A Tip Down Memory Lane on a Saturn V
Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2017 1:13 pm
<t>I recently watched a reveal show where Lee said that enries for group builds had been slipping, so, feeling suitably embarrassed about my lack of activity on this front I resolved to enter this SIG. I'm also determined to complete the build this time having failed on my previous attempts.<br/>
So here goes.......<br/>
<br/>
The subject for this build was a very easy decision. I had, in my stash, an unstarted 1/144 scale Saturn V by Revell. This was one of those spur of the moment purchases where I was drawn in by a much reduced pricetag and a huge dose of nostalgia. Since then the kit has sat in my stash for over a year, which probably makes it a "spring chicken" as far as stash longevity goes..... Now that makes me think, I wonder who has the oldest kit in their stash? Maybe I'll start a discussion if it hasn't already been done.<br/>
<br/>
Anyway, back to this thread. I, like many on this forum I suspect, clearly remember being captivated by the Apollo moon landings. I have such fond memories of sitting with my family watching James Burke and Patrick Moore presenting those crackly black and white images on BBC. I remember being amazed at the power and beauty of the Saturn V launches, that iconic countdown to "Blast-Off", the images from the moon itself and finally "splashdown" and recovery of the astronauts.<br/>
I do remember that despite my father's best efforts to explain the huge achievment that I was witnessing, a five year old me just thought it was obvious that we were sending people to the moon. After all, it's not that far away.<br/>
I also have fond memories of my parents decorating the bedroom that I shared with my brother and making a feature wall on one side which they painted in a dark blue and attached some of those self adhesive stars ( like we got for good behaviour at school ), cut outs of the moon and a Saturn V on it's journey. This of course was a large dose of artistic license since it was only a small section of the vehicle that made the trip to the moon, but as a child I just thought it was cool.<br/>
Interestingly the idea of a single stage rocket making the entire round trip was considered at one point and I believe that Von Braun and his engineers had designed a vehicle even larger than Saturn which was to be called Atlas.</t>
The final dose of nostalgia for me was that as a child I had built the Airfix 1/144 Saturn V and I distinctly remember being disapointed that I ruined it with my limited skills and a scrappy paint job. It had messy glue marks all over the joints from using those horrid Humbrol glue tubes and black paint runs along the ribbed sections from poor masking and using Humbrol enamel. I seem to remember that the Enamel white was a bugger to paint too.
Hopefully I will make a better fist of it this time. Some would say that my skills are no better than when I was about 8 years old but I'm counting on an increase in patience and better materials to counteract my ineptitude.
I will try to include some history and information as I go along rather than writing an essay at this stage of the build so I will start with the sprue shots and add some updates in the near future...
Inside the box are the obligatory instructions, decal sheet and five sprues of plastic plus a display base.
One sprue is moulded in a grey colour which I assume to be representative of metal and seems to be mainly engine nozzels and tank bulkheads. The other sprues are all in white.
I'm rather hoping that this kit will go together quite well and that it wasn't in the bargain bin for good reasons....
There is quite a lot of flash visible but this is mainly on the sprue itself and the kit parts seem to be largely flash free which is encouraging.
Included within the kit are three ground crew figures that are intended to give some sense of scale but these look pretty poor to me and probably won't get used.
Given that these vehicles were a single use construction there can't be much scope for making the thing look good through weathering so I will have to come up with a different plan to give it a bit more "life".
That's all for now. I'm going off to open the box again and actually start building..........
So here goes.......<br/>
<br/>
The subject for this build was a very easy decision. I had, in my stash, an unstarted 1/144 scale Saturn V by Revell. This was one of those spur of the moment purchases where I was drawn in by a much reduced pricetag and a huge dose of nostalgia. Since then the kit has sat in my stash for over a year, which probably makes it a "spring chicken" as far as stash longevity goes..... Now that makes me think, I wonder who has the oldest kit in their stash? Maybe I'll start a discussion if it hasn't already been done.<br/>
<br/>
Anyway, back to this thread. I, like many on this forum I suspect, clearly remember being captivated by the Apollo moon landings. I have such fond memories of sitting with my family watching James Burke and Patrick Moore presenting those crackly black and white images on BBC. I remember being amazed at the power and beauty of the Saturn V launches, that iconic countdown to "Blast-Off", the images from the moon itself and finally "splashdown" and recovery of the astronauts.<br/>
I do remember that despite my father's best efforts to explain the huge achievment that I was witnessing, a five year old me just thought it was obvious that we were sending people to the moon. After all, it's not that far away.<br/>
I also have fond memories of my parents decorating the bedroom that I shared with my brother and making a feature wall on one side which they painted in a dark blue and attached some of those self adhesive stars ( like we got for good behaviour at school ), cut outs of the moon and a Saturn V on it's journey. This of course was a large dose of artistic license since it was only a small section of the vehicle that made the trip to the moon, but as a child I just thought it was cool.<br/>
Interestingly the idea of a single stage rocket making the entire round trip was considered at one point and I believe that Von Braun and his engineers had designed a vehicle even larger than Saturn which was to be called Atlas.</t>
The final dose of nostalgia for me was that as a child I had built the Airfix 1/144 Saturn V and I distinctly remember being disapointed that I ruined it with my limited skills and a scrappy paint job. It had messy glue marks all over the joints from using those horrid Humbrol glue tubes and black paint runs along the ribbed sections from poor masking and using Humbrol enamel. I seem to remember that the Enamel white was a bugger to paint too.
Hopefully I will make a better fist of it this time. Some would say that my skills are no better than when I was about 8 years old but I'm counting on an increase in patience and better materials to counteract my ineptitude.
I will try to include some history and information as I go along rather than writing an essay at this stage of the build so I will start with the sprue shots and add some updates in the near future...
Inside the box are the obligatory instructions, decal sheet and five sprues of plastic plus a display base.
One sprue is moulded in a grey colour which I assume to be representative of metal and seems to be mainly engine nozzels and tank bulkheads. The other sprues are all in white.
I'm rather hoping that this kit will go together quite well and that it wasn't in the bargain bin for good reasons....
There is quite a lot of flash visible but this is mainly on the sprue itself and the kit parts seem to be largely flash free which is encouraging.
Included within the kit are three ground crew figures that are intended to give some sense of scale but these look pretty poor to me and probably won't get used.
Given that these vehicles were a single use construction there can't be much scope for making the thing look good through weathering so I will have to come up with a different plan to give it a bit more "life".
That's all for now. I'm going off to open the box again and actually start building..........
