Thunderbird 3

[Sky Seeker]

OK finally here we go with the struts.
Struts - first pre-fit the struts and check for alignment issues

As you can see we have a MINOR issue here. The upper wings and lower rocket pods are out of alignment just a bit even when you assemble everything on the seams. Recommend in future builds that you rotate the lower pods until they are lined up with the wings. Have some struts pre-made to check length and alignment. In this case, the wings and the connector to the rockets pods with the main body are flexible enough to bend enough to line up with each other.


Even though there are alignment issues, the struts were glued in place on the rocket pods. Overgluing was done to strengthen the placement of the struts.

Struts glued in place. Note that the marker areas on top of the rocket pods were removed by the glue. As can be seen the struts line up with the 2nd to last stripe on the wings.
The wings are cut to line up with the struts.

Once the wings are cut insert the end of the wings as shown.

The tips of the wings were colored in with marker. (I promise with the naked eye you can't see the individual fibers - amazing how close the autolens can zoom in).

The tips of the wings are pre-fitted into the pockets on top of the struts.

A marker line is drawn to get an idea of the lined up areas and where to cut to make everything look flush.

Strut is then cut. The white areas on top of the strut are colored with black marker to blend in with the stripes on the wing.

The struts are then glued in place. Any bowed out cut sections on the strut below the wing can be glued together and pressed in while the glue is setting to make the strut look more cylindrical.

Additional stripes for the wing.

Additional stripes for the wing - adding stripes to the wing. Make sure to keep the stripes against the edge of the main body. First glue a stripe on one side of the wing.

Then fold over and pinch the top to make sure that it is squared off.

That's it for now! - Almost Done. Next up the landing pad.

Sky Seeker

 

[Sky Seeker]

Landing pad
This is a landing pad found on the Genet site

Genet Models

Note the edge coloring to keep it black on the edges to remove glare on lining up the top and bottom portions.

Top and bottom landing pad portions glued together. The hard part about this is keeping the sections from warping. When the glue is setting make sure to keep a weight on the edges until drying is complete. This keeps everything flat and straight.

Sign - Here's a sign for the landing pad. I took the logo at the start of the thread and edited in MS Paint to removed everything but the word Thunderbird. Then found a stock image of a number 3 and moved it to size with the logo. Then I scanned in the landing pad to get the right size and decreased the size of the sign to match the size of the landing pad. The results are below.

Sign - This shows the background to be used along with the backing and the struts that will be used to hold the sign onto the landing pad. At the top is the black backing which is to be folding behind the cloud background. The logo featured below the clouds is to be cut out and placed on the backing. The lower gray portions are the struts which will hold the sign up. These struts are from Genet.

Support struts. Cut and folded.

Support struts - glued.

The background and logo and struts prior to assembly.

Cloud background - test

Black background - test

Assembled sign - finally decided on the cloud background. Was thinking about coloring the edges black, but decided against it as the clouds where white and the edging blended in well with the background. The logo was cut and glued in place on the cloud background.

Next up the strut assembly on the pad

 

[Sky Seeker]

Strut assembly on the pad
Tabs

Tabs are folded in place on the struts and glued. While the glue is setting hold the tabs in place and fold down the ends (see below).

Struts with tabs.

Struts glued on the landing pad. At this point I realized I created two trusses that needed reinforcement. Like all truss systems they require spacing cross beams to keep them from folding. The cross beams were made from extra card stock from the model. The beams were colored with a black marker then assembled to the other struts.

Cross beams added and glued in place. They are also glued in the center where they are crossed.

Sign added and glued onto the tabs. Line up the bottom of the sign flush with the surface that the landing pad is resting on and glue to the lower tabs. Let the lower tabs dry, then glue the sign to the upper tabs. The way the landing pad is shaped the sign will automatically be raised up slightly in the front as seen below. Back view.

Top view

Front view

That's it for now!

Sky Seeker

 

[Sky Seeker]

What happens if you do touch ups
I was doing some touch ups on the model in some areas with the silver marker. In the process this happened -

What happened was that the marker leached out more marking material and it oozed over on top of the model.
Now do we give up on the model at this point...NOPE not here. We find solutions. This is how this was solved.
A strip was cut out for the relevant area. However it was too short. So it was cut up in sections near the black lines and greebled on to the model.



All fixed.
Sky Seeker

 

[Revell-Fan]

Cool! I love the custom base.

 

[Sky Seeker]

Cool! I love the custom base.

Yep. Took me longer than I thought it would. My friend who I gave it to really liked it as well. Thanks for your kind comments.

 

[Sky Seeker]

Final pics
Finally at the end of this particular journey. Here's the final pics. Enjoy!










Gave the Thunderbird 3 to my friend yesterday. He really enjoyed it. It did bring back some good childhood memories. On a side note I started this project during lent. What I gave up was playing video games and was successful for the first time at giving something up for lent and meaning it this time.

Thanks for everyone's support.

Take care.

Sky Seeker

 

[mijob]

Great work on a lovely model.

 

[Revell-Fan]

Great result and good fixes of the issues. Thank you for this fun and informative thread. Awesome to know that your friend liked the model and that you have successfully completed the build. Cheers to this one and the next ones!

 

[Sky Seeker]

Great result and good fixes of the issues. Thank you for this fun and informative thread. Awesome to know that your friend liked the model and that you have successfully completed the build. Cheers to this one and the next ones!

Thanks MiJob!
Not sure what the next projects are. Maybe I'll complete the entire series of Thunderbirds 1-5. I do have all of the templates. Who knows.
Just finished Seasons 1-5 of Babylon 5 for the Fourth time. Thinking about some models there.

Of course there is the new Thunderbirds CGI series that had this little number called the Thunderbird S for Shadow.

Don't know if any templates exist for this one or not.

Thanks for stopping on by.

Sky Seeker