Three Saturn 1Bs
 

Not a build thread per se, since I get so involved with the builds that I forget to take pictures along the way, but I wanted to share this with my fellow forum members. I have three Saturn 1Bs on my workbench: An Estes 1/100 clone, a Fliskits, and a Dr. Zooch. Some observations:


1. Estes 1/100 clone: The original kit has all specialty sized tubes. When a vintage kit comes up for bid on eBay it frequently goes for well over $100. I wanted to see if I could clone a facsimile using readily available tube sizes. This is what I used:

Original: Substitute:

BT-82 --- BT-80
BT-58 --- same
BT-54--- ST-11
BT-83--- ST-27
JT-82--- JT-80
BT-67 --- ST-20
BT-18 --- BT-19

Ordered the parts from erockets, and dry fitted them when they arrived. The original plastic fairing shroud was replaced with a cardstock one downsized from the 1/70 plans. The plastic Apollo capsule and LES tower were out of stock at Estes, so I replaced it with a polyurethane resin one piece capsule from moldin Oldies at Sirius. It's heavier and more durable than the original. An added benefit is that it will require less nose ballast due to it's heavier weight.

Wouldn't you know but after I fitted the parts and was congratulating myself for my ingenuity, I found a nine year old thread where the OP did mostly the same thing:

http://oldrocketforum.com/showthrea...65&page=1&pp=10


From this thread I found out about the vacu-form styrene wraps that Paul Graf (grafgulch) makes for this model. Ordered a set, pictured below. Highly recommended.

2. Fliskits Saturn 1B: Ever since my return as a BAR about 3 or 4 years ago I have been wanting one of these, but it was always not available. Finally, when Jim Flis announced a limited run prior to his final closing, I jumped on it and ordered one. Looks like constructing the launch tower from the thin plastic rods will be very challenging. I have the cardstock tower (the "easy" option) as a backup.


3. Dr. Zooch Sat 1B: Every time I do a Zooch kit I learn something new! In this case the eight fuel tubes were made of pre-printed cardstock wrapped around a dowel and glued at the seam. No painting or masking. The launch tower on this will also be a challenge, but again, I have the cardstock one for backup in case I mess up.


Will be updating this thread as the builds progress. Wish me luck. Cheers.

You will be more proud of your clone than any kit, even if it isn't "perfect". BTW, the kits aren't all that accurate either so yours will be just fine. If it looks good to your eyeball, it's good enough. If you decide a tube looks a little too "off", you can resize it by slitting and removing a strip to make it slightly smaller, or by wrapping with paper or cardstock to increase it. Looking forward to your build.

PM me your email if you would like some printable cardstock templates for the Zooch 1B fins and tank transition fillets so you don't have to paint them. PDF is too large to post in the forum.

Updates
 

1. Estes 1/100 clone:
Attached the styrene wraps to the body.
Primed and basecoated the upper body prior to final assembly.

2. Dr. Zooch:
Cut, tapered, and painted the fins with CWF. Sanding to follow.
Assembled the bell nozzles, cut the antennas and fairing pieces.
Primed and basecoated the upper body section.
Finished assembling the tower. Woo hoo!

3. Fliskits:
Painted the fuel tubes before gluing to the motor mount.
Cut and tapered the fins. Glued the paper skins on. Assembled flight fins.
Glued the paper fairing to the fuel tubes and aft section.
Primed and basecoated the upper body section.
Finished one side of the tower, three more to go.


A note on the towers: Dr. Zooch kits are "ant-scale", not necessarily true scale, meaning they give the appearance of the real rocket. Thus the Zooch tower is larger in diameter than the much bigger Estes model. The four support struts are also much shorter than scale.
My first attempt at the Fliskits tower was a failure. The rods were so thin that I couldn't even pick them up with my tweezers. Gave up and assembled the easy option paper tower. After cooling off for a couple of days I tried again, but with thin music wire instead of the plastic. One side completed, we'll see how it goes.


GlenP, thanks for the pdfs but I was unable to open 2 of the 4 attachments. Adobe Reader gives an error message about email attachments might be encoded improperly. No worries, I'll be building the Zooch kit stock and commenting about the pros and cons at the end.
See you in a few days!

That's a really small model. Look up my thread on Saturn 1b's available from the last run of Semroc.

The smallest motor I have made was in a 1/8" launch lug and that was BP. The smallest APCP composite was 13mm for FAI that was not adopted.

Jerry

the Zooch Saturn 1b is my favorite model kit, plastic or rocket. Really fun to build. I built the Flis kits 1b...the tower is incredibly small and detailed. magnifying glass and tweezers are your friend! Both are fun kits!

If you were able to build the tower with the plastic hairs, er, rods supplied then you are a far better man than I! I'm using brass rods now instead of music wire. Much easier to cut. Updates coming soon.

bar geezer...I substituted 0.020 rod for the tower....its a little thicker and a little easier to work with. I did a build thread over on the other Forum in the Scale section

whoops..I thought you were referring to the Flis 1b..I did threads on both the Zooch 1b and the Flis 1b...love em both!

Actually I'm doing both. The Zooch tower is completed using the supplied dowel and wire. Currently working on the Fliskits tower with .032 brass rod for the vertical struts and .020 brass for the trusses. The plastic was just too difficult. I did learn one thing from building the Fliskits tower, which I incorporated into the Zooch tower: spoofing the tower motor nozzles using a sharpened dowel and cutting off the tip. Hopefully updates in a couple of days.
BTW I checked out your Zooch 1B build over at TRF. Amazing work!