Below: PE applied to the capsule and the top pieces postioned just to see how it's looking.
I like to think outside of the box, and this project is no different. I want to simulate glass for the portholes. This ended up being a big challenge because the PE window frames have the windows filled in. I considered many options to fix this that included drilling them out. I practiced on some spare PE and though I was able to drill into larger pieces of PE, it wasn't easy. PE metal is tough stuff! An attempt to drill into my tiny window frames is a no-go situation. I tried grinding a hole into PE as well, and that proved even more difficult. I scrapped that idea in lieu of making new frames out of a material that I can work with.
First things first: I needed a material I can use to make a mold. In my memory banks I remember seeing a demo on something called Blue Stuff. I ordered it. But--I ordered something more readily available in the states. Link to it as follows:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DVXH2BT/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Below is how this stuff looks. It comes in bars. If you are interested in how to use it--watch the link below. I highly recommend you do; this stuff is amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVZLXLaidjQ
Just an FYI: You can see my attempt to mold the entire capsule. This was one of several directions that I went. Though, I was able to do it--I always ended up with a minor imperfection somewhere on the piece. The shape of the piece is partly why it was so difficult. That--and I was trying to make the mold as one piece, not two halves. I did not want to deal with joins because of all the fine detail on the capsule.
Below: This kit comes with a boilerplate capsule that I am not using. I used it apply one of the PE window frames to. I wanted to cast the piece with the correct curve to it.
The foreground piece shows how the mold looks. It captures detail very nicely. There are several things that I really like about this stuff and one of them is that it sets like vulcanized rubber. What I mean by that is it holds the shape of the original cast. You can bend it every which way, but it always reverts to the original shape it was cast in. The stuff is reusable too!
Now--what to use for the cast. I tried several things, including melted sprue. That worked really well in capturing detail, and for keeping the piece thin. The problem with it was, cutting the hole. It was too fragile. I even tried making a special mold where the center of it had a rod. This created the hole automatically as the sprue-goo hardened around it. In the end, it did not work well. I couldn't get a nice clean hole out of it.
I decided on Apoxie Sculpt. It's stronger, and it's very easy to cut or sand.
Below: Here is how it looks after trimming and shaping. It is delicate work. I tried to get it as thin as possible to maintain scale without breaking it. I ruined a few pieces in the process.
Below: Here is how it looks with paint. You can see that I was not able to match the thinness of PE. I compared using the supplied PE verses my deal-- and I decided to move forward with the glassed version. Though out of scale takes away from it some--the glass adds a lot to it. It's a compromise, but a better one in my mind. I don't have the glass shown in this image.
Speaking of the glass: I will use acrylic rod for it. I ordered several rods a few months back, not even for this project. Sometimes fate smiles on you because I pulled one out the box and the diameter fit perfectly. I will mount it from the back. More on that later.
Next up: I will gloss coat for decals.
End of update.