1/12 Mercury Freedom 7 WIP

That's quit some modification you're doing. Just how accurate is the kit compared to the drawings you have?

Nice to see a WIP thread on a space subject. 

Keep posting!

Sorry for the late update.  Spent a couple of days in Toronto on Business.

The Inside of the Capsule with putty applied

Added .040 X .040 Styrene to create the Corrugations.

Removed the Snorkel Explosive Door and started adding the corrugations.

Continued with building of the corrugations by adding putty and doing some rough shaping.

The upper 2 corrugations are removed by adding putty.

Determined the upper and lower Porthole window locations, removed the panels, and started building the replacement panels from the inside out. Lower Porthole Window

Upper Porthole Window

Lower porthole Window Inner Structure started

Cheers

I just got a neat birthday gift yesterday from my son and daughter-in-law yesterday. It was a collection of a photographs of a Mercury Atlas and a couple of Mercury capsule photos, and a bit of insulation from one of the capsules, all mounted in a nice Mahogany frame.

Please post a picture of that Don.  I would love to see it.

Applied a coat of primer to the corrugations to see how bad they are.

Upper Port Hole Window inside panel glued in place with mask.

Lower Port Hole Window inside panel glued in place, masked and primed.

Glued the Upper and Lower Port Hole Window Outer Panels in place.

Started the Escape Tower

Primed the Port Hole Windows.  A lot of work yet to be done.

Upper Port Hole Window

Lower Port Hole Window

Started the Periscope by adding detail to the base

Cheers

Spent a little time on the Periscope tonight.

Made the Periscope Lens from .02 acrylic.  The outside border is painted black with white marks every 10 degrees.

Added more Periscope details

Started the Instrument Panel

More work on the Periscope

Made a test switch tonight

Cheers

Quite some attention to detail, Rob!

Thanks GAF

I made about 30 switches tonight.  16 are in the Instrument Panel.

Front side

Back Side

Eventually they'll be painted silver on the front side, black on the back side, with white wiring

Painted the switches tonight and made the knobs for the Periscope

Started the Control Panel and Left Panel.  Also made decals for all the instrument panel labels

Cheers

Being such a good scratch builder you must save all kinds of money on kits

Focused on the Control Panel today.

Completed Periscope

amazing detail on this, well done so far.

Thanks guys.

Here's the Left Panel started

and the decals applied to the Instrument panel

Applied the labels to the Left Panel and Control Panel.

Left Panel and Warning Light trial

Looks like a labor of love, Rob!  Nice scratch-building.

Gary

You're going to have the control panels lights work? How cool is that!

I'll definitely keep an eye on this thread! I don't hang here too often simply because of the sparse traffic compared to the aircraft forum, say, but this will be fun to watch.