2001 ASO USSC Discovery One

DanBKing

Dan the Man
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.

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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.

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Once this was done, I trimmed off the excess of the dark band to leave the thin strips attached.

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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.!!)

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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.

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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.
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
I didn't manage to get much done on Discovery this weekend, as life had other things for me to do. But, I managed to squeeze in a few hours.

I decided to detail up, or greeble, the command sphere. As mentioned earlier, I also recessed a few panels too.
I printed out copies of the parts I needed onto 160gsm paper and cut out all the greeble bits from these.
I placed each individual sections pieces into a partitioned box to keep everything in order....

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It was at this point that I noticed that there was a colour difference between the original parts and what I had printed out for the greebles. There was a pink tinge to the parts.... (See photo below). It must be something to do with my printer. o_O Anyway, to save ink, I used a grey marker to 'grey-up' the parts, bringing them into line with the original parts.
I decided not to use glue for the greebles, but instead used a very thin double sided sticky tape. I found this better to use on such tiny parts. There was a good chance of making a mess with glue .....

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I then cut out all the greebles, edge colouring them where necessary and then sticking them on in the correct place. Some of these greebles are tiny, as these photos show .......

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I got most of the upper sphere finished, and this is how it now looks....

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Now, in my opinion, that looks much more in keeping with the studio model ......thumbsup

Back soon with more........ :)
 

Revell-Fan

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The layering technique adds much to the overall appearance. I can see some areas which are not wholly smooth (above the dark stripe):

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You might consider to attach another thin print of the affected panels.
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
@Revell-Fan Mmmmm... I see what you mean. I admit there are 1 or 2 places that are not perfect, but I think it is the camera that enhances these areas more than you see to the naked eye.
Unfortunately, the original print was made over 3 years ago, and trying to match the colours again now is gonna be a big problem.
I still have to do touch-ups here and there once the main construction is done. Hopefully I can minimize the 'damage' a bit.

We will see ........
 

zathros

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In using the method of moisture (water forming) it should be noted that you make sure you are using "Pigment" Ink. If your printer uses "Dye" based ink, water will cause the ink to smudge and turn the whole project into a mess. To make matters more complicated, they are now selling printers that use Dye Black ink, and Pigment for the three colors. I tend to own Epson printers, which use pigment Ink. Make sure you know what Ink your using before trying the water forming method. If you have the right kind of ink, you can make cool things, like old cars with really curvy fenders. The possibilities are endless. If you are a person who paints their models afterwards, forgetaboutit, you can make almost anything shape out of paper. :)
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
I agree, @zathros

Every model that I have built (or still WIP,) so far, have been laser printed, so the problem with ink smudge has never been a issue for me when using water shaping. But this project is the only one that I have actually used water shaping on.....
 

zathros

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When I commented about using water, the was "nil" a response. I didn't think anyone caught it or took it seriously. You've taken it to an incredible level. You've raised the bar, quite high! :)
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
@zathros Actually, your water shaping comment earlier in the thread was well noted, taken on board and experimented on.
I guess you missed the responses I made to it in the other message posting traffic .....
See here: http://www.zealot.com/threads/2001-aso-ussc-discovery-one.172205/page-5#post-947223 and here http://www.zealot.com/threads/2001-aso-ussc-discovery-one.172205/page-5#post-947232

So, it was your helpful advice that took me on the road of water shaping the sphere. So, give yourself a pat on the back too, Z. thumbsup:)
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
A few hours here and there have provided a little more progress.

The greebling is done on the lower hemisphere at last. This was done the same way as the upper hemisphere.
I'm glad that task is out of the way ..... Fiddly **%^*# job that was .... :rolleyes:

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In preparation for further assembly, I decided to work on the window assembly.
I did not like the look of UHU02's red windows. They had to go.... :shy:
So, I cut out all of the red areas in the window section. I did this before cutting out the part from the page. This gave structural support to the flimsy frames that were left. I then flipped the page over, printed side down. Using a spare copy of the window, I completely cut away the windows and frame from this, leaving a hole which I could then use as a mask.

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I then cut out a piece of clear plastic, from a document protector, cut the exact size of the window and frame. I then held the mask in place on the window part and sprayed spray-glue onto the back of the frame and carefully placed the clear plastic onto the glued-up frame piece. The mask aided in the accurate placement of the clear plastic.
I left things to dry for a while and then cut out the window part from the page.

It was then a case of attaching the sides of the window to the back of the anti-glare frame. This ensured accurate alignment. The top and bottom sections come next....

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In a similar process to when I first made the window assembly, earlier in the thread, I used beer mats as a jig to aid in alignment and keeping things straight and true. A spare copy of the anti-glare frame gave an accurate template for cutting the parts of the jig. The upper frame is smaller than the lower frame, so two jigs were made. One part of the jig was placed against a straight surface, my cutting mat in this case, and the other was placed inside the anti-glare frame. The tabs of the upper frame were glued up and the jig pushed together.

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The larger piece of the jig makes sure that the anti-glare frame stays perfectly flat, the smaller piece shapes the window and frame.
The lower section was done in the same way.

And, the end result. Nice and straight... :)

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Due to upload restrictions, to be continued in the next post .......:p
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
..... Continued.

I now had a nice window assembly with clear windows. But, all I could see through the window, was the 'sticker hell' inside the sphere.
I was in no mood for building a complete interior for this project, (that may come later,) so I wanted to create an 'impression' of the interior.
I trawled the internet and found a picture of someone's plastic model with interior detail. I then played with the picture graphically and printed out the picture to size.

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I then glued this piece to the back of the windows.
Looks good enough to me. :cool:

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So, typically, me being me, with the inability of leaving a good thing alone, I decided to play with the idea of lighting the cockpit! :eek:

I made up a light box from dense black card and made some holes in it for leds and added a strip of aluminium tape to act as a reflector...

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I am still playing with different led's to get the right colour effect, but I temporarily clamped the window assembly to the sphere and held the light box in place on the back of the window assembly, to see how it would look .........
I am definitely going to go with the idea, but I need to refine everything and work out how I am going to run wiring and switches etc ......

So, whatcha all think of this then ????????

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Back soon with more, as and when I get the time ....

Have a great weekend, one and all.
 

Revell-Fan

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I like it but the pictures are too big for me for a close look. I have a speed limit and when I click at the first image I spend 20+ MB without even having seen it. :( Could you resize your pics in your future posts, please?
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
I like it but the pictures are too big for me for a close look. I have a speed limit and when I click at the first image I spend 20+ MB without even having seen it. :( Could you resize your pics in your future posts, please?

Ok.
That is why I have now chosen thumbnails instead of the full picture in my last posts.
I just upload the pics straight from my phone, as I have always done.

The more time I spend on processing photos, is less time spent on building.....
 
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DanBKing

Dan the Man
The other option, RF, is to get a more economical contract for your phone, or watch the Discovery progress on the PC instead ..... ;);)
 
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