Ferrus Manus

Probably the most difficult and arduous part of the build is now complete. After about a dozen different dry-fits, significant amounts of tweaking and two days, the orbiter halves are glued together. Currently, the roof of the crew cabin is sitting unglued in position. It will be removed for painting. This is what all the reviews said would be the biggest challenge of the entire project, so it should be relatively smooth sailing from here on out. I plan on doing some of the painting of the orbiter before the wings go on.

The initial goal was to paint the orbiter prior to assembly, but I think now plans have changed slightly. See, I had initially planned on using Revell's kit-supplied clear parts for the windows of the cockpit. However, upon inspecting the clear parts, I found the kit-supplied clear parts to be the worst quality I have ever seen in my life. Not even the Roden kit I attempted had clear parts this distorted. Honestly, I get that this is an 80's kit, but the fact that they could allow such poor quality to be sold is honestly offensive. Any aircraft with an actual canopy would be rendered unbuildable with this clear plastic quality. I could continue to wire brush Revell, but I decided to make a plan instead. I still have a decent section of clear acetate from a previous model, and I decided that that would be much better than the kit-supplied parts. The plan is to cut apart the Revell parts into the individual windows and trace the outlines on the acetate, leaving a margin around the outside. Then, the acetate windows will be glued to the interior of the window frames. This way, the interior will be at least kind of visible without distracting warpage and distortion of the glass. Real photos show us that the orbiters' windows were not distorted or tinted in any way: More later.

Now that I have that out of the way, the next thing on the table is some of the assembly of the Challenger's hull. I will likely do some painting before the assembly, but after that, the flight deck goes in as well as some other things. Here is the orbiter as she appears currently. She will be at least primed prior to assembly, perhaps preshaded as well. I want to do as much of the area surrounding the windows as possible before the windows and flight deck go in. Stay tuned for more!

I've now begun to put paint to plastic. First was the orbiter's flight deck, which is admittedly a weak point in the model. This model was originally released with different decals for the earlier orbiters, but when they updated the model for this release, they updated the decals to show later orbiters. Challenger would have had a different flight deck layout. I am not impressed. Luckily, all this will be hidden inside the orbiter, behind the notoriously-low-visibility windows. I think, when Revell updated the kit, they should have included two or three high quality decal sheets with orbiter-specific decals. These decals were thick, chunky and didn't want to go where they were needed. Some of them were even shaped and sized improperly. However, I did what I could with what they gave me. Revell should have also included an extensive photo etch set, which they have done in their modernizations of old ww2-era ship kits. Next will be some of the assembly of the orbiter's fuselage.

To begin with this build is the flight deck of the shuttle. I likely will not put an extreme amount of time or effort into the flight deck, as it will be nearly invisible underneath the thick, heat-resistant glass of the cockpit and upper windows. Here is an official Revell image of what the flight deck is meant to look like when complete: And here is a picture of the Challenger's actual flight deck: This photo, taken by NASA, shows four members of the actual STS-51L crew training inside the shuttle. Take note of how cluttered the shuttle's flight deck is. Also take note of how flimsy the seats seem to be. This is for multiple reasons- first being the fact that some of the seats were meant to be stowed while in orbit. Secondly, a Space Shuttle seat is not meant to have all of the equipment that, say, a fighter jet's seat would have. The Shuttle was only meant to experience a maximum of 3 G's at any point in the flight, and the astronaut's emergency life support equipment was carried underneath the seat. In fact, when Challenger's flight deck- or what remained of it- was fished out of the Atlantic Ocean, it was discovered that at least two of the astronauts had activated their personal oxygen supplies, and that Michael Smith, Challenger's pilot, had activated several switches on his control panel in an attempt to restore electrical power to the spacecraft. Christa McAuliffe in the commander's seat, 1985:

My father was only four years old at the time of the Apollo 1 disaster.

@amateur having seen the footage and news reports for both disasters numerous times, I think the main contrast is that the Columbia landing was going to be just another shuttle landing, until it wasn't. All there really was was a disintegrating "meteor" in the sky, and the shuttle was never heard from again. Challenger, on the other hand, was being watched by the entire United States. She was being cheered for, saluted, egged on to her flight into orbit. As one commenter said, schools paused their sessions for the day to watch the launch. The entire nation stopped what it was doing to watch Challenger soar into space, and so it seems fitting that Challenger would have made a larger cultural impact.

Honestly, I feel a bit old as well. I was born in 2004, right at the beginning of the tail end of the Space Shuttle program- the shuttle returned to flight when I was a year old. After the cancellation of STS, I personally mailed a letter to President Obama asking why his government had shut it down (I was 6 or 7 at the time). He actually got back to me a couple of months later, and in the typical fashion of a politician, danced in circles around the question without giving a response. To date, I still miss the shuttle program.

Hello all, I bought Revell's 1/72 scale space shuttle orbiter back in July if this year, and it has been sitting in my closet unbuilt ever since. It's time to finally open it up and start it! I planned initially on building the orbiter as the Columbia, as she would have appeared later in her life. However, as I was doing later research on the kit, I found out that A. all of the space shuttle orbiters had different thermal protection patterns, and B. the only orbiters you could model accurately are Columbia as she would have originally appeared prior to STS-9, and Challenger. So, I chose Challenger. Here's a look at the box: From what I've gathered, the kit shows its age, but with a little effort and skill, can be transformed into an extremely good-looking (although maybe not picture-perfect) representation of the orbiter. So, I am making a few decisions about the model. 1. Just the orbiter will be built. I will not be purchasing the Monogram stack in order to represent the boosters and external fuel tank. That being said, Challenger especially deserves to be modeled as the full stack. 2. Most of the tile work will be a painting exercise. I specialize in ships, not spacecraft, so I will likely build out of the box as much as possible for the sake of not risking the kit. 3. Challenger is the only orbiter whose orbiter-specific markings are not included in the decal sheet. This was a massive oversight by Revell, and I will be purchasing a set of decals for her. Once more, as I have stated in the title, I will be depicting Challenger, quite possibly the second-most legendary spacecraft of all time, only being surpassed by the Saturn V, as she appeared immediately prior to her 73-second flight into the unknown. Wish me luck.

I've painted quite a bit of the boat now, including the decks, some parts at the bow and stern, and the boat's very long name: Later, the decks will become crowded with the crew's tools and equipment, so enjoy them now while they're bare. More to come soon.

I began work on the Rabelo by installing the forward oarlocks and putting the removable boards into position. Then, I painted the entire hull. The hull was painted with a mixture of brown and grey, then a brown wash was applied, and afterwards, I dry-brushed the interior of the hull. Here are the results: The manufacturer was kind enough to put the ejector pin marks in places that wouldn't be seen on the completed model.

We need not dredge up the shipwrecks of the Douro- these boats existed in living memory, and some, I assume, still exist in their current form. However, some documentation would be nice. For that reason, I will be ordering a book about the design and function of the Rabelos. In other news, I will be starting the model officially probably tonight. I have the hull off the sprue. It's a very detailed, very beautiful thing, with correct dimensions and wood grain molding on both the interior and the exterior, and markings for the correct alignments of parts. This already sets the model above many others I have built. Here is the diagram on the back of the instruction sheet, which will be very helpful with determining where everything goes: The first order of business will be to clean up the parts and attach the four oarlocks at the fore and aft, and then the eight removable planks that serve to increase the freeboard of the ship. In addition, the fulcrum for the steering oar, the espadella, will be added. Afterwards, the hull will be painted.

Hello all, If you remember my recent build log, I made a Medieval Hanseatic cog for an ex-professor of mine from community college. As a bit of background, he grew up in Portugal and recently traveled back to Portugal during the summer while classes were out. Anyway, as a sort-of belated birthday gift, he decided to get me this: This is a model of a type of riverboat that operated on the Douro River, in Portugal, called the Rabelo. The Rabelo boats mainly transported Port wine from the upriver wineries to the cities of Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia, where they were (and still are) exported to the world. Anyway, I have tried to find this model online for at least a year, with no luck. So, Professor Afonso and I decided to exchange ships. I plan to build this model as one of the original Rabelo boats from the early 20th century, and I plan to make it as perfect of a replica as possible, using some new techniques and materials. Overall, the kit is extremely well-executed and detailed, so there are no problems there. I plan on using several documentaries as well as some photographs as well as a book for reference.

Aaaand... FINISHED!! If you've been watching my logs for a while you've probably heard of a character named Mr. Afonso. (Look at my Santa Sofia build log, second page where we deal with the flags). Anyway, more about him. Mr. Afonso is actually Professor Afonso. I met him early last year due to having him as a professor for a general education class, and we clicked over a shared interest in maritime archaeology and history. In fact, he shared information with me regarding universities that are engaged in maritime archaeology research. Anyway, this model was made for him as a gift. At the time of writing, I will deliver this ship to him in a few hours. Here are the finished photos: Thank you all for viewing this build log. I will likely have more pictures to post later.

I've finished most of the standing rigging since the last post, pictured below. The one thing I have yet to do (actually two things) are the center sheet and the anchor cables. The anchors are both glued and tied into place at the bow, but they have yet to receive anchor cables. The cables are about twice the length of the ship and will be displayed on deck. That brings us to the center sheet. The kit provided me with a cleat to attach to the front of the mast, and then provided no further instruction regarding its use. However, we can assume that a center sheet is implied, and I think every depiction of the Stralsund Cog shows part of the sail wrapped around the mast. Medieval artists frequently misrepresented the center sheet as a strip of sailcloth around the mast, so we can assume the Stralsund Cog had a center sheet. Either way, I will be including one.