1/48 Space Shuttle orbiter under construction

[thorst]

:D In fact, I already drew the parts for moveable hinges for the SSMEs, and I plan to do the landing gear retracteable, too. The only thing which simply is not possible to do moveably in a satisfiying way are the cargo bay doors, they will be too heavy to hold in position.

Thorsten

[Hans Christian]

Its ok about the cargo bay doors sir, they are not designed to open by themselves in 1g anyway

but the retractable gear - this I gotta see!!!

[Epsilon9]

Considering the nifty little mechanism for the star tracker doors he has, I can't wait to see what the mechanism for the landing gear is
This is gonna be good.

[Spaceguy5]

I would guess that the color looks different either because of film quality or lighting. The first one I posted was a recent picture from Discovery (I forget which mission). It was also a daytime landing.

The 2nd set of pictures, I don't know the mission although the website I found it on only had pictures from the mid 90's and earlier. It appears to be a nighttime landing.

[jparenti]

Wow! This is definitely shaping up nicely!
The color problem is something I'm familiar with. More technical people than I have said it's simply the difference between a backlit computer monitor and a printed page that reflects light-- it always takes me a few tries to come up with a color that makes sense and looks just right. One thing I have tried is to make about ten small squares on a page filled with colors of varying tone, and print that out to determine which one I should use. (At least the orbiter doesn't have solar arrays -- those are the worst to figure out in my opinion!)
Either way, it looks fantastic!

[thorst]

Thanks!

jparenti, in general you're right, but this printer always printet strangely... but now it smears black ink randomly over some papers additionaly. Think that's more than a just color adjustion problem ...

I did another testbuild today. Before that, I experimented with small (and I mean small!!!) hinges, and thought I had a working idea. I now experienced that the struts I planned are too thin and break near the holes, even If they are stiffened with superglue. I'll think about how to move on now, I can try to make them thicker by about 50% but not more, otherwise they will be totaly out of scale. If I don't come across another idea and this doesn't work, I'll have to go another way, to make the whole bays exchangeable instead of moveable doors.

Any other ideas?

Here's the new testbuild:


And a closeup of one strut (glued-not moveable) and the now more detailed vent:


Best regards,

Thorsten

[obwand10]

Those are Amazing!

[Hans Christian]

Sir, my suggestion would be to offer the movable feature - as an option - for me; because of two things - 1: having both fixed and movable features offered would provide the builder with more creative options, and 2: I believe somebody would come up with a solution for the movable doors without sacrificing detail

but this is just for the initial release, I think beta builders can verify what option would be the most viable

but this doesn't hinder the fact that you're not just making a model, but also exhibiting fine scale engineering too!!!

[Epsilon9]

I think using strong enough supports (I.E. small metal hinges of some sort) will be able to hold the doors up, and perhaps placing magnets on the edges of the doors will keep them lined up when closed. Just a thought

[thorst]

Epsilon 9, I thought about magnets, too. But I don't like the idea very much (I'm not a fan of magnets in modeling in general). It will be an option though, and will be considered in design and instructions. But in the meanwhile, I had another idea. Will do a testbuild tomorrow. When these bays are done, the landing gear shouldn't be a problem anymore (but I already see my surprise and disappointment whan I start them )

Hans Christian, you're probably right about that. I think no further parts are neccessary for this, I should just mention what to do for these options in the instructions.

And thanks for the comments and ideas! Much appreciated! This is the longest design and build project I did until now, and the feedback really pushes my motivation a lot!

Thorsten