Quick'n'dirty Jupiter 2

[dhanners]

This is a model I've wanted since I was 11. I still remember sitting in front of our black-and-white TV in September 1965 and watching the premier of "Lost in Space." It was cooler than cool. Although the show got cheesier as time went on (hey, it was the '60s...) the geekazoid in me desperately wanted a model of the Jupiter 2. Why Aurora never came out with one is beyond me.

This model was a real "experience." I found it online somewhere (can't recall the designer; sorry) and printed it out. But I decided to build it smaller than offered, so I reduced it to 75 percent. I built it "gear up" to keep things simple. Plus, the kit's landing legs lacked detail and I didn't want to scratchbuild them.

It prints out as a gray color, and since I left a glue smudge or two where the two halves of the saucer meet, I needed to sand the joint smooth. Of course that rubbed off some of the color, leaving things unsightly, so I thought, "Hey, why don't I just paint it silver?"

That's where the adventure began.

I've not yet found a hobby shop in Kuwait, so I headed to my local hardware store to buy rattle cans of gray primer and silver. The cans look like they've been sitting there since the Iraqi invasion.

So I get them back to the apartment and go down to the courtyard to paint since I don't want the fumes indoors. As you may know, Kuwait is in the DESERT, where it is very DRY, so the gray primer dries the instant it comes out of the nozzle. That's great if you're modeling a stucco house, but if you're modeling a smooth-hulled spaceship, it looks horrible.

I let the paint dry and then sanded it and it knocked off the pebbly chunks pretty well, but not 100 percent. I worked a bit more and got it relatively smooth.

So then I broke out the silver spray can. I figured if I held the nozzle a lot closer to the model's surface, I'd avoid the pebble problem. I did, up to a point. It was still rough.

I got ready to ditch the model and was rummaging under the sink and found a piece of 0000 steel wool. (I use it to take the shine off the backs of guitar necks.) I thought, "Well, if I'm throwing the model out, I might as well give steel wool a try." So I buffed it with the steel wool and not only did it smooth out the paint (for the most part) but it also gave it a nice dull sheen. If, indeed, you can have a "dull sheen."

Once done, I used a black Sharpie to redraw the hatch and other details. I added detail to the fusion core, cutting out the little windows and backing them with white or gray rectangles. I thermoformed the little bubble on top.

Were I to do it again, I'd print it out on light gray paper. I mean, when I watched "Lost in Space" on that black-and-white TV, the Jupiter 2 looked gray, right?

[dhanners]

And another one...

[bigpetr]

Looks cute. Nice

[spaceagent-9]

any jup 2 is a great jup 2!!!!

[GreggCA]

Thats COOL! Im from that generation too...
Neat model.!
Gregg

[Revell-Fan]

Great job and ingenious finishing!