Ton Nooteboom's Voyager space probe in 1/48

[Paper Kosmonaut]

Hi friends,

Here's my next project. I was triggered in doing it because I red a very touching poem by poet/writer Gerrit Krol, who by chance also is living in my city. In one of his latest books he wrote a poem about Voyager. I crudely translated it for all you non-Dutchies:

Voyager 1

No more earth, no more days.
Always night, always sun.
I just keep on roaming,
space is fixed, time is
a slackwire.

I have, on my way to the Universe,
become a new coordinate.

The sun hardly warms
me anymore.

Gerrit Krol, 2005
​

I decided to do something to incorporate the poem in the final display. Here's the building process itself to entertain you:
As usual, I reduced the model in size, so Ton's original 1/24 model became 1/48.
First parts, all to do with the central core. I used a pressed cotton ball for the fuel tank.
last pic shows the two Star Trackers which are to be placed on the core's rim.

 

[Paper Kosmonaut]

Next came the attachment point for the two long antennae and the thrusters. in the time inbetween also the brewster plate and other thing-a-ma-jigs went on. The dish gave Voyager already some glance of things to come.
I decided to replace the rest of the latticework Ton provides with brass rods. Just because I thought it would give Voyager a more realistic appearance. All pieces were painted black appropriately.

 

[Paper Kosmonaut]

First some pictures from different sides to show the result up till now. Next the small horn on top of the dish. I painted the dish white with acrylic paint for some extra shine.

 

[Paper Kosmonaut]

Next came the construction where the smaller boom had to be attached to. Again, brass rods did the trick very fine. I took the measurements from the provided paper struts Ton made in his design. The boom itself was pretty simple. Quite small, though. The boom went on the frame with a drop of CA glue.

 

[Paper Kosmonaut]

The instrument package at the end of the small boom was a little kit itself. Big and smaller 'scopes, boxes and thingies.
I held the whole shebang together with a small drill bit until it was time to replace it with the real thing. I used cocktail sticks, one without glue into the pack, in an other piece I drilled a small hole and pushed a little brass rod into it. In the other piece I drilled a smaller hole to attach the second piece to and thus I got myself an all-moving instrument pack!

 

[Paper Kosmonaut]

Well, next came the Radio-isotope Thermo-electric generator. (RTG, in short). Also attached to a nice piece of framework. Framework first, then the RTG itself. Very small pieces of paper had to be cut to get all the fins around the cylinders. I discovered the framework was aluminium on the real thing, so I changed the colour later on.

 

[Paper Kosmonaut]

Boom time! I found out the original boom was triangular, not square, like ton's version. So I took our very good friend Yogi's version and first used Photoshop to reverse the boom into a negative of itself. The framework now is white and the boom is black. Doing so it doesn't diverge too much from the other boom and the black appearance of the whole spacecraft. besides that, it is one piece which makes it easier to assemble.
I used a piece of balsa wood to make the adapter from triangular to square, for the holes in the cylinder that is connected to the core module.

 

[Paper Kosmonaut]

Now, we're almost there. hang on.
The magnetometer was cut, folded and attached to the end of the big boom.
Next came the display stand. I printed out Gerrit Krol's poem (more about him here) in four separate parts and glued them onto the frame sides. I used the famous "Pale Blue Dot" photo Voyager made some time ago as a picture in the frame. (I enhanced the dot itself a little for dramatic effect..)
That was the final part. Here's my rendition of Voyager 1.
I hope you like it.

 

[ovation]

Another great model and display,It does show how big tons original model is !
Its been on my "to do" list for some time,

Good work,

JJ-UK :thumb:

 

[Greenman]

Well done! I like your conversions. It looks very nice, much better than my Space Craft International kit.

 

[Paper Kosmonaut]

Thanks friends!

I don't know how your model looks, Greenman, but I do like the look of that laser cut magnetoboomstick. If only one could afford such a machine at home... *ponders* Ahh.. the possibilities... :mrgreen:

 

[Greenman]

I'll try to get some pix of my Voyager soon. The problem isn't so much the boom but the lack of support that holds it. The SCI kits are nice with the laser cut parts and the gold foil, but much of the kits designs are still rather two dimensional. Of the SCI kits, I've built Hubble, Lunar Prospector, Mars Global Surveyor, Galileo, and of course Voyager. Still waiting are Magellan, Mars Polar Lander and the Keck Telescope, which looks to be quite a challenge:mrgreen: