Delta 7 Gemini with extras

[avro202]

Greetings!

Recent alk about the wonderful Gemini made by Delta 7 Studios has got me interested in building it again. I have built the Gemini 4 with the interior, the "splashdown" Gemini, as well as the Mercury Friendship 7 (designed by Dan Shippey of Delta 7, but purchased by me thru Fiddlers Green).

I've always meant to go back and try my hand at building a Gemini capsule with Both doors open (The original kit only has one door open). I have also been meaning to build the free Gemini-Titan available on the Lower Hudson Valley site. The scale of that one is 1/48th. The Scale of Dan's Gemin is 1/24th. I plan to first build the Gemini with both doors open, then try my hand at doubling the scale of the Gemini-Titan and use the body as a nifty, and very large, display stand.

[avro202]

First thing was to fire up photoshop and see about getting both doors opened up on the Gemini. Not exactly difficult. Simply a matter of flipping the entire page with the door parts around so I had a mirror image. Then I printed it out. I also made sure to print out the extra parts needed to display it on the ground, prior to lift-off. The only changes were to the nose, and and extra fairing over one side of the capsule.

I cut out two windows instead of one and got the capsule body put together.

[avro202]

Then it was a matter of assembling the two doors to see if they really did fit. They did! I"m always afraid I'm going to mess up the scale when using photoshop, but this time it was fine.

After fitting and gluing the doors, I next build up and glued on the white module to the back of the capsule (the actual name of which escapes me right now). I wasnt exactly sure how it was to go on, so I dung out my original model to get it centered right...and discovered after staring at the two together, that my original model had the module on backwards! Well, it still looked good, even if the top was on the bottom.

[avro202]

Then I started in on the interior. I have the basic interior done, and test-fitted it to the Gemini capsule. Looks like a good fit. Next I have to build the two seats. That will be a major operation for me, as each seat has 20+ parts. So at east 40 parts, large and small total. Maybe not much for some of you vets, who are used to that many parts on a single wheel, but for me its a big deal! I'll probably take a bit of a break and try to get those finished up on the weekend. Then its onto the fiddily bits like all those little rocket packs on the sides and I'm done. After that comes the interesting bit with the Titan.

This could take a while. But so far its been fun.

[redhorse]

Thanks for posting this, that interior is looking very good. Have fun with the seats!

[michaelwlf3]

Man, you blew through this one. How long did this take you?

[avro202]

I did the photoshopping and printing last Friday. The Gemini to date has been 3 looong nights of building. But the nights were not all together, one right after the other.

I am tempted to start another, maybe, if I buy some of that HP paper you mentioned. There is a lot of fine detail I can see on the pdf that gets lost in the printing. I assume that is due to a combination of using regular cardstock and a very old printer. It would be interesting to see what a laser printer could do.

[michaelwlf3]

I just have inkjets and they come out fine. One thing about the photopaper: it seems to not want to fold or roll as well as a regular paper of the same weight, so I would still use regular paper for the smaller parts, I think. I would like to use photo paper for the boosters I want to make but I am going to have to find a glue that sets faster than the one I have been using.

[avro202]

I managed to get the interior of the Gemini finished. The seats were'nt as bad as I thought they would be. A fair number of little parts for my big fumbling hands, but not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be.

[avro202]

Then it was simply a matter of installing the seats and glueing in the completed interior.