Steps 6 thru 10 completed this morning and spent another hour and a half .
Step #6
Step #7
Step #8
Steps #9 and #10
The finished Shuttle , minus the underside which attaches to the Main Engine and then the Shuttle attaches to it . Six hours total assembly time . . . not too bad .
Stay tuned , I'll start the Launch Vehicle and Pad in a couple of days . Thanks for looking !
Steps 3 , 4 , and 5 finished this morning . About three hours total but I took a couple of breaks , once to crawl around on the floor looking for a part that tried to escape . . . I found it !
Step #3
Step #4
Step #5
They're small but I wear my reading glasses and use the magnifying lamp on my bench so it is possible .
Yep , quite a few of the new ones have colors printed on them .
Yes they are photo-etch but seem to be a softer metal than what we're used to , at least they seem to bend much easier .
Growing up an Air Force brat we spent several years during the 60's stationed at Vandenberg AFB and back then launches of Atlas , Minuteman , and Titan II missiles were almost a weekly occurrence . I can remember the elementary school classrooms would run outside every time to watch ! Between that and living in central Florida since the early 70's and watching launches at the Cape I'd say I've always been hooked .
I've built a couple simple Metal Earth planes before and decided it was time for something a little more difficult so I bought myself this Shuttle kit and the Lunar Module kit . The Shuttle kit looked to be the easiest of the two .
Steps #1 and #2 consisted of two main pieces and four smaller pieces . Easy enough so I got started early this morning . . . one and a half hours later I was done and decided that was enough for one day . Not sure how many pieces are in the kit but at this rate I should be finished in two or three weeks !
I realized that I forgot to take some photos of the P.E. sheets before I started so here they are missing a few pieces .
And here's a link to a 3D rendering of the finished kit .
https://www.metalearth.com/360/icx227
Stay tuned for updates .
Finishing up eight projects in three months is pretty darned good , congrats on a great year ! I'm not a big fan of the aftermarket wheels but they all look still look great !