Yet another Greelt's Saturn V 1:48 build

[asettico]

Hi all,
to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first man's descent on the Moon I decided to temporarily suspend the building of a working pendulum clock and to start the great Greelt's Saturn V in scale 1:48.

First of all, for the sake of the future builders, I would like to clarify a little about the different "versions" that I'm aware of. These are my considerations:

1. The single parts offered by The Lower Hudson Valley E-Gift Shop in the Misc./Parts section are something like the first version, as released by Greelt. Unfortunately, his design stopped at the interstage ring.
2. In the same section there is an interesting recoloring of the F-1 engine made by Jasper. I used this, with a couple of fix that I will explain in a later post.
3. Always in the Lower Hudson Valley site, in the Apollo Era section there are all the parts for the complete Saturn V, those of Greelt and with some contributions for the missing parts. I used this collection for my build.
4. In the download section of this forum there is other complete "version", named Greelt's Saturn V Update, that contains all the parts with some fixes and some optional parts. Since my current build is quite imprecise, I already know that I will redo it, using this "version".

I'm proceeding very slowly, I advanced some way during the lock down time, but I will try to post some pictures and some remarks when the different parts will be completed.

[rifleman]

looking forward to this

[asettico]

Well, this is the thrust structure, completed with the 5 F-1 engines.

As I told before, the execution is not so clean, at least not as I would like and probably the pictures hide some defects.

Some words about the F-1 engines.
For those who want to build the entire missile, I suggest to build first the J-2 engines, because the structure is similar and the instructions are very clear, in the Greelt's way.
I fixed the wrong light reflex of parts 23 and 31, because in the original models both left and right variants are identical; I attached the fixed pages.
I used the Jasper coloring as described at point 2 in my first post, but I cut the glue tab of part 3 and used a strip instead, to obtain a better joint.
When cutting the parts 9 (A to L) out, cut the black borders off: in this way, the last part will not need to be trimmed. Furthermore, don't roll them before glue them on ring of step 4, so the spring effect will maintain the ring expanded outwards; if the resulting pipe were too much pressed, the part 15 in step 16 could have alignment issues.

The thrust structure.
I followed the Greelt's instructions, adding just the red retro rockets and omitting the part 37, because they would have hidden the retro rockets.


P.S.: the striped blue background is due to the northern Lights in the moment of shooting!

[asettico]

Outer shell.
I have no particular remarks about the outer shell, just be careful when trimming parts 9, 10, and 11 as indicated in the instructions, to obtain the right patterns alignment. In my build, the inner and outer patterns are slightly misaligned.

Inner skeleton.
Here template and instructions differ, probably Greelt changed the design without updating instructions, but it's not hard to find the right way.
For each horizontal rib I cut an entire 1 mm cardboard ring instead of using 8 circular arches, in order to give more strength.
Before cut the notches in the vertical white ribs (these parts are not numbered), check the overall width of the horizontal ribs and the spacing among them, to allow the right alignment. I made some mistakes in this phase, so I messed up the things a little.

[asettico]

Here they are the six J-2 engines.
I still have to add the white beads (the start tanks), because I have to find them.

[dhanners]

Beautiful job! That said, while I love F-1 plumbing as much as the next guy, every F-1 that ever flew was covered with insulation batting, hiding all the plumbing.

I can understand why modelers want to show off all that work (which you've done a great job on!) but I suppose there's a balance between accuracy and showing off great work.

None of this is meant as a criticism, mind you. Just an observation.

[Paper Kosmonaut]

Off to a great start! I see you have used my recolouring for the engines and yes of course you should use a strip instead of the tab. Looks much better. I also did that myself. I just kept that tab on because it was originally part of Greelt's model.

Your result looks really good. It really would be a pity to hide it all behind aluminium foil. But, as David said, that's how they flew. I used a bead for the J2 engine. maybe it was a tad too big but it looks the part. I had to paint it and put a tiny little paper dot on the hole to seal it off. (and I built it in 1/96; I made only one when I made my 'wet orbital station' version of Skylab a hundred or so years ago.)
I still have this dream to build the Saturn V in 1/96 with Greelt's parts but I want to make it as a cut open view model so you can see the insides. And I still need to figure out how to do that.

[asettico]

Originally Posted by dhanners

Beautiful job! That said, while I love F-1 plumbing as much as the next guy, every F-1 that ever flew was covered with insulation batting, hiding all the plumbing.

I can understand why modelers want to show off all that work (which you've done a great job on!) but I suppose there's a balance between accuracy and showing off great work.

None of this is meant as a criticism, mind you. Just an observation.

Thank you for your compliments!
There is really no problem, we are here to exchange our experiences and to learn from each other.

I think you highlighted two schools of thought: build models as faithfully as possible to the real twin or to represent some details that otherwise it should be impossible to see (like the F-1 plumbing ).
Alter all, Greelt himself puts some words in the introduction of his instructions «Please keep in mind that this model is by no means a "replica"»...

[rifleman]

fine job looks great

[asettico]

Originally Posted by rifleman

fine job looks great

Thank you, Rifleman!