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

[spacerunner]

Hello everbody
BTW, light and shadow, the devil is again in the detail, also at the determination of the dimensions of the Gutter support.

These dimensions are required for the supports sitting on the girders, which consist of an upper sickle-shaped holder and a T-profile, welded at the bottom. It is possible to calculate these on the basis of the reference dimensions, but this is a bit difficult because of the perspective distortions and the hidden rear gutter edge (dashed line), since one has to refer all measurements to the center of the gutter (dash-dot line), wherefore certain estimates are necessary.



Regarding the overhang of the support, I would have been almost deceived, because the front light strip in the sunlight is only one half, the other half is in the shadow, which I did not notice at first.

I'm going to ask my friend Joe (crackerjazz) in the ARC Forum whether he can help me again with his CAD software (SolidWorks), how at the time at the Rainbirds, because for him this should be a children's game.



I'm already curious, but this time these are a few dimensions more, although it is only a tiny detail ...

[spacerunner]

Hello everybody,

and here are the first SolidWorks Shots from my friend Joe.

This was his first Front View, based on the diameter of the gutter (10''=254 mm), which is why all measurements are given in Inch which I converted in 1:144 (Ø gutter 1.8 mm).



The depths are given in a Side View, based on the depth of the girder (1.5 mm), which also seems to be problematic in SolidWorks due to the extreme skewed perspektive of the girder and support and provides oversized values as one can see.



Thereupon I had sent him my drawing, which was obviously helpful in the adjustment,



from which this side view with mm values resulted, which looks already more realistic.



Accordingly, it is obviously important to consider whether it concerns to values of widths and heights or depths, what I have not yet taken into account so consistently so far, but will do so in the future.

[spacerunner]

Hello everybody,
but it does not have to be the Super CAD software SolidWorks, which I do not have and which is also very expensive.

A friend in the Raumcon forum (Hugo) has done this with the comparatively simple program Sketchup and comes to quite acceptable results and is therfore suitable for such scale measurements.

His measurements were recorded in one of his pictures, and the values estimated by me are written in brackets behind, which partly agrees quite well.



The greatest differences between our measurements occur in the two encircled values,



which is probably due to the fact that my lower values are falsified too much in the picture due to the extreme slant of the support, which is evidently better managed by Sketchup.

And since this 3D software has interested me anyway and would offer itself for my constant elaborate scaling, I have downloaded the free version
Sketchup MAKE and have tried it the same time.

But all the beginning is hard and a lot is new and unfamiliar, which is why it took me a while until I have become acquainted with the special features of the Sketchup/3D construction step by step, because my 3D imagination still had to be trained.

But by Learning by Doing I am at least familiar with the basic functions and most important tools. Only the adjustment with the photos I have not yet succeeded so far, which obviously takes a little getting used to.

Thus, e.g. even the Tape measure function has so their pitfalls, since the measuring result is always only briefly shown, but then disappears and one must measure again. Therefore, one always has to make a separate screenshot, what surprised me at first.

Then I have found out that one can help himself with Text markers, which is not the the answer to everything, but still works.



Finally, I then have stopped my training and simply started the construction, free according to the principle Trial & Error.

These two pictures show the results of my first experiments, whereby it is important for the later installation of the support that the height of the gutter is taken into account and the lateral edges are correspondingly lengthened, whereby these MLP gutters differ from the usually used roof gutters.





As one can see, however, the rounding of the gutter by means of a three-point arc has not yet succeeded in an optimal way, and after a closer look at the optics some dimensions appeared to me also in need of improvement, e.g. the slightly too long 1.5 mm front edge.

That is why in my next construction I have drawn the rounding of the gutter by means of a circle and the dimensions slightly modified, which looks much better.



With these measures I can finally start with the production of the Supports. And what looks so enormous in the pictures is, in reality, so small that these differences in measures are unlikely to be noticed.

[elliott]

Good for you Manfred! It's good to always be learning something new, stretching the mind so to speak. Some parts of your last few posts have had me working to stay above water but I'm still afloat and with you. Yes, some of the differences in measure are unlikely to be noticed but you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that they're there and that they are as correct as you could possibly make them.

[spacerunner]

Thanks elliott for your nice words,
the 3D modeling of the supports is okay so far as, but the reproducible scratching of these tiny supports seems to become a difficult matter.

BTW, haven't you received my yesterday's PM about missing notificatons (since 04/04/2017)?

[elliott]

I received your PM and hope that the problem with notifications has been resolved to your satisfaction. Please let me know if the problem rears its ugly head again.

[spacerunner]

Good morning elliott,

unfortunately I did not receive any notification in my GMX e-mail inbox.

I have sent you a PM, please look and see there.

[rickstef]

The email notifications are down for everyone, seems there is a glitch in the operating system of the forum, I am not sure if the people writing the software are fixing it, or have a fix for it.

Rick

[spacerunner]

Hi Rick,
sorry, but that does not sound very hopeful.

[spacerunner]

Hello everybody,

today I finally want to start with the production of the Supports, which immediately reminded me of the stressful fiddling with the Pipe Supports under the pipelines of the SSWS.

I was immediately confronted with the question of how to get these tiny things as reproducibly as possible, which I had managed that time too.

And this started again with the punching of the gutter roundings (Ø 1,8 mm) with the Punch Set. In order to maintain the same height of 0.6 mm below the rounding, I have applied a strip of styrene foil (0.2 mm) 0.6 mm in front of the punch opening (Ø 1.8 mm), at which I have aligned the styrene strip (0.1 mm).



And then everything went quickly.



However, with too great zeal, I had left too little space in the first row (above), what I then have corrected in the second row, because also for the later separation of the supports one needs sufficient distance, in particular to manage the front narrow support edge well.



But the second row was then perfect.



Then the punched strip had to be accurately separated in strict accordance with the support height of 1.7 mm. However, since this cannot be marked accurate enough, I have clamped the perforated strip between two steel rulers, fixed by means of two spacers, and could thus carefully cut the punched strip with the cutter.



The next tricky thing was the uniform separation of the supports with a width of 2 mm, so that an overhang of about 0.3 mm remains at the front edge. And here, too, my then-trick with the two steel rulers proved successful.

First of all I needed a few attempts to cut an end stop with exactly 2 mm length with the cutter-chisel. And by means of the edges of the steel ruler and the spacer I now had a good guide for alignment the cutter,



and could cut off the supports with quiet hand,





which actually gives nearly uniform supports.


Now only the lower corners have to be cleverly separated, but if possible without sneezing.



And then these tiny supports have only to be glued to the lower 0.7 mm narrow web strip (0.15 mm), but it's only questionable how this can be done best ...
But maybe someone of you has a good idea in stock ...