Most of the recent work has been on BAAH-1’s paint prep. Not quite all, but most. The balsa nose cone takes an enormous amount of work to get it as smooth as I want it.  I don’t need a polished hardwood furniture-grade finish on it, but I don’t want all the lathe pits and typical […]

The hand rails for the CM pilot’s space walk are now built. Soldering small pieces of wire togethre on that scale was a little harder than I expected: I’m a bit out of practice with that stuff, alas. But, they’re done, look at least okay (maybe even better), and are half painted. (Why paint silver-colored […]

Q-ball’s painted. I mixed some gray (primer, as it happened) and flat black, painted on with a brush. Doesn’t look great under the OptiVISOR #7 lens, but looks okay, and looks fine with the unaided eye. When I masked the fin fairings, I left a small crescent masked that should have been unmasked, and it […]

The main painting is done, most of the decals are on: we’re getting close! Still to go: an umbillical disconnet (painted: no decal for the IU’s—nor for the S-IVB’s or the SM’s, but those are done), some touch-up, painting the Q-ball (nose of the launch escape system), and eight little tiny drain decals. Some clearcoat […]

Those RCS nozzles are awfully small–but tiny paint flaws look awfully big under a #10 Optivisor lens! Though it feels good to be closing on completion, there’s still so much detail work left. Painting the nose cone atop the launch escape system is upcoming, with a bit of a challenge to mask it well. And […]

The SM is inverse masked, masked, masked, unmasked, and painted; the S-IC fin fairings are, too (roughly). The SM is silver; there are several white radiators around the SM, some near the top edge, some near the bottom. The top radiators are fairly small, and there are lots of them. The SM was painted white, […]

Monday, the black paint went on the S-IC/S-II unit. After it dries and cures (and I’m able!), the next step will be to mask and unmask and otherwise prepare to paint the silver on the S-IC fin fairings. After that: Unmask the S-IC/S-II Touch up the S-IC/S-II and the Interstage/S-IVB-IU units. Mask the SM radiators […]

The white paint is done. Time to let the paint dry—for a couple of days, maybe even a few—then mask and paint black.

Priming’s done. The previous post shows pictures before and after the first coat of primer. Intentionally, it was a pretty light coat. After letting it set, I sanded the primer to smooth, then painted a second coat. That second coat is now drying; I expect to sand on Monday, spray the base white color coat […]