I wanna try the LM...

[Tonino]

Thanks guys! It's always a pleasure and act as a big encouragement reading your nice comments!

@SonOfAGun2501 I'm very happy if even only one of my posts can help avoid some trouble to anyone who is going to try the same build. I don't think my ideas are nothing special or particularly smart, but this is the purpose of a community like this: anyone take in his little piece of experience and offers it to anyone who likes to read it. I'm enjoing a lot reading other's posts as much as writing my own building adventures.
As I said before this is a really exciting place!

And now I have one more reason to browse this section of the forum!

 

[zathros]

Well I have learned my limits, let me tell you. Thanks Tonino for sharing that experience with me.

 

[Tonino]

Still working on QUAD2. A little harder than I expected.


An advice: don't glue parts 277 a, b and c exactly where indicated by white lines on inner surface of 276a, otherwise folding the ALSEP door will be impossible.
See the pic: place the two 277 c a little closer so they can fall in the space between 277 a and b when you fold the door halves.


The door finished. As you can see the folding movement is possible but is better not to do this too much times: the folding line is very thin, the paper should break easily if you handle this thing a lot.


Cutting, folding and, especially, fitting here part No. 274 was a reallh hard work. The fitting of this area of the model is the worst I have experienced till now. Surely it's my fault. Anyway this frame is in place now and doesn't look bad.


Another one: the hinges of the lateral door doesn't fit their natural counterparts. I decided to cut away the lower hinge from LM body to reposition it slightly upwards.

To be sure it will be in the right spot I glue it directly on the door.

Now I have to make two considerations:
1) this little doors are really too weak and fragile to be opened and closed anytime I want to show the model to someone. I must decide if I want to show ALSEP in opened or closed position and leave it as it is without handling it furthermore.
2) is really advisable not to put the doors (and other tiny components of the LM) in place until the model is ready to be displayed. I have all leg assembly still to do. The ALSEP doors won't have a single chance to survive till the end of the build if I glue them now.


The rest of the ALSEP compartment ready with telescopic rods (275a, c and d) in place.
QUAD2 is still work in progress.

 

[zathros]

Clear tape, taped to itself, then taped to the model with another strip, makes a great almost invisible hinge, and also supports the door, three layer thick hinge. The trick is to cut the tape strip as thin as necessary.

 

[DanBKing]

In this pic, it looks like you have made two paper spirit levels to check your build quality.



Nothing wrong with your build quality though. Super work.! thumbsup

 

[Tonino]

This sunday, while all the rest of the family was breathing fresher air than mine walking on mountains, I was forced home for my on-call duty for the hospital. The air here was very hot but my modeling-room is in the basement floor, it's somewhat fresh here, and I had the chance (between one call and the other) to complete the QUAD2!


The landing radar antenna is a pretty complex shape in one piece only. Perhaps it could have been made easier subdividing it in sub-components.


Part 281b is slightly too big for the slot in part 282. It can be seen that lateral walls were curved outwards when the antenna support was forced in.


All the accessories ready to be mounted.


Another strange thing. There is a spot marked "282" where part 282 cannot be placed any way (at least according to images in UHU build sequence). Probably it's a little mistake.
I think this area gave more than a worry to UHU


Eventually the antenna is ready in place


And now another one on the infinite series of tanks. As usual I prefer to prepare many micro-tabs instead of one full-lenght tab - as UHU did - to keep tank sections togheter.


The strange drop-shaped water tank ready to be mounted in QUAD2


And this concludes the QUAD2 chronicle. This was a pretty complex spot.
I keep safe in a box the two doors that I will place at the end of the build to avoid damages.

 

[zathros]

I built a McLaren car model, just had to do the wheels. I will build this again, it's a wonderfully detailed model, especially when you remove the body! My dog, who I had just rescued from a shelter, thought it was a snack.. He likes Avia B534's too. You must protect your works from odd things that can destroy months of hard work.

McLaren Link (and many other cars) : http://www.ymjr.cz/downloads.php?cat_id=3

http://zealot.com/resources/avia-b534.1524/

 

[Tonino]

I'm back from mountains...
Although the weather was pretty fine I had the chance to do some paper building thanks to my "cardmodeler traveling kit" and so I came home with a lot of sub-components ready to fill QUAD 3 and 4. The MESA was a nice little complex thing to put together. I have a couple of ideas to improve it so I think I'll re-build it again from the beginning with some custom parts.

 

[zathros]

Lot of work in that box there, great idea too.

 

[Tonino]

Back to work! It's raining out there and we are forced to stay home, what a pity!

Building the MESA I realized this could be a very attractive spot at the end, a real little model in the model (as many others around here with this UHU's creation!) but I feel it lacks something. I would like to have more 3D details on the surfaces. So I started thinking to a enhanced version of the MESA.

So I started playing with CorelDraw to have some details in a recessed plane to be seen through holes opened in the correct spots.


Then I opened some "windows" to look inside.


I also printed another copy of the MESA to obtain more details to be placed later on the surface


Then I placed little cardboard spacers to keep inner details to a fixed distance from the holes.


This is the result from inside...


...and from the outside. Very nice! I'm very satisfied with the result so far!

 

[zathros]

Man, you are HOOKED!!

 

[Tonino]

WOW! I pushed @zathros to write in capital letters, just like @Rhaven Blaack used to (btw, I miss his comments!) Great success!

 

[SonOfAGun2501]

Back to work! It's raining out there and we are forced to stay home, what a pity!

Building the MESA I realized this could be a very attractive spot at the end, a real little model in the model (as many others around here with this UHU's creation!) but I feel it lacks something. I would like to have more 3D details on the surfaces. So I started thinking to a enhanced version of the MESA.
View attachment 145327
So I started playing with CorelDraw to have some details in a recessed plane to be seen through holes opened in the correct spots.

View attachment 145328
Then I opened some "windows" to look inside.

View attachment 145329
I also printed another copy of the MESA to obtain more details to be placed later on the surface

View attachment 145330
Then I placed little cardboard spacers to keep inner details to a fixed distance from the holes.

View attachment 145331 View attachment 145332
This is the result from inside...

View attachment 145333 View attachment 145334
...and from the outside. Very nice! I'm very satisfied with the result so far!

The thud you just heard was my jaw hitting the floor. That is truly amazing.

 

[Tonino]

Time to finish this thing. I've spent a lot of time on this spot of the model but I enjoyed every minute of this "fine tuning" really a lot. This is the joy of a model like this: it is so perfect "as is" that you don't know how to make it even better. It takes a lot of effort but, if you try hard, you can finally find something to add. This was my project for the MESA.

The "tripod" was too flat, looking at real ones you see they have triangular simmetry so I added a face to make it more realistic.

The first photo is relative to my first try but it resulted too big to stay in his spot so I shrinked it a little. on the right is the definitive version once folded and glued.


Then I put little (VERY little) pieces of paper to keep the tools a little "detached" from the surface of the wall behind.


Then another very hard cutting work. This tubular structure was to be realized with two layers of cardstock. I thought this is too tiny and preferred to keep single layer. It results nicer to see. The back side won't be visible anyway. I removed the gray rectangle (in the real one is a sort of bag) to better appreciate the details of this nice little structure.


This is the camera. I wanted to exaggerate this time and decided to add the objective with 3 or 4 micro paper discs glued together, painted black and with a drop of kristal kleer to make the lens (that nobody will NEVER see!)


All the tools and the tripod are already in place. Just two more drops of glue and the two last details will be added to the "enhanced" MESA.


OK it's done. I'm really very happy: this is a little jewel in the model. I'll definitely have to keep it in deployed status, it would be a pity to hide it from view.

 

[SonOfAGun2501]

Time to finish this thing. I've spent a lot of time on this spot of the model but I enjoyed every minute of this "fine tuning" really a lot. This is the joy of a model like this: it is so perfect "as is" that you don't know how to make it even better. It takes a lot of effort but, if you try hard, you can finally find something to add. This was my project for the MESA.

The "tripod" was too flat, looking at real ones you see they have triangular simmetry so I added a face to make it more realistic.
View attachment 145400 View attachment 145402
The first photo is relative to my first try but it resulted too big to stay in his spot so I shrinked it a little. on the right is the definitive version once folded and glued.

View attachment 145401
Then I put little (VERY little) pieces of paper to keep the tools a little "detached" from the surface of the wall behind.

View attachment 145403 View attachment 145404
Then another very hard cutting work. This tubular structure was to be realized with two layers of cardstock. I thought this is too tiny and preferred to keep single layer. It results nicer to see. The back side won't be visible anyway. I removed the gray rectangle (in the real one is a sort of bag) to better appreciate the details of this nice little structure.

View attachment 145405
This is the camera. I wanted to exaggerate this time and decided to add the objective with 3 or 4 micro paper discs glued together, painted black and with a drop of kristal kleer to make the lens (that nobody will NEVER see!)

View attachment 145406
All the tools and the tripod are already in place. Just two more drops of glue and the two last details will be added to the "enhanced" MESA.

View attachment 145408 View attachment 145409
OK it's done. I'm really very happy: this is a little jewel in the model. I'll definitely have to keep it in deployed status, it would be a pity to hide it from view.
View attachment 145407

That is insanity. But looks absolutely amazing. Incredible work!

 

[DanBKing]

That is brilliant!! Super execution!
They do say that it is the little things that make the big things bigger!
A beautiful enhancement. :Bravo:

 

[Tonino]

That is insanity.

I'm afraid you found the only correct way to describe my style of work (and it's exactly the same word my wife uses when she speaks about my hobby)

A beautiful enhancement.

Thanks! Effectively if you put version 1.0 (still unfinished in the photo) next to the 2.0 the differences are not substantial but they give a lot to the final effect. I put here a nice photo of the real MESA to compare.

 

[DanBKing]

So this pic is your model version. Right ...... ???

 

[zathros]

Beautiful craftsmanship, and insight! Really excellent!!

 

[Tonino]

I was so excited buiding MESA that I completely had forgotten QUAD 3. I had all the pieces ready but didn't place them in their spots yet.
It's soon done...

Not a big problem, but some of the supports made me worry a little. My advice is to glue supports before and then place tanks. Most of the points where support are to be placed in the walls are correctly evidenced by UHU but some little (very little) adjustment was necessary. This especially to assure the tanks eventually stands up straight. Nothing more than a crooked tank to spoil the day.

Now to the arrangement of QUAD 4 where MESA is intended to go.

The pattern used to print the backside of some parts of the model (page #20) is slightly more yellow than the front side of the corresponding parts. So, at least for the upper - more visible - face of the MESA housing, I preferred to cut away a new face from another unused piece (soon I'll explain what piece I used).


And there is my almost finished QUAD4!
The MESA is only placed, not glued. As for other fragile parts I prefer to place them only at the end, when the model won't be handled so much like now it is.
I don't plan to use the gold blanket around the MESA equipment (do you see where I clipped the upper face of MESA housing?) because I find it to be too non-realistic. I don't want to make big use of materials other than paper (like metallic foils or so) so I prefer to leave the MESA like you see here.
I'll imagine my model depicting a LM during assembling or something similar, to justify the "naked" and somewhat incomplete looking.


A final view of newly completed QUADs 3 and 4.

Now let's go to give some legs to my LM, so he can finally stand on his own feet!