RealSpace Models 1/72 scale Mercury/Atlas "Friendship 7"
By Paul Boyer
Published: March 1, 1999
Kit: No.
Scale: 1/72
Manufacturer: RealSpace Models, 813 Watt Dr., Tallahassee, FL 32303
Price: $75
Comments: Cast resin, 22 parts (5 photoetched), decals.
With
all the hoopla about John Glenn's return to space, it's nice to glimpse
back at the early days of America's manned space programs. A couple of
years ago, I built RealSpace's Mercury/Gemini/Apollo capsule set, and
the Mercury in that kit reappears here with its formidable (at least in
1/72 scale) Atlas booster. The rocket is solid resin and weighs in at a
full pound! The resin's glossy surface makes it ideal for the
natural-metal finish.
Assembly of the nine-part booster is
simple. The ribbed bottom section includes the fairings over the
outboard pair of engines. Exhaust nozzles for the three rockets and an
overflow pipe are attached to the bottom. A pair of vernier rockets go
on either side of the booster, and a large pipe fits into holes in the
upper and lower parts of the structure.
The resin parts are
pinhole free, but some nicks and bumps needed to be smoothed out. You
must remove extra "pour" material from each resin part, and how well
you do that will determine the fit. The most critical part is the
hollow adapter that joins the booster with the capsule. If you sand too
much of the bottom of the conical adapter or too much off the conical
top of the booster, you will create an unrealistic step. All assemblies
were attached with gap-filling super glue kicked with accelerator.
The
Mercury capsule is composed of two resin parts and photoetched escape
rocket tower with three (hollow this time) resin rocket nozzles and a
fuel tank. Three photoetched straps are to be attached to the
retro-rocket pack on the bottom of the capsule, but these interfered
with the fit of the capsule to the adapter, so I left them off. The
most difficult part of the project was folding the photoetched
escape-rocket tower. RealSpace has etched fold lines into the part, but
it is still difficult to fold with precision.
A nice touch is a
resin base with a raised pedestal and a photoetched nameplate with John
Glenn's "Friendship 7" logo faithfully reproduced in relief. The
instructions don't mention the base, and at first it wasn't clear
whether the rocket or the nameplate should go on the pedestal. The
overflow pipe coming out of the bottom of the booster extends below the
engine nozzles, so the booster must sit on the pedestal with the pipe
hanging over the side. In any case, there is no attachment mechanism to
the base, and the rocket teeters precariously. At Associate Editor Matt
Usher's suggestion, I drilled a hole in the base, super glued a nut
into the center engine nozzle, and threaded a machine screw up through
the base. The screw is gingerly tightened to prevent pulling the nut
from the nozzle (or the nozzle from the booster).
I painted the
bottom of the booster, exterior fuel pipe, and rocket nozzles flat
aluminum. The main portion of the booster is covered with Bare-Metal
Foil (regular and chrome). The capsule is semigloss black with a
gloss-red escape-rocket assembly.
Decals are provided for the
booster and capsule. The assembly diagram in the instructions shows one
side of the booster, but does not indicate the location of the markings
on the other side. I assumed they were the same. The markings all
snuggled down with a little Micro Sol.
I sprayed the brass
nameplate semigloss black, and when it was dry, I carefully sanded the
paint off the raised lettering. I painted the "Friendship 7" logo white
and red as it appeared on the capsule. A thin wash of semigloss black
covered slopped-over white paint between the letters.
The
finished model is impressive. It doesn't take long to build, but
foiling the booster was time-consuming. I spent about 20 hours on it
including engineering the base mount. It stands 16" tall and looks big
- until I posed it next to my 1/72 scale Monogram Space Shuttle stack.
- Paul Boyer