Metal Earth Space Shuttle Launch Kit

[TooOld]

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 .

Edited December 27, 2021 by TooOld

[cobraman]

Looks good. I need to try one of these kits. There is a revolver that looks interesting I may give that a try.

[peteski]

Interesting Looks like those kits now come pre-decorated. I have few early kits and they were  just bare metal Chrome-like finish.

[David G.]

It looks like you're off to a great start.

I'm not familiar with these kits, are they photo-etch?

David G.

[TooOld]

23 hours ago, cobraman said:

Looks good. I need to try one of these kits. There is a revolver that looks interesting I may give that a try.

They're small but I wear my reading glasses and use the magnifying lamp on my bench so it is possible . 

6 hours ago, peteski said:

Interesting Looks like those kits now come pre-decorated. I have few early kits and they were  just bare metal Chrome-like finish.

Yep , quite a few of the new ones have colors printed on them .

2 hours ago, David G. said:

It looks like you're off to a great start.

I'm not familiar with these kits, are they photo-etch?

David G.

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 .

[TooOld]

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

 

Edited December 27, 2021 by TooOld

[TooOld]

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 !

Edited December 28, 2021 by TooOld

[cobraman]

That looks real nice.

[TooOld]

On 12/28/2021 at 9:53 AM, cobraman said:

That looks real nice.

Thanks Ray !  The pre-finish makes a big difference .  

 

[TooOld]

Friday morning I started on the two Solid Rocket Boosters .  The first booster is Step #11 and took nearly 3 hours , this is definitely the most difficult Metal Earth part I've ever done !  I don't have any fancy bending tools , I'm just doing it by hand and with some needle nose pliers and tweezers . It should be noted that identifying the parts and cutting them from the P.E. sheets took at least 30 minutes . 

This morning I repeated the whole process with the second booster , Step #12 .  It was much easier this time but still took about 2 hours to complete .

Here's the two completed Solid Rocket Boosters .  The External Fuel Tank is next .

Edited January 1, 2022 by TooOld

[mustang1989]

Oh HECK yeah!!! I'm getting to where I really like these things. This is great progress and looks awesome so far. These little metal builds are the PERFECT filler builds as it gives a true sense of accomplishment when their all finished up.

[TooOld]

15 hours ago, mustang1989 said:

Oh HECK yeah!!! I'm getting to where I really like these things. This is great progress and looks awesome so far. These little metal builds are the PERFECT filler builds as it gives a true sense of accomplishment when their all finished up.

Yes they are perfect filler builds but by no means are they easy !  A lot of patience is required .

[TooOld]

Today it's Steps #13 , #14 , and #15  , which begins the assembly of the External Fuel Tank . About 2 hours to complete these steps .

 

 

And then I started Step #16 which finishes the External Tank and attaches the Boosters .  Seemed relatively simple but still took another hour to complete .

A total of 3 hours this morning gives me this !

The last part of Step #16 attaches the Shuttle .  This will have to wait for another day , I'm exhausted .

Edited January 2, 2022 by TooOld

[peteski]

Come to think of it, these remind me of paper models I used to build as a kid (well, the only difference is the medium - metal vs. paper).

[TooOld]

3 hours ago, peteski said:

Come to think of it, these remind me of paper models I used to build as a kid (well, the only difference is the medium - metal vs. paper).

Yep it's the exact same concept of insert Tab A into Slot B . Sure wish it was as easy as those paper models .

[David G.]

What a cool little desk top model!

David G.

[mustang1989]

On 1/2/2022 at 10:03 AM, TooOld said:

Yes they are perfect filler builds but by no means are they easy !  A lot of patience is required .

I can definitely agree with that but the results are really worth all the patience and work involved. This is looking good Bob!! 

[TooOld]

On 1/3/2022 at 3:01 PM, mustang1989 said:

I can definitely agree with that but the results are really worth all the patience and work involved. This is looking good Bob!! 

Thanks Joe !  Having to read instructions and trying to figure out where each piece goes takes up a lot of the time involved .

[TooOld]

Yesterday I finally had time to try and finish this up .  The 2nd part of Step #16 is attaching the bottom of the Shuttle to the External Tank then attaching the Shuttle itself .  Had lots of problems with that last part , the upper and lower wings just didn't want to go together .  I did pre-fit them before I started but when the time came it just didn't help , maybe I missed something somewhere .  Ignore the right side of this photo , I know I'm holding the wings the wrong way .

The first part was easy taking only a few minutes but the rest took nearly an hour of fiddling with them .

That was it for yesterday so today I continued Steps #17 and #18 , these are what's called the "Tail Service Masts" . They were easy and only took a half hour to complete .

Step #19 is assembling the Mobile Launch Platform .

This was a fairly simple assembly and was finished in another hour .

The final step is attaching the Shuttle Launch Vehicle to the platform , this was made more difficult since the booster nozzles go down into those recesses in the platform .  There's no way to see the tabs or the slots they go into so again it was a lot of fiddling around before they went together . At least another half hour spent but it's finally finished !

The Shuttle looks so good that it's a little disappointing they didn't spend more time on the platform , it looks kind of plain to me .  Start to finish the assembly time was approximately 14 hours spread over 10 days .  I'm going to take some more photos and post them later ,Thanks for following along !

[gbtr6]

That is really cool, and well done. I've wondered how these kits look built. Some of the earlier ones were less than 3D it seemed. Kinda flat and featureless.

Perry

[TooOld]

On 1/7/2022 at 12:16 PM, gbtr6 said:

That is really cool, and well done. I've wondered how these kits look built. Some of the earlier ones were less than 3D it seemed. Kinda flat and featureless.

Perry

Thanks Perry !  You're right , I did an F-18 and a Corsair a few years ago and they seemed kind of plain so I never bought another until I saw this one .