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

[spacerunner]

Thanks elliott,
from this type with the lower flange only still 32, and then still 6 from the other type without the flange.


Source: Raumcon (eumel)

[beckychestney]

Before this goes into a hermetically sealed, climate controlled glass display case at a museum, which is where it belongs, you need to write a book about how you built it, because most people wouldn't believe it!

[spacerunner]

Hi Becky,
as I've said already, my museum is my house, and I am writing the book already for a while, side by side and step by step for all those interested ...

[eagleclaw4935]

If you publish it. I want an autographed copy. Getting my money ready.

[spacerunner]

Hi eagleclaw4935,
sorry if I have spoken a bit ambiguously, I meant, of course, my meanwhile filling pages construction report.

[spacerunner]

Hello everybody,
but there is also an easier and above all faster solution, provided one has a quiet hand and a good sense of distance, which I've tried today.

The strip is clamped between the steel rulers as before. Then I've tackled the support at the upper ends with the tweezer and gently dipped the edge into a flat CA drop, and set it down as centrally as possible on the strip, where it started glueing. For a short moment it is possible to correct the support's seat minimally with the fingernail or tweezer.

Then I have still painted a little bit MEK onto both sides.





Finally I've cut off the front overhang with the slanting edge of the cutter chisel,





and then the rear overhang with the straight cutting edge.



And these are less handgrips than with the previous solution with the cutting compass, so why complicated, if it goes also easier.

[spacerunner]

Hello everybody,

meanwhile the 19 supports for the three gutters on the Side 2 are finished.

These are the 16 supports with the lower flange, as well as three without the flange.



Two supports each are welded to the angle profiles at the front and rear corner,


Source: Raumcon (eumel)

and the third support sits on the narrow girder between the Bay 12 and Bay 13,


Source: apollosaturn.com (John Duncan)
which one can see here somewhat better on Side 4.


Source: Raumcon (eumel)

Now I have only to work out a skilful method, how I can glue the supports on the aluminum gutters, wherefore this time only CA is suitable. And this will probably not be possible without a special holder jig for the gutters, I think.

[beckychestney]

Ya know, I just took a look back to page one from July 2013 and I have to say, it would take me those four years to even get up the courage to build something like this! Or more to the point, it would take me four years to figure out how to even get started! And You've gone so far above and beyond the kit.

[spacerunner]

Thanks Becky for the retrospection and remembrance of the birth of my long-term project.

At that time, I thought it almost impossible, especially since the old Revell Launch Tower Kit (4911) had been sold out for many years ...

And that's why it was actually a hard birth until I had all the stuff together, the legendary Revell Kit, David Maier's Paper Kits and the new Detail kits from LVM Studios.
Some day then I was ready to start, at that time maybe a little bit as a dreamer, but I was not the only one ...

But the Launch Pad is such a huge and complex technical monster and by far the most difficult Real Space Modeling Project, which one can imagine, wherefore only a few incurable optimists are ready to rise to such a challenge.

Together with the project my skill was gradually developing too, and so I became more and more courageous for scratch-building details, maybe also here and there a bit too ambitious ...

Yeah, those were the days ...

[spacerunner]

Hello together,

well then let's get back to the work, if it's also difficult.

First, I tried my proposed solution with the upside-down gutter, for which I used a gutter, bended out of shape, as well as a wasted support.

For holding the gutter I have made myself a narrow core strip, for which I have glued a 1.5 mm half-round profile on a 1 mm square bar, on which the gutter was then placed.



Since a fixed stop of the gutter is important for the gluing of the supports, my Balsa pin-and-clamp technology was again used.

Then I have tackled the support with the tweezer at the bottom edge and wetted the inner rounding carefully with an acupuncture needle with a few CA droplets. After that, I have lowered it very carefully onto the gutter, so that it touched easily the angle stop with the rear edge, and after a short moment carefully released.



Unfortunately, nothing can be corrected at this position, and either the support is centered over the rounding of the gutter and at right angles to the longitudinal axis, or also not.
Unfortunately, the latter was the case because the gutter was obviously not evenly rounded.



Then I have still tried another holding method with a cross tweezer, for which the gutter with the inserted core strip was fixed between magnets.





But also this time the seat of the support was not perfect.





That's why I probably will return to the upright arrangement of the gutter, as it was shown already one time.



For this I will clamp the support upright between two steel rulers, whereby they are standing already vertical. And then the gutter with the core strip at the angle stop is lowered to the inner rounding of the support, which was previously wetted with CA.
And also by using this method it will be advisable to glue the supports successively separately with the gutter, which I will try next time.