Saturday 28 November 2015

Lunar Module - Part 1

Among last weekend's loot from the convention, was Airfix's 1/72 Lunar Module. This is a very old kit (1970), reboxed many times and likely to have flaws, sinkmarks and a whole lot of flash, but I bought it anyway.
It's a model I build 20 years ago, that got ruined in a moving accident. I can't remember the brand, but it wasn't Airfix. I think I bought it at Space-camp. I'm now rebuilding it for nostalgia's sake.

There's not that many pieces, but enough to keep me happy for a while again.


I found one picture of my old model. You can imagine what happens to all those fiddly bits when you drop a shelf on top of it, It was painted just one shade of aluminum, but it was a sad moment when I had to toss it in the bin.


The old model kit had a sheet of gold foil for the legs and descent stage. The Airfix model does not, but I'm going to try and see if I can replicate it with aluminum foil and paint it silver/gold/.... Call it another experiment.

Everytime I (intend to) start a more "casual" kit, it quickly escalates to more serious while doing research. I was just looking for which parts I needed to paint gold, when I found this site detailing which coating was used for every part of the module. Turns out they used over 10 different kinds of metal/fabric coating to protect all the parts. I guess painting will take a little longer that anticipated.





3 comments:

  1. Shame to hear of the loss of the old kit...I know that feeling as I had shelves fall and take out all if my F1 kits.
    Looks like s fun build and I'm sure there will be plenty of passion in this one.

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    1. Good looking models. You have a good eye for variety, for sure.
      I am not sure if you have any in your country, (lol) but some people have used the gold foil from chocolates as the foil on the lander. It can also be sprayed to give more variation if needed.

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    2. Chocolate here is wrapped in super-thin aluminum, which is basically the same as the household-stuff on roles of 20m, except that I'm never careful enough when unwrapping chocolate :-).

      Ferrero-rocher would be a possible alternative. Gold on one side, "silver" on the other. Very thick, so more forgiving when handled, but might be too thick for certain applications.

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