A rather large gift

beefychicken

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Sep 3, 2024
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Recently a family member went to Cape Canaveral and came back with a rather large kit as a gift for me. Picture below (office chair for scale). I did post this one picture earlier in the Stash thread.

No photos of the unboxing, just some boring words here; for starters, the box is apparently larger than it needs to be. There seems to be two reason for this, one; marketing of course, who wants a large scale rocket in a small scale box? The other more practical reason is that the box can be converted to store the finished kit. I find this a reassuring bonus as I have no where to put this thing once its complete!

Overall there are lots of parts. Most are typical for a Revell kit in that some have a bit of flash, some parts show evidence of poor pours leaving cavities (not the tooth kind). The details are what one would expect for a Revell kit that was tooled in 1969 (at least according to Scalemates).

And if you read other reviews of this kit, most people have taken the time and added expense to detail and correct it with aftermarket kits and home grown innovation. In my case, I decided to just build it out of the box because I am just that kind of person. I tend to build what I am given and rarely if ever reach for the detail parts catalog or research very much for accuracy adjustments.

Instructions are clear and easy to follow and do a good job with guiding the painting by identifying the colors and locations that get painted.

What I really found interesting was the kit came with some paint, a brush and glue. I put the glue aside for now but became intrigued with the paint.

I gave the paint and brush a quick go on a small part then decided, hey, why not do a paint brush model like the old days when I started this hobby? So that's what I have been doing for the most part.

I only airbrushed a few parts so far and will probably only airbrush a few more while maximizing the amount of brush strokes I can get in.

So, overall opinion, the detail is mushy, the molds need updated badly, and the accuracy is ... well, off the mark a bit - I won't take the time to repeat what others have said on the accuracy front; there is at least one detailed write up in this forum. I would highly recommend doing some research before ever deciding to jump into this kit (unless you are an "out of the box" builder like me)

Thats enough words for now, I will post some progress pics over the coming days and weeks and months.

Thanks for reading this far!

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In '69, I was 10 when it launched; Cronkite was 52 (I thought he was ancient); we had a colour TV and cablevision, just in time for the moonshots.

Looking forward to watching your build, and the memories!

(edit: I turned 11 in November)
 
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As promised, here are a few progress pics.

The overall fitment of parts is not the best. The biggest issue I have had is the alignment of parts. For example, the base plate that the main engines mount onto has guide pins, but if one uses the pins - as I did - the result will be a slight misalignment of the fin pods. Nothing that creative painting cant hide!

I have been using the kit brush and provided paints for all of the black parts and for the detail on the engines. This is by far not one of my best works, but I am enjoying it so much! I can build and paint without leaving my work bench and comfy chair (my paint booth is in the garage - especially considering the 90+degree F (32 C) days). So, yeah, it isn't show material, but it will be a good 6 foot (2 meter) model.

Here are my progress pics with a few comments.

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My high end tape job. The kit brush is visible. It really isnt a terrible brush, I have been using it for the large areas and it does a pretty good job.


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I sprayed the motors with my trusty airbrush and the base was sprayed with Tamiya primer (its gonna stay just like that too!)


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Motor details were brushed. Kinda fun, but not my best work.

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Main motors were also sprayed with an airbrush. I should have used a metalizer paint, oh well, its passable.

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Here is one unique thing; some of the tubes for the stages are flat and have to be rolled and glued to form the tube. And another unique thing is those sections come pre painted and with the graphics already on them.
In this case, the USA lettering was pre-done as was the black stripes.
There was one build review where the person decided to use PVC tubes to replace these sections. Not a bad call, just not my thing with this kit.

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Mounted on the base. You can see right through some of my paint job! I will get that fixed in a minute.

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The smaller 2nd stage engines mounted. The detail on these parts was rough. As was my green paint job, but I dont intend to have the stages separated for viewing, so it will all be hidden. if I ever change my mind, I could always go back and make it good. (also, I am not sure if this is the correct color, but it was in the instructions.)

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Thats it for now!

I will provide an update when I make more progress.

Thank you for looking at all of this and have a great scale-model day!
 
In '69, I was 11; Cronkite was 52 (I thought he was ancient); we had a colour TV and cablevision, just in time for the moonshots.

Looking forward to watching your build, and the memories!
It really is a shame that this has not been retooled with better accuracy and detail or released by a company like Meng, bandai or Tamiya.
 
a shame that this has not been retooled
...perhaps, but my memories are coming in, loud and clear... like the anticipation of the incredible photos in National Geographic, and the moon map that I pinned to my wall!
Thanks for sharing your build with us.
 
This kit has been on my wish list for a while.
May not be accurate, but that does not really bother me as it still looks like it builds to an impressive model
 
YES HI beefy yes ive always wanted to build this big model of a saturn5 as built a smaller vershion i think your build looks great but when i was on another forum a guy called steven was building a 1/48 th scale vershion of this rocket an wow it was big as it was intended to fly but never heard from him anymore so dont know if heever finished it an launched it an i use to launch them small esstes model rockest that came down by parachute an had great fun with them but back to your model it will look great when finished an i will be followin along on your build brilliant an on this forum now there are gettin some very good builds on everything that i like keep this comin
chrisb
 
I built this in the late 60's. Maybe not this Revell kit but maybe Mongram??? . . .don't remember . ..but completed it stood about 3 feet tall.
 


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