on the panel section toward the rear! I switched the file around and printed out new panels and glued them over the old ones. You can see the corrected look in the last picture. You can also see the “H” shaped parts I made that were missing. On these parts I have a few areas where the glue and watercolor pencils I’m using made the ink run a little. I don’t like it but it does kind of look like weathering, which the studio model has in spades! So to get over that I’m telling myself that this ship is mostly new out of the factory and is just starting to show some space mileage.

[Wad Cutter]

These are the links I use and in there order. Gives a beautiful view 24/7 except for then the ISS goes through LOS-lost of signal.

Option 1 - HD TV’s
Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth

Option 2 – Single non HD camera
Live_ISS_Stream on USTREAM: Live video from the International Space Station includes internal views when the crew is on-duty and Earth views at other times...

Option 3 - NASA TV
NASA Television | NASA

Finding the ISS
ISS Tracker 3D - International Space Station - REAL TIME TRACKING
Current position of the ISS

wc

[ganeshsingh158]

bgt01 - Hawk is looking great, I still haven't gotten up the nerve to try the Eagle...
Wad Cutter - Thanks for those links. I hadn't seen those before and they are really cool.