Ton Noteboom's 1/24 Scale Mercury Capsule

[Ekuth]

This was originally posted on the other site, but I thought it was worth importing to our new home.

After finishing the Fortezza shuttle and matching stack, I wanted to take on something (relatively) easy. I'd had this one printed out and sitting in my "to do" drawer for a while, so I decided to get to it.

Model here: http://jleslie48.com/tonmercury/

This is a free model found on Jon Leslie's wonderful site.

So, with the preliminaries out of the way, let's get to it!

Our first page of parts, cut out and ordered:



Ton gives pictoral directions with his model, which can be both good and bad, depending on the complexity. This model is fairly straightforward, and I built from the top down, as shown in his directions.

First up is part M5. Simple cone. He states to place a 6mm bead on the inside to fill the gap at the top. Being your typical American, ignorant of the metric system, I chose one at random out of my craft box that seemed to fit, and colored it with my good friend, the black sharpie marker.

Underside:



And the topside:



Next, we attach the bottom to our M5 assembly, part M5a:



And add part E2. I deviated here and printed two part E2's and sandwiched them together so I would have a printed top and bottom. Don't forget to edge color! I used a red RoseArt colored pencil that I moisten to get even coloring.

[Ekuth]

Next up is the part M4 assembly, with part M4B on the top and part M4A on the bottom. Ton doesn't use glue tabs, so be sure to cut and place very carefully. This is all friction fit work, and glue fillets help alot. Be sure to let dry before handling. Pay close attention to which side of part M4 is the top! (It's the side with the thicker grey band.)

Top (M4B):



Bottom (M4A):



Now on to the part M3 assembly. M3 is an either/or part, so you dont have to worry about which end is up. Part M3B on the top, part M3A on the bottom (although I don't think it would make any difference.)



Moving on to the M2 assembly. Pay attention to which end is up here. Ton marks them for you. (It's the side with the little oval areas near the edge) Part M2A on the bottom. Note that part M2B (that goes on top) is in two pieces- the part with the thick black ring goes on top of the other one. Just to keep this clear, I glued the black ring part on the bottom of assembly M3.

There was a bit of a GOTCHA here, but I'm not sure if it was something I did or not. Anyway, the diameters of parts M2A and M2B were a little too small for the interior of M2. Either cut them a little larger, or do what I did and glue a thin band of cardstock on the inside edges of M2 before you cement the top (M2B) and bottom (M2A) in place to get a good friction fit.

Top:



Bottom:

[Ekuth]

I missed taking photos of the finishing step for the M2 Assembly, which is to cut out the part MC2 strips and glue them in place over the blue lines surrounding the outside of the M2 part. There are 12 of them and they're small, so be careful and take your time aligning them. You can see them in the next shot.

Next, we take our M5, M4, M3 and M2 assemblies and glue them together:



Now comes the fun part. Form your M1 assembly by shaping the cone, carefully aligning the edges. Edgecolor BEFORE YOU GLUE!. Part M1B goes on the top, as shown:



And part M1A on the bottom. I put a cardboard backing on part M1A, as this is the part that holds the shape of the cone and it needs the extra support. I highly recommend you do the same. Bevel the edge of the cardboard to match the shape of part M1, and glue in place:



Getting eager now, aren't you?

Glue our assembled parts M5 - M2 on top of our M1 Assembly. She's starting to come together nicely!

[Ekuth]

Now we start work on the latticework:

Ton didn't list the latticework structure on the instruction sheet for some reason, so I had to puzzle it out from the reference photos.

First, we assemble the bottom retaining ring, the Part E1 assembly. Ton gives us two options for part E1; black or red. The black matches the rest of the capsule, the red matches the latticework structure. I went with red. Form E1, edgecolor, and glue part E1A into the bottom. (Be sure to cut out the middle of E1A.) Edgecolor the underside. Glue this on top of our previously assembled capsule structure so that it rests immediately above the M2 Assembly (the part you glued 12 small strips to in the last sequence). Fiddle with it until you get the ring perfectly centered. There's not alot of wiggle room here, so be precise.

Top:



Underside:



Time for some of that latticework. Cut out parts E3. Ton provides some white duplicates (part E3a) that he directs to glue to the back of the red E3 pieces... I chose to print a duplicate of the E3 parts to keep the inside of the latticework red. Whichever you choose, glue them to the backside of the E3 parts, carefully checking the alignment on the edges. Be sure to edgecolor once you're done.

Now to make gluing to the attachment ring we just put on easier, I bent the ends of the prongs up slightly to match the angle. I used CA glue to put these on- if you do too, only use a teeny tiny bit. One swipe at the top of the prong to secure it to part E2 (the red triangle on top of our capsule assembly) and a little bit on the end of each prong is more than enough. Glue so the top end of each prong (the part that glues to E2) is just a hair above E2. In other words, dont glue it flush. This will help to attach the other latticework we'll be doing soon. See the picture below to see what I mean:

[Ekuth]

GAH! So much for the easy parts.

The upper latticework is a living nightmare of precision cutting. Of course I had to make it more difficult on myself... Ton gives the lattice as a one sided piece- which would mean the interior of the lattice would be white. YUCK!

We can't stand for that, can we?

I didn't think so.

Sooooo... we either color the white with, say... a red Sharpie marker; or we do what masochistic modelers like me do:

Copy the image of the latticework to MSPaint, flip it horizontally, convert the JPG to PDF and print it! Wallah, instant reverse image for the inside of the latticework.

Of course, this means that we have not one, but TWO lattice structures to cut out...

We love ourselves, don't we?

So, after that's done, we carefully align them and glue them together.

Score the fold lines and glue the edges. I cut off the tab provided by Ton and used CA to join the edges. Here's the latticework, assembled:



Now keep in mind, this is before edgecoloring and final straightening, so don't judge it too harshly yet.

Just for kicks, here's a dry fit of the latticework in position on the capsule assembly:

[Ekuth]

Okay, here is the latticework after edgecolor correction. Which I have officially decided that I hate to do. BLEAH!!!!

Still, it's worth it for the look. Sigh.

I departed from the normal build at this point by adding thin strips to accentuate the ribbing pattern of the capsule.



Lattice Off:



And another dry fit:

[Ekuth]

Alright... after finally finishing the ribbing detail on the capsule assembly and coloring it just so, I turned my attention to finishing our nemesis, the latticework assembly. Fortunately, it gets interesting again.

Next up is the escape tower rocket assembly.

Parts for the escape tower rocket:



Again, starting from the top down. First is our top (up, that's what Ton calls it, no part number). Simple cone shape.

Top:



Underside:



Next on the list is the Part A assembly. Form your cylinder:



Now notice that there are two strips that are glued in place on the outside. Parts E and E2. Part E runs horizontally and E2 vertically.

Part E applied:

[Ekuth]

Part E2 applied:



Now we put our formers into place, starting with Part B on the top.

This is more friction fit work, so watch your tolerances and be careful, shimming as necessary.

Notice the hole in the middle of the piece- Ton does not specify to cut this out, but I did. Main reason being that this is where our tube for the top piece we just did will be attached, and I know from experience that a simple butt edge glue here is structurally weak. I prefer to get the tube down in there for some extra support.

Part B in place:



And Part D for the bottom:



Next, we need to take a plain piece of regular weight paper for our tube for the top. You can either color it with a marker, or do what I did and reprint this page, using the body of Part A for my red area. Roll the tube to fit snugly inside the hole we made in Part B. I wrapped the paper around the needle of my glue syringe- I suppose a toothpick would do as well.

Once you have it formed, CA glue one end to the inside of our "Top" cone:



Another view. Looks like a little red toadstool.

[Ekuth]

Now we take our "toadstool" assembly and use a drop of CA to glue it inside of our Part A assembly. Careful not to use too much CA or you'll get a nasty fillet around the hole.



Moving right along, we turn our attention to Part F. Glue this in place on the bottom of the Part A assembly, with the red band facing up. Now glue Part G to Part F, aligning it carefully so that the little red triangles are facing UP.



Now, take Part H and turn it over so that the red triangles are on the BOTTOM. Glue this to Part G, carefully aligning the triangles. You will notice that the triangles on Part H are slightly smaller than those above on Part G... don't worry, you didn't mis-cut. Our latticework will be glued here in a bit.



Now, we form a cone of Part I.

This next part is CRITICAL.

Pay close attention to the alignment of the circles and triangles when we glue this to Part H. The circles should be BETWEEN the triangles. The easiest way to ensure this is to line the seam on Part I up with the tip of one of the triangles on Part H.

Proper alignment:



Now, form Parts J into small cones. I colored the inside black before glueing, I recommend you do the same. Once formed, glue them in place over the blue circles on Part I. I recommend you align the seams on each cone so that they point to the INSIDE of Part I. This will help to hide them.

All three cones in place:

[Ekuth]

Underside of the now completed Part A assembly, showing the proper placement of the escape tower rocket exhaust tubes:



Now the payoff for all that work on the lattice! Glue the Part A assembly to the top of the latticework. The top of the lattice is the smaller end. Align carefully! I used CA to secure, with a drop on each corner for strength.



Now, we can dry fit it to the capsule and see how she looks! What's that you say? Why not glue it to the capsule now? Because we still have to work on the retro pack assembly and the bottom of the capsule, silly! Safest to wait until last to secure this. Trust me.

But, at least we can get a preview:



Ahhh.... that was worth the work.

Next up, we'll put the bottom on our capsule. This is part HS1 and HS1a. Ton does a decent job coming up with a texture that looks like gold foil, but I went hunting and found some of the real deal (well, not real gold, but it looks really nice). Extra points for anyone who can tell me what I used. And no, I don't smoke.

So, form HS1 into a cone shape and let dry.

HS1a is another of those parts that needs a cardboard backing, so laminate that and cut out, beveling the edges to fit the inside curve of HS1. Glue in place:



Now glue your foil in place, leaving a smidgeon extra around the diameter so we can wrap it over the edge and glue it to the underside. Be sure to leave a hole for the retropack assembly. Glue doesn't stick to foil too well. I took and printed another part HS1 to use as a template for my foil and it worked great. Crinkle your foil paper and smooth out before glueing to give it that authentic look:



Now glue the whole assembly to the bottom of our capsule assembly. Starting to look like a spacecraft!