My summer of discontent is over and the Fall of chaos is nearly done.
The Artemis mission to the moon finally launched and I started looking back at the history of the Saturn V rocket. I think it is one of the most mind boggling machines to fly yet.
This model of the Apollo Saturn V is at 144 scale. This makes it over 30 inches tall and 2.75 inches in diameter. All the parts were turned on a lathe except for the fins. Spruce was used for the structure, laminated birch craft sticks for the fins alder. The engines were turned from alder (five F1), poplar (six J2) and a scrap of walnut ( command module).
The stages are held together with 1/16 brass pins fitted into 3/32 brass tubes...eighteen matched holes in all.
It is primed and will be getting painted soon along with the various markings and other details.
Note the six foot stick man standing beside the main F1 engine....
Fraser
Wow! Awesome project Fraser. I eagerly await more updates.
Lou
Fraser,
Definitely different. Excellent workmanship.
Looking forward to updates.
Gordon
Thanks Lou and Gordon. Normally I am building things with wings, so this is a bit different. Funny that when I start looking at the rocket, it is much more than a tube.... I did present the unfinished model at the wood turning club here in Vancouver and they were amazed at the number of small parts it is made from. Most wood turned projects are generally less than 3 parts where the Saturn V model has about 30 turned parts.
I will update shortly when I get some color on the model
Here is the wood turning guild I belong to. Actually I was initially reluctant to join a "guild", but they are a fantastic group of guys who vary from true professional turners to beginners who've never held a tool. Everyone has so much knowledge to share too. Check out their resources and newsletter. gvwg.ca
Fraser
Looking for the correct paint markings for the Apollo 11 version is a bit frustrating. Seems most of the illustrations are of earlier test vehicles with markings that were changed when the Apollo 11 flew. The finss are numbered a.b.c.d and they seem to be the defining reference for the orientation of the black and white roll markings. So we'll press on looking at pictures for now.
Fraser
I found enough information on the paint markings to allow me to start masking. The black and white paint scheme allows for better visual tracking of the roll orientation of the rocket during launch. Eleven engines are painted silver/black; not yet sure about the command module engine as it is usually shown with a red shroud over it during assembly.
Fraser
I am looking forward to it.
Lou
Me too !
Cheers
Gordon
You know, math was never my strongest subject, but I was pretty good at arithmetic. Not today though...When referencing the station diagrams, i blundered a measurement of the second stage length. I measured to the bottom of the interstage skirt, not from the top and ended up 1 7/16" short on the second stage booster. A mere 17 scaled feet short. Hmm i guess it is rocket science :( . So back to the lathe to make a new section.
I discovered the error when making the UNITED STATES stencil that is marked on the second stage. The decal was 1.5" too long based on actual dimensions of the scaled letters. Whereas the USA markings on the stage 1 worked out to scale.
In reality the stages were built in ring sections, so I suspect the night crew missed a ring section, or two......
Oh well.
Fraser
Back on track with a new second stage under construction. I tend to collect "nice" 2x4 spruce at the local HD so the material is inexpensive and works well. Plus the lathe is fun to work with. I now have another test piece for painting too.
Fraser
Been there many times and had to redo some piece or other. Your lathe skills appear well developed.
Lou
Thanks Lou. The lathe has opened up a whole range of possibilities on various projects. I managed to get the cylinder quite consistent in diameter. I was originally going to cut a piece off and add it to the short part, but it would result in a seam that would probably be harder to refinish.
Fraser
Painted the engines silver over black. Didn't mask the black as the edge of the nozzles created a nice crisp paint line. It was fun spraying the silver. As it covered the black it felt like I was sandblasting black metal clean🤔.
I also carved up 8 ullage rockets and 5 fuel line fairings and have a few more detail bits to make. So what is a ullage rocket? Ullage is the unused space inside a liquid container. During staging of the rocket, the thrust reduction create a loss of G in the tanks that would cause the liquid fuel in the next stage to float and possibly starve the fuel from the engine prior to ignition. To prevent this, the ullage rockets would fire as the staging occurred to provide a positive G to settle the fuel in the tanks towards the intakes. This occurred just long enough for the main engines to start and resume the acceleration.
I learned all this just by building a wooden model of the rocket and looking for the details of it.
So having said all that, building solid wooden models is more than just modeling, it's also learning the technology from the era being studied.
Fraser
Fabulous results on the engine nozzles Fraser. This is shaping into your best yet.
Lou
Fraser,
Beautifully turned and finished.
Cheers
Gordon
Thank you. After priming the new second stage I realized I could have saved some time n the model. Seems like I could have just taped two empty paint cans together. Over all they are about the same height as the first two stages and are exactly the same diameter of the boosters scaled for 1:144🤪
Also that is not a golf tee, but it is the top section of the launch escape system turned from a 1/2" dowel. Again the closer I look, the more small fiddly bits I need to make.
Fraser
Fiddly bits ready to prime / paint. Small parts are easier to paint when double-side taped to popsicle sticks. All carved from maple.
Top to bottom:
6 stage2 ullage rockets
2 stage2 ullage rockets + 3 stage2 h2 feed fairings
2 stage2 h2 feed fairings + stage2 O2 vent+ stage3 h2 feed fairings + 2 stage3 ullage rockets
2 stage3 Auxiliary Propulsion Units + launch escape system rocket motor and skirt
2 stage1 O2 and H2 gaseous line fairings
1 stage2 systems tunnel
These seem to be the major external components that add a bit more character to the rocket. All except the (silver) APU's will be white.
The space race continues!
Fraser
Should be able to land a man on the moon shortly. Maybe by year's end??
Lou
Great progress Fraser.
Gordon
Perhaps. Working on escape tower structure and fitting the second stage in the correct orientation.
Seems I can't now build a model without some sort of brass assembly. Working on the escape tower and rocket has been a fun exercise that gives me a great amount of respect to wire jewelry crafters. The basic structure of .020 brass for the legs bent into "U" and set into a square plan with holes drilled in each corner to act as a jig to work with. Made 3 square hoops and soldered them into position at the top. midpoint and 1/4 points of the legs. Actually was surprised ow well that went. I then added cross bracing using fine wire CA glued into position. That went ok but looked a bit rougher than I liked, but it is strong enough.
The tower had a rocket motor almost 20 feet long with a skirt attached. I turned this from a 1/2" dowel. It looks like a golf tee....
The Command Module is protected during launch with a fiberglass cone that completely covers the CM. The tower is attached to the cone and module in such a way that when the tower is jettisoned during launch it pulls the cone shroud away with it. But if there is an actual emergency, then the CM separates from the rocket and it is pulled away using the escape system with the shroud intact to deflect the blast, then it separates from the CM that parachutes to earth. So many single point failures on this whole rocket, yet they always performed without flaw....
e
Having said all that i made the cone shaped shroud out of two layers of paper cut out on my Silhouette machine. By staggering the layers and gluing them to gather it mad a nice cone without hard points. I filled the seam a=nd coated the paper with thin CA glue. The end result felt very strong and fit perfectly over the model CM. https://owlcation.com/stem/How-to-Develop-a-Cone has a neat simple formula for cones
to assemble the three parts, i used tweezers on stands to hold the parts in place. The tower is CA glued to the cone and the escape rocket is bedded to the frame with hot glue.
So now the structures are complete and painted white. Next is the decals.
Fraser
On to the masking for the odd patterns on the rocket. They were used to allow tracking cameras to determine the roll position of the rocket as it headed to space. Most effort was in masking the third stage skirt as this is a cone. To keep the markings parallel and vertical, I used a small aluminium angle as a guide on the rocket body. The "V" in the angle gave a true vertical reference any where on the length of the cylinder. Making a tight paper band around the circumference gave the vertical location of markings and components. After masking for the black areas, i had to mask for the silver around the bottoms of the four large fairings. As you know masking a line around a cone is challenging, so it took a bit of time. I also masked the bottom surface for the silver as well. Before spraying the silver, I did go over the surfaces with black primer.
I created paint masks for the "UNITED STATES and USA" on the silhouette machine. the letters in the United states have lines .020" wide. For the flag and four fin letters, I color printed on printable vinyl and cut them out. I used a normal setting on the ink jet for plain paper and the stars actually came out nicely. If i used a best quality setting, it applied too much ink and the stars became lost.
So after "weeding" the letter, the vinyl mask was applied. I made up overspray makes by cutting an aperture in a piece of bond paper that I applied around the letters and it worked very well. BTW, when pulling off small pieces of tape, masks etc, it is very annoying trying to get the tape shards off your fingers. I use a lint roller from the dollar store to collect these annoying bits from my fingers.....
One of the pictures shows the aluminium angle held to the cylinders with hair bands from the dollar store. Highly recommend getting these for anything you need an elastic for. Also you can see the "transfer " tape being removed from the vinyl letters. this is essentially low tack masking paper that is used to lift the vinyl from the sheet and then to deposit the mask onto the object. It keeps everything in place such as the middle of the letter "D". Works great (BTW called a Counter – The partially or fully enclosed space within a character)
Getting close to launch date now!
Fraser
Looks great Fraser. That tower s quite delicate.
Lou
Impressive work Fraser. Well done.
Gordon
Well 50 years ago to the day December 17th, Apollo 17 departed the moons orbit as the last manned mission to the moon. Coincidently I also finished the Apollo 11 Saturn V model.
Here are some pictures of the finished model I took tonight. It was an interesting build to research and I learned way more about the vehicle and the engineers who built it!
Just noticed the first image is numbered 1700. It looks like a family photo of sorts. The only major parts that do not separate are the command module and the command service module. For display it would be too fiddly I thought. Also there is no lunar module....oops.
Resting on the assembly cradle with the stages in order.
This aft view of the five F1 engines is how you can see the remaining rockets today.
A couple of shots with objects for scale. The wooden block GM bus is 40 feet long and the XB-70 is my only other 1:144 model at 185 feet long. At least I had the right colours for both models.
Finally a b&w picture for dramatic effect.
Regards
Fraser
Outstanding modelling skills Fraser. Words fail me to describe how good it is. The B-70 pose gives excellent reference to it's size. This will be extremely difficult to surpass.
Lou
Fraser.
Outstanding effort.
Gordon
Your Saturn V model is fabulous, Fraser. Thank you for sharing the details about making lettering masks using a vinyl cutter.
Garet