The kit is a free download from HubbleSite - Hand-held Hubble.
This is not a beginner's kit and the instructions, while thorough, have hand-drawn illustrations that sometimes caused a bit of head-scratching and few miss-steps that required rebuilding some parts. But the parts sheets are crisp and colorful and the parts went together well (not counting my mistakes), with very few fit problems.
The kit provides a black liner for the upper shroud (the narrow part).
I lined the inside of the lower shroud with black construction paper, so you can't see any stray light when you look down the barrel.
I also designed and built the simple display stand.
The joints between the solar panels and their mounting arms are weak butt joints. Two days after I assembled them, they are already failing just moving the model around. I want to reinforce them with wire, which might mean rebuilding the panel assemblies. I'll report on my success. (Note the optimism.)
Overall, this is a very nice, well-designed kit with an adequate amount of detail. I enjoyed building it and it looks good on my shelf. The finished model is about 14" tall (without the stand) and 9" wide across the solar panels.
Cheers,
--David
This is not a beginner's kit and the instructions, while thorough, have hand-drawn illustrations that sometimes caused a bit of head-scratching and few miss-steps that required rebuilding some parts. But the parts sheets are crisp and colorful and the parts went together well (not counting my mistakes), with very few fit problems.
The kit provides a black liner for the upper shroud (the narrow part).
I lined the inside of the lower shroud with black construction paper, so you can't see any stray light when you look down the barrel.
I also designed and built the simple display stand.
The joints between the solar panels and their mounting arms are weak butt joints. Two days after I assembled them, they are already failing just moving the model around. I want to reinforce them with wire, which might mean rebuilding the panel assemblies. I'll report on my success. (Note the optimism.)
Overall, this is a very nice, well-designed kit with an adequate amount of detail. I enjoyed building it and it looks good on my shelf. The finished model is about 14" tall (without the stand) and 9" wide across the solar panels.
Cheers,
--David
