How is your Saturn Progressing?
 

Now that we are down to the last week, how is everyone's project coming along?

I got my fins glued on yesterday and everything is now painted white. In a few days I will mask and then paint the black. The instructions recommend hand painting the black but I am going to try spraying instead.

A good portion of the small detail parts are built but not quite finished. I will hand paint them and install them after the black paint is done.

My hat's off to those of you who are building multiple Saturns.

I see light at the end of the tunnel, but it is still a very long tunnel!

Aaaaaahhhhhhh! Indeed, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Base coat of white on everything. Capsule built. Will be building the trim details while I wait for the paint to dry sufficently before painting the black. I left the fins off and will paint those seperate from the body and apply as if they were details (even put the decals on before attaching to the body). I think it will just be easier that way.

Yeah, those guys building multiple models.....glutton for punishment :rolleyes:

Started on the sanding/sealing. After the painting is done, the decals will be applied and the
final details of the Service Module will be last. Should be done by this coming weekend. :D

Don.... I had considered painting the fins before assembly like you are doing. It came down to a coin toss, but I finally decided to paint after assembly.

Dave... Yours is coming along nicely. What's the smaller one in the background?

Finished mine yesterday down to the last decal. Just need to shoot a few coats of clear on it tonight if the weather holds and I'm all set.

Just to take the heat off Don, I have another one lurking in the shadows that showed up Saturday. That one is not as far along as most its cousins--just treated all the tubes and cut out the various fin skins, shrouds, do-dads etc. last night. Tonight I'll build the fins and build the lower fluted shroud assembly and get the fuel tubes painted. Heck or high water, it will be finish painted this coming weekend and ready to ship early next week.

I glued on the fins yesterday, and I'm doing some final detailing work on them tonight. The fin area will need a final coat of primer to check for any imperfections (man, I hope I don't find any...).

I'm hoping to get the gloss white coat on tonight.

I still need to make some of the small detail parts, which I'll work on while the paint is drying.

Ive got all the details done, ( not attached ) and everthing is ready to be assembled. I am still wrestling with the fins also. I prefer to paint the tank tubes ahead of time, however masking the shroud after attaching it is a difficult task. I actually was able to finish the entire lower section of the model from the shroud down on the Apogee version which was easier then the first time I built the Semroc one with the assemblies glued together then masking them.


Jim

Mine should start going together today. I've had to make a few "special" parts ...

Mario

Mine is about ready for a coat of primer, which being white will likely double as the base color. Still needs a few detail parts added, but those go on today and tomorrow. Like Mario, I had to make a few "special parts" to speed things up, and to give it some additional detail.

Fins will get primed and painted before attaching to the skirt.

The skirt shroud gave me all kinds of fits, which not one actually did correctly... Fit, that is... I burned through about three or four, one the original, and the others copies made from the Estes kit sheet scans.

The wraps on the S-IV-B went on easily using 3M-90 spray adhesive. I applied it only to the back of each wrap and carefully worked them onto the tube. Once they were in place, I sealed the edges with thin CA. The #3 wrap had a small gap to be filled, and I used BONDO spot putty for this. The #4 wrap, although the corrugations all lined up with #3, was still shorter and has a wide gap. May try a small thin (0.01" sheet plastic) filler to fix this.

The capsule went together easily enough, but I did have some "oh noooo" moments attaching the nozzle base to the top of the spider legs. Finally worked it out. Tenax-7R is the only way to go with this kit.

If all goes well from here, I should have the clear coats going on Friday.

All our fins are on, and mostof the fiddly-bits are too (can I say that in public?)

We've had a number of issues with painting - If we had it all to do over again, we would NOT paint the 4 tubes black first. Jack has been incredible during the build - not only has he let us invade his house for 5 weekends, but h's done a phenominal job working on the 10 models during the week. It's going to be tough getting the kits complete by 10/7, but I'm optimistic. We're only panicing a little bit :eek:

Fiddly-bit - Noun: Parts that would look better on a fiddle than on a rocket :p


John

ten at once, never again
 

As John said, we had a few paint, problems. With the 'black' tubes already painted, it made a difference where one set the wrap line. And murphy got us big time, we thought we had four boosters with the wrong reference, but we actually have six that are wrong. :eek: 50/50 and an extra one butter side down. But we are well on the way to recovery. Two of the 'black-2-white' rounds went home with someone else to feather the black edges. (we were super efficient and had already masked the USA rectangle, now that has to be undone also) And we are finding that all the detail parts need special edge treatment. So all will be back to white real-soon-now and we can continue with the black this week and weekend.

Eight of our ten rounds, (2 in-work off premmesis) with John's 'Boilerplate' round on right, and Bill's 'originial' unit built 'many' years ago. :rolleyes:

FIVE weekends? Wow - either you guys got a head start or we got a late start. This upcoming weekend is only our third, not to mention I am out of town for this weekend.

John why would you not paint the tubes black if you started over ? This worked well for me on the second model I built. Just curious what you and others have to say.


I am still juggling the idea of painting the fins prior to attachment.


Guess I gotta get rolling here soon, the deadline is coming. :eek:



Jim

If I remember correctly, the Estes instructions actually told you to paint the tubes before assembly. We've run into so much trouble (times 10) with the prepainted tubes, that I'd rather fuss with more masking tape, but thats my preference.

John

Well, base white coat still tacky today. Cold front coming in tonight. Sure hope I don't have a humidity issue when it's time to apply the black paint......... :(

Do you have a room that is warm that you can put the model into, or is it still outgassing to much?


John

I'm keeping it in my bedroom. The AC should help keep the humidity down and with the ceiling fan going, I was hoping it would speed the curing time. I'm going to try the black on one of the fins tomorrow and see what happens. One fin to fix is easier than the entire model.

That's why you guys (and gals) can see my Centuri 1/100 scale Saturn 1-B in the background of my pic. I've been using it for reference (along with other sources) as I'm putting this big thing together. I think it's better to paint the fuel tubes prior to assembly, you just have to pay attention where the Pos. I, II, III & IIII locations are as far as the fins and body wraps. Where Pos. I is, I drew a very light, straight line with a pencil so all of my wraps will start on one side and end on the other. There is a way to mask off those fuel
tubes so the rest of the model can get that all important base white coat.

That's it for now, I'll be back later this evening with more (my kid needs/wants to get on the computer now.... :rolleyes: )

I'm just entering the tunnel now... :(

I decided to prepaint the tank tubes before gluing them on. Sounds like something that should have been simple, doesn't it? Unfortunately, I keep running into unexpected snags. (For one thing, it's hard to spray paint in the rain! :eek: ) That recoat time of New Krylon is starting to impact my timeline, as well. Missing 5 days of build time while I was away from home at a conference didn't help, either.

I'm really, really counting on everything else going together without a hitch. :rolleyes: And it will probably work out that way, too, right? Right?

Mark \\.

Jim:

I've tried each way on the Semroc, and while it's definitely a matter of peronal preference, I lean towards attaching first, painting/masking later. Pre-painting the fins is definitely easier on the painting of both the fins and the shroud, but I still had very slight alignment issues where the white/black borders on the fins might not exactly match same on the fin can despite measuring what I felt was very carefully. More of a factor to me, though, was the fillets. I went with a very subtle (applied with a .5mm syringe) white glue fillet that dried clear, and it just didn't look as sharp as a fillet that had been painted over. I touched 'em up by hand, but my brus is nowhere near as pretty as my airbrush.

YMMV...

Mark,

You're right. Everything else goes together without a hitch..... :)

Now, don't read any more posts! :D

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you... Well, until I have to paint one of the rockets, or mask one of the rockets, or...

Tell ya what - I'll think happy thoughts instead :p :p

John

That's my Centuri 1/100 scale Saturn 1-B, bought & built back in 1971.

Well, I'm not THAT far back, but still, it's time to come up with a new plan. Finish the build now, and then do most of the painting later, when the weather is more cooperative. But in addition to being rather wet lately, it is now starting to be too cold in the evenings after work in this part of the country to paint outdoors. I am just hoping that the daytime highs keep getting at least into the 60's this week, so that I can run home and apply some coats during my lunch hour.

Mark \\.

Maybe you should move down to Houston?! :D Our post-Ike weather has been fantastic,
highs in the low to mid 80's, with low humidity, few or no clouds and very little (or no) wind
with crystal clear blue skies.

Got some of the painting started; did the balsa surfaces of the fins and the retro - rocket
housings. Needed to get these before I do the white spray on which should come any day
now. Also painted each of the antenna panels gloss white, as these will go on after the
white spray on is completed.

Does anyone have any photo proofs that the antennas on the antenna panels is really
yellow on the SA-205? I have a hunch that the yellow is really protective covers over the
antennas that were removed shortly before launch, but that's still has to be determined.

Yeah, sure, you guys in Texas have the better weather NOW... ;) :D

I fully acknowledge the fact that you face serious threats every year during hurricane season, though. Yet, in most years, you enjoy a greatly extended season for painting, launching, etc., including just about all winter.

Living at lower latitudes does give most of you in this group the advantage of a longer season (and yes, even Cincinnati enjoys an advantage, too...).

When storms (including tropical storm remnants) reach this part of the continent, they tend to hang around awhile, especially in the fall. Rather than moving through in a matter of hours, they will stick around for as much as a week. This tends to play havoc with anything (like painting models on a deadline) that is dependent on good weather.

I do think that I will finish the project in time, but it is going to be close.

Mark \\.

Saturn1B
 

I painted my tanks separately, and did the whole thing in subassemblies. Nothing is glued together yet except the capsule. I'm planning on lining up the seams for all wraps like the instructions.
I'm having a difficult time figuring out the correct masking of the base ring, are we splitting the ring in half for the black????
Apogee's instructions( and Alway's book) have the color demarcation about 1/3 of the tube length.
The Apogee fins are a LOT smaller then Semroc'
Thoughts???
Mark T

The Apogee fins are scale, and require either 2 degree cant plus some nose weight, or straight mount plus a bunch of nose weight to be stable. The Estes/Semroc kits do not require nose weight, as they went with larger non-scale fins. Since this is a display model, not a flying one, you could get away with scale fins, but that would be all scratch. The fins we've got might be larger, but with the built-up method of balsa ribs, they look pretty darned nice when done.

On the masking, if you're referring to the BT101 aft tube to which the fins mount, I think the Semroc spec's have the "upper" demarcation about 3/4" below the seam where the fluted shroud joins the BT-101 fin can, but that looks a bit high to me. I shot for the line being the midpoint of the corrugated wrap (wrap #2).

Paint demarcation line
 

So , I'm looking at my 1B now, there's 2 wraps, one smooth at the top, corrugated on the bottom.
Your saying that the black line goes halfway down the corrugation???
Mark

Mark,

From what I can gather from the Semroc instructions and the Mark Piatowski drawings, the demarcation line should be .78 inches below the tube shroud/BT joint between positions II and III (black over white). Between Positions III and IV you are looking at .78 inches (white over black).

My LAUNCH Magazine Arrived Today!!
 

The current issue of LAUNCH was waiting for me when I came home from work. Talk about
perfect timing, I'm now "torn" between the urgency to finish the build of the Saturn 1-B and/or reading this issue!

More later..... :rolleyes:

Nope. My eyeball says halfway down the smooth wrap. Don's 0.78 response earlier is probably pretty darned close, and I'd think that's about 2.3 down the smooth wrap, a little more than my half.

Yep, I've started having nightmares about black and white tubes.... and fiddly-bits....oh the horror of the fiddly-bits!

Ok, I've got the eight fuel tubes masked and already started on the base gloss white coat
of paint. Pics below. While I'm at it, I've pulled out my Estes 1/70 scale Saturn 1-B kit's
box for your viewing pleasure (the kit's components are still in the box!).

Looks like we've got about 6 models in white, and the other 4 are pretty much ready to paint white. We're planning on starting the masking job tomorrow night. Pictures attached show the progress to this point, and the visitor that decided to lend a hand :p

John

OK, all you folks who are painting the fluted shroud assembly AFTER it's been installed (Dave, John & Co. etc.)...how the [Heck] do you mask the tubes around the upper portion of the shroud that tapers to a fine point in the gap between tubes? I've always heard one of the advantages of painting this after installing is that you can fill the gaps better, but I'd think masking off those tubes but still leaving the fluted shroud exposed to paint would be a huge pain.

From Dave's photo, it looks like there's some masking tape over the tubes, but I can't really pick up enough detail to see how closely it's masked.

I just finished up the shroud last night on mode #2 and was about to get started on paint tonight, though am now mulling over the possibility of installing it first/painting it later to give me a shot at filling the gaps.

I got (what I thought) would be the last coat of white on mine last night, but I had some paint issues where some of the fins attach - the paint blistered and bubbled. I will fix that tonight and hopefully get black painted on Thursday night. I am out of town this weekend so I am hoping I am done with all of the glitches that cause rework.

Chan,

I think what you see as masking tape is actually FnF. I'm masking mine today. I'm actually going to try to wrap paper around the tubes that stay white (there's that gap between the tubes) and then just over lap the tape onto the paper. I'll let you know how it works. It's kinda hard to explain so maybe I can get a picture of it posted at lunch.

Put the scallop shroud on last night and fnf'd it. Fins are done, they just need to be attached. Doing the wraps tonight and finishing the capsule. I'm taking Friday off just to make sure I get this done in time.

Carl, do they need to be back by the 7th or can they go out on the 7th?