2001 ASO USSC Discovery One

Revell-Fan

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I AM watching it on my PC. I have an internet stick, yaknow..! ;) Well, maybe I'll find better conditions, as you suggest. :)

(By all means, my comment was in no way supposed to attack your formidable work. You are doing an outstanding job on all the models you tackle and I really enjoy watching your threads, pal! :) )
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
No aminosity was taken or perceived.
I will see if I can downsize the pics from now on.
Of course, I'll keep posting the big pics where is deemed necessary for effect.

Life was so much simpler without modern technology....

GRR! And on that note; why can't I post any sort of smiley on here from my phone? I post the smiley and a second later it disappears.......
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
While I am waiting to pick up some LEDs next week, I put the cockpit lighting and the upper dome to one side and continued the build of the lower.

Now that I have got the greebling out of the way, the next major steps are the fitting of the airlock and 3 pod bay doors.

I wanted to ensure that the pod bay doors were perfectly round. This included the recess ring that the actual door fits to.
I had cut out the holes in the lower sphere as accurately as I could, but I wanted to make sure it was perfectly round without any imperfections.
I used a piece of 150 grit sandpaper used on a belt sander. This sandpaper has a stiff backing and when rolled up it tends to want to spring back to flat.
I used this to my advantage. I rolled the sandpaper into a cone shape and put this into the hole for the pod bay door. I released the pressure of my hand on the rolled cone and the paper sprang outwards with enough pressure to sand the paper of the hole. I fully turned the cone in the hole twice, that was enough to smooth things out a bit ........

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I then used various coloured water pencils to colour the edges of the sanded holes. The damp pencil helped in smoothing out the paper fibres left over from sanding too.

Next up, I made the three recess rings for around the opening of the pod bay doors. This recess strip is only about 3 mm wide and I wanted to make sure I fitted it perfectly.

Now, as I have said a few times in this thread, I am amazed at how many household items I have used as jigs or formers on this build.
And this step of the build has another perfect example. My kitchen, or should I say my drinking habits, produced the next handy item.
A tapered 'shot' glass!!

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I slid each ring onto the tapered glass and gently pushed it down the taper until the paper ring was 'stretched' perfectly round and the rings circumference was matched on the taper. I then folded over the tabs and applied glue to these with a brush. As the ring was snug to the glass, no glue can get onto the printed part of the ring.
I actually used 2 glasses, 1 as a gluing-up jig and the other as a placement/fitting jig.

I then placed a glass with the bottom facing up, i.e. the smallest part of the taper uppermost, and then placed the dome onto this, through the pod bay door opening from the outside, so that the smallest part of the taper was inside the dome. I then slid the glued-up ring onto the taper ....

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It was then just a case of sliding the ring down snug against the inside of the door opening.....
And because I was working with a glass, I could see everything that was going on from all angles, and I could make sure everything was doing what it should .....

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And , unbelievably, the paper ring fitted so perfectly inside the rim of the glass, that it seemed the glass was made specifically for this job!
(Maybe I could sell the glasses to paper modellers as a 'Discovery Pod Bay Door Placement Jig'......) ;):)
I placed the dome inside my plastic ball jig and then placed the opening of the glass over the ring and pushed down hard to firmly set the ring to the inside of the opening. Using the plastic ball made sure the ring followed the contour of the dome perfectly.

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And this is how it turned out! Me VERY pleased!:D:D

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I temporarily placed a pod boy door, that I had made earlier in the thread, into the ring to see how it looks..... I cant complain about that!
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And using the same method, the other two rings were fitted....

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See you all soon!!!

( @Revell-Fan I hope that was better for your bandwidth...... ;):))
 

Revell-Fan

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EXCELLENT! Claphands

So next time you go shopping and buy some "adult stuff" to drink you can ease everyone sayin', "Hey, I need that for building. It's not my fault that the bottles do not come emtpty!" :happy:;):):Drinks::Drinks::Drinks:

(Ahem, am I the only one thinking this thread should become a sticky?:cool:)
 

Revell-Fan

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ROFL! Weeeeeee'llllllll ssssssseeeeeeeeeee......! :Drinks: Ch...Ch...Cheeeeeeeeers!!!! :D
 

zathros

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Incredible! This is just incredible! I like the size pictures your uploading, it makes it easier to look at all of them, time wise. You really are bringing the model to life! :)

p.s. Thread is now a "Sticky". :)
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
Just a quick update.....

I managed to squeeze an hour of modelling in last night, and fitted the airlock door, that I made earlier in the thread.....
Nothing special with the fitting, just a case of aligning everything accurately.

I am working on the pod bay doors next, but I have a busy first half of this week, what with dart tournaments and other things requiring my presence, I probably wont get much done on Discovery until later in the week.

Will keep you all posted as I progress.

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DanBKing

Dan the Man
Phew! That has been a busy week or so ...... But not on Discovery, unfortunately ....:(

Earlier in the week, I went to the hobby store and purchased the full range of plastic balls from them!
I now have balls ranging from 4cm up to 25cm ...:)
I need a smaller size ball to shape the pod bay doors correctly. The ball diameter used for the command sphere was 13cm.
I used a 8cm ball for shaping the pod bay doors.

The water shaping process for the pod bay doors was slightly different, as to how I did the main sphere. In this case I used half of a 8cm and a 7cm ball, plus a small kitchen scouring sponge. Oh, and a heavy house brick!

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Each pod bay door was carefully cut out and then dampened with a damp cloth. The dampened door was placed inside the 8cm ball and the sponge then placed on top of the door ....

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Pressure was applied to stretch the doors into shape. The 7cm half ball was then placed on top of the sponge.....

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Once I was happy with things, I then placed the heavy house brick on the balls and sponge and let it to dry over night.

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The doors came out well. And to show the benefits of water shaping, the doors are now perfectly formed, and in the pic below, the separate 'leaves' of the doors have not been glued or back-tabbed yet! Holds the shape beautifully. :)

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I then cut out the pieces I want to use for detailing the doors, from a spare copy...

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And, unfortunately, that's as far as my free time would allow me to get ....

I am hoping to get the doors completed and fitted to the lower sphere, over the next couple of days.
Then I have to finalize the lighting and associated electronics for the cockpit lighting and then the two half spheres can be joined permanently. :)

I'm looking forwards to getting the command sphere finished ..... Nearly there ....:D

See you all soon......:)
 
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