Space Shuttle Launch Pad 39A with Challenger STS-6 (1:144)

[gene1772]

Space runner, your attention to detail and your skill are amazing but both are exceeded by you patience!!! As always outstanding work.

[spacerunner]

Thanks Gene for your kind words.

For being able to successfully scratch such details, one needs both.

Only skill is not enough, if one doesn't have enough patience and perseverance, because many things do not work immediately, even not with me.

Then one has to keep on fiddling until one has got a smart idea for a suitable solution ...

But to whom do I say that, you have impressively demonstrated these features with your fantastic Crawler.

[spacerunner]

Hello everybody,

before it goes on in the Bay 17 with the upper console with the two connector sockets,


Source: Library of Congress

I've been busy myself with the gutters and initially corrected their lengths based on the the MLP-3 photo,


Source: Library of Congress

which differ a little bit from the values previously determined at the MLP-1.

With the Gutter-3 (Ø 10'') above the Bay 18 I had already started.



When dimensioning the strips for the gutter, one has to take into account that it does not have a semicircular cross-section as in ordinary guttering on the house, but rather that it extends somewhat beyond the semicircle, as can be seen in this image,


Source: NASA

which is why the strip should be slightly wider than half of the diameter, approximately 4 mm.

For molding the strip of 0.1 mm aluminum sheet over a core wire with Ø 1.5 mm this Rolling Set (thesmallshop.com) is suitable, in which the strip can be bulged in a first step.



In order to mold the gutter to the final diameter, I have also tried my Balsa clamping method from the SSWS Pipes.


For the first tests, I also used the wrapping foil of a champagne bottle cork.



And as it looks like, this method should also be suitable for the molding of the longer gutter parts.

At the same time, I have also tried to use a thin Styrene foil (0.15 mm) because plastic might be advantageous for gluing the supports under the gutters, which would make them more stable.



But since the plastic strip is less ductile than the aluminum strip, it is not easy to buckle it.



And even after the hot air shower in the Balsa-"Corset"







the result was not so amazing,



which is why I will probably stay with the aluminum sheet.

[beckychestney]

Whew! Glad to see your photos are safe! I've lost my links from Photobucket!

[VinceM]

Originally Posted by spacerunner

For the first tests, I also used the wrapping foil of a champagne bottle cork.

Very dedicated to this project, to buy a bottle of champagne just to get a piece of foil!
Amazing work. Great job.

[spacerunner]

Thanks Vince for your nice words.
What must be, must be.

Cheers!

[casca]

Are you familiar with the word "obsession" ?

[spacerunner]

If I understand that as an allusion to my extraordinary attention to detail, then you possibly mean "obsession" in the sense of addiction, and therewith you might be a little bit right.
BTW, I also realize that I'm tending more and more to smaller details, what is like a drug, and in this sence you even might say that I'm a Detail Junkie, okay ...

[Tonino]

I'm totally with you Manfred!

[spacerunner]

Hi Tonino,
the fact that we are both on a same wavelength concerning details, has become clear to me after I have followed your awesome project for a while.
That's why you're also a Detail Junkie like me.
That's okay!