S&P Saturn 1B in 1/288....

**dhanners** · #1 01-27-2016, 03:07 AM

It's been awhile since I've built anything in the "real space" category, so I figured it was time to get back to my first love. (At least as far as modeling genres go....) When Bruno of "Scissors & Planes" fame offered a range of Saturn 1Bs in 1/300th scale, I thought it was time to try my hand at one. I chose SA-206, the launch vehicle that took the first crew to Skylab.

I began by enlarging Bruno's model to 1/288th scale, a more common space modeling scale. Bruno provides the basic shape of the model, but the Saturn 1B (like most rockets) has all kinds of vents and cable tunnels and antennas and other rocket thingies adorning the sides, so I added what I could. In all, I count 166 additional scratchbuilt pieces I added to the model.

The hardest of those (and the thing I saved until last) was the Launch Escape System's tower. If you look up "insane" in the dictionary, one of the definitions you'll find is, "scratchbuilding an Apollo LES tower in paper in 1/288th scale.

It was a fun little (literally) build and I can't wait to try one of his Atlas IIs. And they don't have and LES....

**dhanners** · #2 01-27-2016, 03:12 AM

The first stage...

**dhanners** · #3 01-27-2016, 03:13 AM

Moving up...

**dhanners** · #4 01-27-2016, 03:14 AM

A ruler to provide some scale....

**Paper Kosmonaut** · #5 01-27-2016, 03:25 AM

Fantastic! Pity the photos are so small, but man, what a detail you put in there. How in the world did you manage to do that LES in paper in that scale? Really, David, a great model.

**dhanners** · #6 01-27-2016, 03:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paper Kosmonaut

Fantastic! Pity the photos are so small, but man, what a detail you put in there. How in the world did you manage to do that LES in paper in that scale? Really, David, a great model.

Thanks for the kind words; they mean a lot from you, the King of Small Scales. Your creative and artistic builds have long been an inspiration.

For the LES tower, I took the kit part and taped it to a small square of wood. This was my guide for where the pieces should be. Then I taped a piece of wax paper over the guide to prevent glue from sticking to the guide.

Using a new No. 11 blade, I cut very thin strips from cardstock, about as thin as you can get. These would be the pieces making up the tower.

I built two opposite sides of the tower (assembling them over my wax paper-covered guide) and let them dry. I cut them out, set them on their sides on guide and added the other two sides of the tower. Once everything was dry, I trimmed it as best I could and glued it on the model, then glued on the LES rocket tower (which I also scratchbuilt) on top of that.