Dear all
I have been able to continue with stage two and have been working on the aft skirt. So I followed (almost) the same way as the 1/48 model. The only major difference is the fact that much thicker formers needed. So here are the outer ring parts
Then glued together, walls thickened, joining tabs added and former glued into place (top and bottom view below)
I then added the printed part on the underneath of the former and then glued the thrust structure into place
Whilst doing this I was constantly checking how it fit onto the interstage. At the finish the fit is pretty good (I think). See what you think in the photo below
There is something the photo cannot show which is the parts are so large that the stiffness of the pieces is not perfectly rigid. This means that the interstage can flex about 1mm and the "recess" of the trust structure (ie the lip which goes over the interstage) also flexes about 1 mm. This means that the joint is not 100% rigid so you can very slightly move stage two about. However it does not come off the lip of the interstage. However all of stage 2 and above rests on this tiny thin contact area. Fingers crossed it is okay. I think the physical limits of the paper have been reached for the design being enlarged to this size.
The 1/24 model has now caught up with the 1/48 model. I intend to press on with both in terms of the main structure and leave the J-2 engines for now.
Current model height 2.1 metres (6ft 11 in)
Regards
Kevin