I just couldn't contain myself after seeing the results of the top hemisphere of the command sphere. I worked into the wee hours last night and finished off the lower hemisphere shell.
The build process was identical to the top hemisphere, but with one small difference.
As I wanted to recess the darker longitudinal bands, I had to do some extra work to achieve this.
The main reason for the extra work was due to the design of the ring structure made by master UHU02. On some of the parts the main panels overlapped onto the darker bands. As can be seen in the photo below, the dark strip is for the equatorial dark band between the two hemispheres. The thin white strips at the top edge of the band are actually the edges of the top of the main panels of the lower hemisphere. These strips have to be at the same level as the main panels and not recessed like the darker bands. And that meant cutting off the strips and attaching them to the main panels. Those strips are only about 2mm wide! So, the simplest method was to attach the whole piece, including the dark band, and trim off the excess dark band once attached.
Once this strip was attached, I again used the half of the plastic Xmas ball as a work surface and very carefully cut out the 3 pod bay doors, the airlock and any parts of the sphere that I wanted to recess. You can also see the dark band attached, as mentioned above.
Once this was done, I trimmed off the excess of the dark band to leave the thin strips attached.
I made up the bottom three sections of the sphere, again leaving the 'cap' off for finger and thumb access! Once this was complete I attached this to the main section to complete the shell of the bottom hemisphere.
So, the two hemisphere 'shells' are complete. Plenty more work to do yet though ........ (You will also notice, that there is a second set of the 'thin strips' on the bottom of section 3 of the lower hemisphere too.!!)
I have to say, I am glad to see the last of small strips of sticker, that's for sure!!!!
And again, I couldn't resist, and temporarily attached the two hemispheres together with masking tape to see how it looks..... I also made a temporary neck flange to stand the sphere on.
The darker equatorial band is only temporary and needs to be worked on and recessed. I left the piece as is for now to give rigidity to the bottom of the window, to keep it straight when I attach the window section itself. But that comes later .............
But for now, I have to say, I am one 'Happy Chappy!' with the result so far.....
Stay tuned, and see you all soon.