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

[spacerunner]

Hi everyone,

today I glued the first few tape rings of the 1 mm tape onto the ET dummy, but that was not for the faint of heart.

Since I still haven't got the 0,5 mm tape as a spacer, I have taken an Evergreen Strip 0,25 mm x 0,5 mm, whereby the difficulty is to position this very thin strip around the tube, in order to stick the 1 mm tape strip beside it.
After having tested and rejected some holding methods, I came up with this Magnet sling, wherefore I clamped the strip at both ends between two small magnets and put it over the tube, which may seem adventurous,



but still have worked.




And in a similar way I would now have to glue 170 of such strips in case of emergency onto the LH2 Tank, whereby the 0,5 mm tape as a spacer should be a great relief.



And to such an emergency I really have to adjust myself now, because Michael Key today has given me a knock-back for reasons of time.

He means that he has only little time and would need it to spend on projects that are financially worthwhile for him. He would have the feeling that only the front ET part (LO2 Tank) would take a lot of development time, with the prospect, possibly to be able to sell only a few of them.

He had also hoped that the IT for the STS-135 SLWT for my ARC friend Michael (crowe-t) would be a quick and easy conversion, but also that was turned into a time-consuming project with several modifications.
Unfortunately, I have to accept his decision, so I will now fully be focused on my Scratch variant with those tape-rings and the Flour technique for the SOFI texture.

[DiscoveryOne]

Magnetic sling = brilliant solution!

It has been such a joy to follow this thread. Thank you for sharing your journey.

Mike

[spacerunner]

Thanks Mike for your nice compliment,
ideas are free and costing nothing, one just has to have them.

[elliott]

Originally Posted by spacerunner

....your question, if that make sense, I don't understand, sorry.

That's why enlighten me, please.....

It just seemed to me that the sentence was convoluted, not structured very well. The more I tried to make it clear the worse it got. I guess I was just asking if the sentence was understandable. Apologies for any confusion Manfred.

[spacerunner]

You should tell me what your question refers to, otherwise I can not follow you ...

[elliott]

I was asking if this sentence

Originally Posted by elliott

Kevin is right, your ability to control such a delicate cut to a fine tolerance is absolutely amazing.

made sense. It doesn't seem so bad looking at it now, but at the time it just didn't look right. Again, my apologies for any confusion.

[spacerunner]

Hello everybody,

let's go on with the analysis of the SOFI Rings.

Since my first count of the rings on the LO2 Tank on this ET-8 photo seemed to be a bit vague and upto the top was incomplete anyway due to the lack of resolution,


Source: retropaceimages.com (STS-6)
I repeated the count again today on this new (old) photo of the ET-8 because its resolution is much better.


Source: forum.nasaspaceflight.com (Jester)

For this I had set the zoom mode (MS Word) to 250%, where one can see the rings pretty well, and came up to 66 rings.

And that would have to be roughly the area, where at the Airfix-LO2 Tank, which is 81,5 mm long, the front Nose cone cap is put on, the tip of which unfortunately broken several times and must be replaced.



With this the determination of the ring widths was made, or in slightly more complicated expert wording, the Valley-to-Valley distances:

81,5 mm : 66 = 1,2 mm, which agrees well with the value of 1,3 mm for the rings determined on the LH2 Tank, and would match also from the optical impression.

Unfortunately, in the photo above, the Nose cone is covered with foil, but in the following image one can see different cones on LWTs of the first generation (1988), whose shape is interesting for scratching,


Soure: forum.nasaspaceflight.com (Jester)

and therefore here once more a slightly larger section.



And already thereon one can see that the Nose cones of the LWTs looked a bit different, than one knows them in Graphite composite version from the last missions with SLWTs.


Source: californiasciencecenter.org

[elliott]

There you go with your eagle-eye calibrated Mark I eyeball again Manfred. Wish my eyes were that good. Great analysis!

[spacerunner]

Thanks Elliott,
slowly my old eyes get used to it and grin and bear it ...

[spacerunner]

Hello everybody,

there are enjoyable news.
Fortunately Michael Key had compassion for me and has modified his 3D model of the IT, so that I can save me the painstaking post-processing of the Thrust Panels by using my mini-saw, which I had tested about a week ago.



Here is his 3D-Update of the flown STS-6 tank ET-8, which is now to be found at Shapeways under its new name Early LWT.


Source: Shapeways (The Aerospace Place)

Before this action, I noticed still just in time that at his previous model still lacked two small details that I had previously overlooked.

So far I had mostly only ET photos of the side facing the shuttle, but hardly any of the opposite side.


Source: retrospaceimages.com (J. L. Pickering)

There I was always fixated only on the Access Door and the Carrier Plate Assembly.

But also on the back there are exactly opposite the same two items as on the front side, as one can see in this photo from George Gassaway. The pink circle involves the RSS Antenna and the blue circle an aerodynamic Vent.


Source: georgesrockets.com

And exactly these two items were missing on the back of my IT, which of course could not stay that way, wherefore I should have to scratch them if necessary.



But these two things Michael Key has kindly complemented next to the modification of the Thrust Panel Ribs,






Source: Shapeways (The Aerospace Place)

so that the IT now is perfectly matching the Airfix Early LWT-IT (1:144).


Source: Shapeways (The Aerospace Place)

And this IT I have ordered now once more in WSF and will probably use it in this form for my ET.

BTW, the IT modeled for my ARC friend Mike (crowe-t) for his STS-135 (ET-138) Shuttle stack is offered at Shapeways under Airfix Late SLWT-IT (1:144).


Source: Shapeways (The Aerospace Place)