Revell 1/48 Lunar Module

[Jim2001]

As a winter project I'm building the Revell 1/48 scale lunar module. It's actual box name is Buzz Aldrin Rocket Hero First Lunar Landing.

I was inspired by Vincent Meen's 1/24 scratch-build

http://spacemodels.nuxit.net/LEM-24/index.htm

which I've been following for a at least a year (his build is going on 2 or 3 years now) and thought I would either build a 1/24 from scratch like he's doing or try to bring some of the details he has introduced into his model into a 1/48 or smaller styrene kit. I chose the later.

I had seen ModelManTom's review of the kit, ( OOB Review: Revell's LEM, 40th Anniversery ) and had looked at reviews for similar kits of this subject and was worried that the details in it would not be to my liking, or at the very least would require so much more work to get it close to accurate that I wouldn't want to bother. It seemed to be the best bet of all the kits so I asked for it for Christmas and my wife obliged.

My first impressions of the kit were very good though. When I opened the box and started to examine the sprue trees I found that the kit is pretty good overall as far as accuracy goes for a 1/48 scale model. Sure, it's lacking in plenty of areas but it has "good bones" and I would be able to correct most of the key areas with the scratch building skills I currently have. Actually, at 1/48 I was surprised how much detail they managed to get right. Sure there are some large gaffs here and there (and I will discuss them below as I go over the model in detail) but overall it is a very workable kit.

I started with the Descent Stage since it seemed to be the easiest part to start with. I don't know why I thought that. I guess I like to build from the feet up. Anyway I wanted to display the finished model on a custom made base (not keeping the base it came with since it is too cartoon-like. (the shadow of the LM is moulded into the base - you read that right - and the craters are, well, not very realistic to my eyes. See ModelManTom's video above to see what I mean.)

The Descent Stage comes in 3 pieces for the main body (top plate, middle and bottom plate) and includes several smaller bits for the legs. There are also pieces to be stuck on such as an exposed RTG which can be seen in early concept models prior to an actual flight-ready LM being seen by anyone. Gold foil is included with the kit but I didn't really like the feel of it and it was tough to crinkle up and looked too flat when pressed to the body panels. I bought some candy wrapper foils in gold and orange (both had a silver backing) but this stuff was extremely thin. After some experimenting I decided to use some aluminum tape stuck to the back of the foil. This gave the gold and orange foils a lot more thickness and it held the wrinkles much better without completely flattening out.

So far I've used silver, orange and gold candy foil (backed with thick aluminum tape), the aluminum tape sprayed with flat black lacquer, aluminum tape straight, Kapton tape (the amber stuff you can see on the legs and on side panels), copper foil tape (used to repair electronics and electric guitars). A lot of the foil is held down with super powered glue stick from UHU. It's the greatest stuff I've found to stick metal foils to whatever you have.

The picture here show some of the details I've scratch-built into this model. on the Descent Stage. I will post more shortly.

 

[Grendels]

Nice work so far!!

 

[ScarredKustoms]

Very cool stuff!

 

[Quaralane]

Nice work on that so far

 

[panzerace007]

Nice lookin' ! WoW ! Does that foil come with th lit too ? That's some Awesome lookin' stuff !!

 

[Jim2001]

Revell LM 1/48

Thanks for comments guys. It's taken me more than 2 months of evenings to get the descent stage to around 90% done. I've been adjusting the kit parts to more accurately reflect LM 5 or Eagle from Apollo 11.




The legs are now attached and all the supports for it are in place. I used Kapton tape on the legs in an approximation of what they really looked like. They are tricky to work with given the size (about 4 inches long and only about 3/16" diameter. Each one has silver on the upper 3/4 and gold on the lower 1/4 with amber Kapton colour on the back.

The supplied "porch" was chopped down and the handrails altered to match a lot better. I think the colour of the floor is off compared to later LMs but I'm hunting for a reference to LM5's specifically. It will stay silver for now. One thing that bugs me is that there is supposed to be a flag carrier just behind the left side of the ladder (at the bottom) but the outriggers block that space due to the fact they are too far forward, or rather the leg is too far back. Kind of late to do anything about it now but it may bug me to the point that I cave and pry them off again.



Quad 3 came out nice. The little octagonal bump was a real challenge to build accurately but after several attempts it came together and looks just like it should (there is a round tank behind it so this is just a protective cover).



The MESA (modular equipment storage area) is nearly done and was so small and fussy that I almost made the model with a closed MESA. This part held the TV camera and you can see it peeking out of the foil on the right.




The foot pads supplied with the kit are one of the worst parts. The socket that receives the leg bottom had a very wide diameter so I cut the sides of it down to more closely match what should be there. Also the outer rim had a very thick edge to it and I very carefully cut and sanded it off. Even thought the bottom of the pad will never be seen once I attach it to it's base, I folded the foils the same way Grumman did in actual construction.

I've still got the graphics to do on this section as well as one or two other bits but I'll post them once I get to them.

 

[Quaralane]

Excellent work on that kit

 

[Jim2001]

Revell LM 1/48

Ascent Section

This section will take a bit of fussing to get right given the scale. being the "face" of the LM it needs to have as many of it's details right or it will just look dopey. I scratch built all the additions to this kit myself. I am aware of the NewWare detail set available but it is twice the price of the kit itself, and besides, I love to scratch build. http://mek.kosmo.cz/newware/index.htm



I added the 'bump' to the right side (pilot's right). The right side will be black with silver details and I will have to decide whether to use black foil or just black paint for this. I am leaning towards foil since it provided a nice even finish to the descent section where I used it.



I also cut out the door they put in. It was a very imaginative attempt but not correct or correctable, so out it came. I painted some flat grey/green on several parts so I could double check the filling and sanding. I also added several details on the top which went straight up rather than widened out. You can probably see there are rivet details moulded into the surface of this section, but they are not terribly accurate so I've been sanding them down as I come to them. The rivets should really be silver dots and not just raised bumps. At any distance the silver would be seen but not necessarily the bumps.



Here is the door in place. The paint is Humbrol 40 which according to Vincent Meens and others is the closest to the chromic acid anodized aluminum used throughout this section. There are lots of tiny details that have to be added here but the basics of the door are in place.



I added lots of details here to the top like rail mounts for the EVA hand rail and cut the docking window which was missed by Revell.



Here is the middle section and will overall pretty good with most of the details in place. I added several small pieces of styrene here and there to make it better.



Added some angles to the bottom where Revell got it wrong again but it was any easy fix.




They completely missed the drogue so I made one. It took me a while to work out the math for a frustum but I eventually triumphed.



Only some minor work required on the back section but one thing I haven't worked out is the ribbing on the underside. It's mighty fine ribbing and so far my hunt for something that would work here has produced nothing.



This antenna is supposed to have a very fine coil around it like a double helix but my efforts to produce that have failed time and time again. I'm starting to think that once I do succeed here it will likely be too small for anyone to see.

 

[Quaralane]

I have no doubt that the work you're putting into this WILL show.

 

[Jim2001]

Here is an update on progress.


I cut off the ascent engine bell in order to correct the seams and to add a missing rim around the bottom. I cut a super-fine thread of sheet styrene and glued it around the edge. You may notice the the top where it meets the bottom of the ascent stage is crooked. This is deliberate since the engine bell is angled a few degrees aft.


I was trying to build a ribbed section missing from the back of the ascent stage but I think I will not go this way with it. It's too thick. Maybe just scribe some lines instead? Have to think about this a bit more.


Here's where that part would go. I added a ridge and tapered it off on each end. This whole surface will be covered in foil that is smoothed down. The scribing will go down on top of the foil methinks.


Here are the three main pieces of the ascent stage, all primed up and ready for a coat of Humbrol 40. The piece at the top is the descent engine bell. I'll give it shot of black/grey while I have the airbrush out.


I had hoped to enter this in the Spring contest but I don't think this will be finished in time. We'll see what the next few weeks brings.

 

[Grendels]

Mighty fine work there!!!

 

[Quaralane]

Excellent work on that.
Lot of work, and it shows

 

[Jim2001]

Thanks guys. One thing I forgot to note above was that this model was the first time I've used Tamiya Fine Surface Primer Light Gray and it is undoubtedly the best primer I've ever used. Normally I use Testor's primers and was more or less happy with it provided I am careful and do very light coats. Also the Testor's cans are so tiny that I often run out mid-model. The Tamiya is just lovely and drys dead flat and does not lose any surface details. I think I'll run out and buy a few more cans of it since it's well stocked at my local shop.

 

[ShutterAce]

Thanks guys. One thing I forgot to note above was that this model was the first time I've used Tamiya Fine Surface Primer Light Gray and it is undoubtedly the best primer I've ever used. Normally I use Testor's primers and was more or less happy with it provided I am careful and do very light coats. Also the Testor's cans are so tiny that I often run out mid-model. The Tamiya is just lovely and drys dead flat and does not lose any surface details. I think I'll run out and buy a few more cans of it since it's well stocked at my local shop.

I just started using it myself and could not agree with you more! ;D

 

[Jim2001]

Here's another update. The ascent stage has been airbrushed with Humbrol 40 and has that slight green-tindged goodness I was hoping for.




I started to apply the black and silver panels. I have to go get some Bare Metal Foil to trim the edges of these panels (the silver foil I have used for the panels is way too thick and I suspect that BMF is much thinner).




The aft section is coming along nicely and I got the thrusters glued in. After I did this I realized just how inaccurate they were. If I do this subject over again I'll build these correctly but not for this model. I can live with it the way it is.

 

[Grendels]

You are putting an insane amount of detail into this one. Its great!!

 

[java]

That is some fantastic work,very cool. 8)

 

[Quaralane]

Excellent. Love how this is going

 

[Jim2001]

I got the kit for Christmas this year and started it in mid-January. I gave it quite a lot of thought over the last year or so on how I might approach building this model once I got it. I had to compromise a bit given the scale but so far it's working out OK.

How I got thinking about this model initially was at a local model store several years ago. I was building the Atomic City EVA pod from 2001: A Space Odyssey (still building it actually) and was there getting a bottle of CA. The owner gave me the 10¢ tour of his storeroom and I found an old Airfix kit of the lunar module I built as a kid. That got me thinking about perhaps building one again but making it with as much accuracy as I could muster. Fun stuff and keeps me off the streets at night!

 

[Jamaicanmodels69]

Thats looking good!