Having complete RealSpace Models’ Block II Command/Service Module (CSM), I’ve moved on to the Spacecraft Lunar Module Adapter (SLA) provided in the Revell kit.

The SLA was a fairing that contained the Lunar Module (LM), and supported the CSM. It was composed of two sections, the upper and lower SLA, which sat on top of a highly technical guidance/tracking/communication interstage called the Instrument Unit (25MB pdf), which in turn sat on top the third stage of the Saturn V, the S-IVB. The Instrument Unit constituted the very top of the Saturn V launch vehicle, and was responsible for guiding it through the process of getting Apollo to orbit. Once the S-IVB had injected the spacecraft into a transfer orbit to the moon, the upper SLA was discarded as four separate panels, to reveal the LM sitting in the lower SLA, waiting to be picked up by the CSM.

As supplied, the Revell version of the SLA is a pretty disappointing object. The upper SLA comes as a single unit with a transparent panel, which allows the kit builder to admire the LM inside at the expense of any shred of realism. The lower SLA is moulded as a single piece along with the Instrument Unit (IU)—which actually isn’t a great problem, because the lower SLA and IU always remained firmly attached to the S-IVB, and never separated from each other.

There’s a little tab inside the upper SLA kit part which is supposed to help locate the kit CSM correctly—but it’s in the wrong place for the Block II, so it has to go.

Another problem is the lack of detail on the surface of the kit SLA and IU. This can be partially resolved using New Ware’s Saturn V detail kit, which provides a selection of additional photo-etched and resin parts, as well as some decals.

But first I had to get some primer on to the brass photo-etched parts. I didn’t want to clog any of the spaces in the fine detail, so I constructed a little corrugated cardboard frame that supported the photo-etched sheet vertically, allowing my primer spray to blow through the gaps, and then I misted the primer on in four or five delicate applications.

The transparent panel had to be fixed—I glued it in place with epoxy, sanded and filled around the edges, and painted the inside with primer, to stop a later internal coat of metallic paint showing through and darkening the external white. That left me with a clean, sanded external surface that would provide a firm bonding surface for the detailing.

There’s also a small umbilical port on the Launch Umbilical Tower side of the SLA that needed to be created. I found a suitably sized square in a scribing template from Verlinden Productions (now sadly defunct), taped it in place, and scribed my way through the kit plastic. Then I closed the hole with a piece of styrene sheet on the inside.

After that, the photo-etched panel margins from New Ware were put in place on the upper SLA, along with the fairings around the spring ejector hinges at the base of each panel. This gave me a bit of a problem, because I wanted the upper SLA to still be detachable from the lower SLA, so that I can eventually put the LM in place. So the hinges and panel margins are glued only to the upper SLA, and lift away with it—it’s not an entirely realistic result, but it’s the best I could come up with.

The detailing is panel-specific, and the kit has locator flanges that fix the orientation of the SLA relative to the whole Saturn V stack. So it can all go horribly wrong if you start the detailing without first checking the orientations. The LM faces towards the transparent panel in the kit SLA, which should have a personnel access port in the middle of it; the hatch of the command module faces in the opposite direction from the LM;  and the umbilical port is on the launch tower side, which is the LM’s right. So I invested a bit of time with photos and diagrams before I took the major step of scribing out my umbilical port, and then used that as my anchor point for subsequent detailing.

The detailing was attached with a mixture of cyanoacrylate, five-minute epoxy and Microscale Kristal Klear. I used the Kristal Klear for the long, delicate brass strips of the photo-etch—it was forgiving for positioning and any residue could be rubbed off cleanly. Before the Kristal Klear dried, I tacked down one end of the strip with cyanoacrylate, let that set, pulled the strip tight and tacked the other end with more cyanoacrylate. The combination produced a nice flat, secure result.

Once the panel frames, hinges and hatches were in place, I moved on to adding detail of the structural framing with a variety of styrene strip from Evergreen. That structure then provides clear positional guidance for the remaining few pieces of detail from New Ware—a selection of covered elliptical ports  that were, to judge from photographs of the real SLA panels, connected to various pieces of internal machinery of mysterious function.

Next, I had to paint it. A few coats of base white, and then I needed to mask it up for the black paint on the Instrument Unit. I’m vaguely phobic about painting black on white—masking leaks somehow seem so much more catastrophic when the contrast is so high. So I decided I’d experiment with Bare-Metal® Foil—the manufacturers recommend it for tricky paint masking. It certainly did the masking job very well, but I’m not sure I’ll use it again—it leaves a horrible dark residue behind that needs to be removed with white spirit; the paint doesn’t adhere to it, so it can leave a ragged edge if you don’t carefully cut along the foil edge before lifting; and it is very difficult to remove, coming off in little bits and pieces. That said, the final result was perfect, so I shouldn’t complain.

I finished off with four resin antenna fairings from New Ware, and then four decals, before a final layer of varnish.

You wouldn’t think four decals could take two hours, would you? Here’s the problem:
On the real Saturn V, there were four letters stencilled on the Instrument Unit, marking the positions of its reference coordinate axes: +Y, +Z, -Y, -Z. On a black Instrument Unit, they were stencilled in white. The exception occurred with the Saturn V stacks that launched Apollos 10 to 17, when the IU had a white panel on the side opposite the launch tower, requiring a black letter in that location. So New Ware, being thorough people, provide all four coordinate letter decals in white, and one alternative in black. So far so good. But they provide a black -Y.

Now, the coordinates systems used on the Saturn V and its Apollo stack are confusing. In the Apollo stack, Y was the pitch axis (aligned north-south at launch) and Z the yaw axis, and in that system +Y was directed towards the launch tower and -Y was opposite it, towards the white panel on the IU. And that’s the marking system that New Ware has provided. However, although the Saturn V launch vehicle also had a Y pitch axis and Z yaw axis, all its coordinates were rotated 180º relative to the Apollo stack, so that all the plus and minus locations were reversed. And, since the Instrument Unit belonged to the launch vehicle, it was in reality marked up with that coordinate system. To me, this mix of coordinates is so disorientating it’s a miracle they got to the moon at all. But anyway—what I actually needed was a black +Y.

Just for confirmation, here are details from photos of the Apollo 11 Saturn V that I’m modelling.

Tower side:

Opposite side:

So I had to cut a tiny sliver of black decal from my spare stock, trim it to the correct length and width, float it into position as a vertical crossbar on the minus sign of the black -Y, and settle it securely in place with Micro Sol. That’s what took the two hours. Pleasingly, I obtained that little sliver of black from a swastika decal I had left over from a previous WWII Luftwaffe modelling phase—so a little nod to Wernher von Braun, there.

Here’s the final result, with and without the CSM in place.

As a final tweak, during all my obsessive checking of the orientation of the SLA, I noticed that the locating flanges between the bottom of the IU and the top of the S-IVB were 10º out of correct alignment—the systems tunnel of the S-IVB in the kit was lining up exactly with the -Y coordinate of the IU, whereas it needs to be rotated slightly to the right. So I sanded off the locating studs on the S-IVB and replaced them with some styrene in the correct position.

But that’s all for now on the Saturn V. I’m getting a little tired of detailing at 1/96 scale, so I’m going to take a break and start a 1/48 kit instead.

• Go to S-IVB stage build log

• Go to Part 1 of this build log

In the first two parts of this build log, I’ve been describing my experience with RealSpace Models‘ 1/96 Apollo Command/Service Module, which is intended to replace the CSM provided with Revell’s classic 1/96 Saturn V model kit. Revell unfortunately provides only a “Block I” CSM, which was never flown on a manned mission—RealSpace provides the Block II components I need to build my Apollo 11 Saturn V.

The final vital part in the RealSpace kit is a vacuformed Boost Protective Cover (BPC). In the real Apollo missions, this was a fibre-glass and cork heat-shield that covered the Command Module during launch. The BPC and Command Module were attached to the Launch Escape Tower, a set of rocket motors designed to whisk the CM out of danger if something went wrong during the early stages of the launch. Another problem with Revell’s kit is that there’s no Boost Protective Cover—the Launch Escape Tower simply cobbles straight on to the kit’s Command Module.

So here’s how the BPC comes out of the RealSpace box—it needs to be trimmed:

In particular, there’s a notch in the back that needs to be opened to accommodate the umbilical that links the Command and Service Modules.

This needs careful measuring—if you cut out the whole raised area in the vacuformed part, you’ll find the hole is bigger than the umbilical.

I did this prep work before I covered the Command Module with foil, and was disconcerted to find that the nice friction fit between BPC and CM was lost once the foil was in place—the cover kept popping up and tilting to a jaunty angle, which was going to be hopeless once the escape tower was in place on top of it. The plastic used for the vacuform is thermosetting, so I had no luck trying to adjust the shape with some hot water. It looked like I was going to need to place a couple of vents in the sides and patch with sheet styrene, which was a task I didn’t really fancy. So by way of prevarication, I taped the BPC firmly in place over the CM and abandoned it for a month while we went to Wrangel Island … and (mirabile dictu!) by the time we got home again it had decided it was going to stay where it was put after all.

One final bit of cutting is required—the real BPC contained windows over the CM hatch and in front of the commander’s window (on the left side). I popped these out with my trusty hole punch, and glazed them with a couple of little discs cut from a sheet of overhead-projector transparency (I knew it would come in useful if I kept it long enough!)

Now I needed to assemble Revell’s Launch Escape Tower:

This is a rather bland looking object—in fact, the whole kit lacks quite a lot of detail that should have been easily moulded. I used some fine styrene rod to add the ribbing on the structural skirt, together with two wiring harnesses:

Then it was just a matter of using some epoxy to get the tower centrally placed on the BPC, and correctly orientated with the wiring harnesses on the same side as the BPC hatch cover.

And here’s the whole assembly, in place on RealSpace’s CSM:

The next step is to detail up Revell’s Spacecraft Lunar Module Adapter (SLA) section—quite a complicated structure in real life, but just a bland cone in Revell’s kit.

• Go to the SLA build log

• Go to Part 1 of this build log

Having finished with the Service Module detailing, I had a little bit to do on the Command Module before I could start applying foil. I sanded down the original undetailed cabin hatch on the resin model, and added the photoetched detail from New Ware’s Saturn V Detail Kit. Then I added a hatch handle using a bit of styrene rod.

Then it was time for the foil—I’ve seen people use ordinary household aluminium, but I decided to try the self-adhesive stuff produced by Bare-Metal®Foil (as they seem to like to be known). I assembled it in panels, each panel taking in one bit of detailing—a window, a Reaction Control System thruster set, an S-band antenna. It minimized the amount of moulding and cutting I had to do, but it did produce an erroneous “panelled” look. The Mylar foil on the original CM was laid on in narrow diagonal strips, which would have been less than a millimetre wide if I’d scaled them down to this model. The folks at Bare-Metal insist it should be possible to make the junctions between foil edges invisible, but I failed miserably.

I trimmed the straight edges with a fresh No. 11 scalpel blade from Swann-Morton. You can buy these, unsterilized, surprisingly cheaply in packs of a hundred. They drift through the thin foil with almost no resistance. Properly mounted on the correct scalpel handle, they’re a great alternative to the traditional craft knife, with the advantage that you can dispose of them safely with Swann-Morton’s plastic remover unit.

For the little circular cut-outs around the RCS thrusters, I used a 2mm leather punch on the foil before I took it off its backing. This made slightly overscale holes, but had the advantage of making them neat, circular and reproducible.

The resin in the SpaceModels moulding has a slightly bobbly texture that isn’t really apparent until you start smoothing the foil. If I was doing this again, I’d sand the CM smooth and rescribe the small number of panel lines.

Finally, some decalling with Space Model System’s Ultimate Apollo Command & Service Module Decals, which weren’t particularly keen to adhere to the foil. Once I had them delicately in place I carefully sealed them down with a couple of layers of trusty Quick Shine floor polish, the same stuff I use to restore scratched canopies.

Having used Ultra Bright Chrome for the Command Module, I turned to Matte [sic] Aluminum [sic] for the aft heatshield on the Service Module. This needed another circular hole in the foil (around the SPS engine nozzle), but considerably larger than those around the Command Module RCS thrusters. I used a circle-cutting compass while the foil was still on its backing. The circle cutter was used again to produce a couple of pieces of detailing—two arcs of heatshield that lie directly on the aft surface of the Service Module. (Because this is a pour surface of the resin model, there’s no detail on it.) The same foil was used to surface the umbilical cover that connects the Command and Service Modules, before that was glued into place.

Then there’s another piece to be added from the Revell 1/96 Saturn V kit—the Service Module’s S-band high gain antenna, which has to be placed in its stowed position, because it’s eventually going to have to fit inside the Spacecraft-Lunar Module Adapter of the Revell kit.

So here’s the completed model.

Next up, the vacuformed Boost Protective Cover (from RealSpace) and the Launch Escape Tower (from Revell). The BPC was a nice friction fit over the Command Module in the original resin, but the foil covering seems to have reduced the friction just enough that the BPC now keeps popping off. That’s going to take a bit of fixing.

• Go to Part 3 of this build log

So this is the first part of my slow assembly of the Revell 1/96 Apollo Saturn V.

One of several shortcomings in that kit is that the Apollo Command/Service Module provided is a Block I version. That kind of CSM only ever sat on top of a Saturn V for the unmanned Apollo 4 and Apollo 6 launches, which makes it a rather dull option for anyone who has gone to the length of going out and buying a stonking great Saturn V model kit. You’d have thought Revell might have fixed this for the 25th anniversary reissue of the kit, but they didn’t. Nor did they fix it for the 40th anniversary reissue, which actually has images of a moon landing on the box art.

So what’s a fellow to do? RealSpace Models to the rescue, with a 1/96 Apollo Block II CSM, the kind that flew men to the moon.

As a kit, it’s very simple, consisting of just three parts—the Command and Service Modules in a single unit, the SPS engine nozzle and aft heatshield, and the umbilical connecting the Command and Service Modules. It also includes a vacuformed Boost Protective Cover (you can see it in the box art, above) which corrects another shortcoming of the Revell model—that the kit’s Launch Escape System tower connected directly to the Command Module. There will be more on the BPC in a later post, but this one is about the CSM.

As a resin kit, there are some pour surfaces to deal with—the aft surface of the Service Module and the front surface of the aft heatshield need to be flattened and smoothed before the two parts can be put together. I wish I’d taken some pictures of the original resin parts for you, but I forgot, and there don’t seem to be any available on-line. RealSpace’s moulding is good and detailed, and I found only a couple of bubbles to fill. My kit arrived with damage to the delicate docking probe on the front of the Command Module—rather than try to replace the kit, I rebuilt the probe using some fine styrene rod. A certain amount of care (and some reference material) is then required to attach the aft heatshield in the correct orientation relative to the CSM. Although RealSpace provide a diagram that just about does the job, I found myself checking multiple photographs, too, to convince myself that the heatshield (and its associated fuel and oxidizer hook-ups) really was so rotated relative to the principal axes of the CSM.

Then there was a little detail work, using New Ware’s Saturn V Detail Kit (of which you’ll be seeing a lot more as I work my way through this build)—the semi-circular scimitar antennae on the Service Module were rather blunt and chunky in resin, so I removed them and replaced them with New Ware’s slimmer photoetched metal parts. I also added New Ware’s umbilical attachment point.

Then, after a coat of white primer, I masked the Service Module up for a layer of silver and some gloss varnish. Removing the masking gave me the white panelling I needed.

After that, more detailing, in the form of Space Model System’s Ultimate Apollo Command & Service Module Decals. This set includes every little warning panel visible on the outside of the spacecraft, and is probably overkill at this scale, since many are pretty much invisible unless you go looking for them close up. Nevertheless, there was a definite level of satisfaction to be derived from getting them all in place. This also made me commit to a specific mission, since there are small differences in Service Module labelling between the different Apollo missions. So, on the basis of couple of labels near the Service Module umbilical hook-up, this is now CSM-107, the Apollo 11 spacecraft, and I’m going to be building AS-506, the corresponding Saturn V stack.

And that was the point at which I remembered to take a photograph. So here it is, awaiting a coat of varnish to seal the decals, and then some detail painting. At this scale it’s just eleven centimetres tall, so for my presbyopic eyes, the fine work needs an illuminating magnifying glass.

Painting turns out to be a little problematic, since there are various slightly different colour schemes described out there. Photos are less help than you might think, since some of the pictures taken in the high-contrast space environment render what is probably a shade of red as a rather drab brown. So I did my best, mixing up a reddish brick shade for the fuel and oxidizer connections in the base of the Service Module, and using bright red for the markings around the Command Module’s Reaction Control System nozzles. The Service Module’s RCS quads aren’t provided by SpaceModels, so you need to use the ones provided by Revell (which aren’t quite the right shape), or scratch-build something yourself. I took the lazy route and used Revell’s. I mixed up Humbrol’s gold and gunmetal enamel paints to get a dull gold sheen on the Service Module RCS nozzles—again, it’s difficult to be sure of the right shade when judging from photographs.

So here it is, so far. The next step is going to involve applying metal foil to the aft heatshield and the Command Module, so there’s some pretty splotchy paintwork in those areas—eventually they’ll be neatly delineated by holes in the foil (he writes, confidently). Meanwhile, the current appearance of the CM reminds me strangely of a six-year-old girl who has slapped on some of her mother’s mascara and lipstick.I haven’t applied foil to a model before, and it is possible I’ve picked an overly challenging surface to start with. We’ll see.

• Go to Part 2 of this build log