Space Shuttle Launch Pad 39A with Challenger STS-6 (1:144)

[roma847]

Hello friends,

I then drew this new variant again using my MS Word method,



and integrated the modified hinges into the PLC side view, which then looks like this.


 
And now I'm going to try to scratch-build this version, I'm excited myself.

[roma847]

Hello everybody,

and thereby to the 14 hinges, which are so tiny that I wonder if it would be enough to just cut them out of paper and glue them on.

To illustrate the proportions of the hinges on the Payload Canister, I placed the printout in front of the PLC.



And when I look at the dimensions of these tiny hinges again,



it might be worth trying to scratch such a hinge, because a 3D-hinge looks better than a 2D-hinge, although I have a pretty daring idea in mind, especially since just cutting out the spaces between the lower six hinge halves would become extremely difficult and stressful. .

Therefore I'm still fiddling around with it a bit and will present it to you next time.

[roma847]

Good morning Hinge friends,

I've chosen a slightly modified solution and I'm assuming a thinner hinge sheet on the canister door, for which I'll use an Evergreen Sheet Styrene 0.005'' (0,13 mm). This means that the lower, slightly thicker hinges should be 0.010'' (0,25 mm).



However, unfortunately there are no matching Evergreen strips for some parts of the hinge, which is why I had to laboriously make them by hand.

Therefore I've tried to cut a strip for the thinner hinge sheet on the canister door with a cutter from an Evergreen Sheet Styrene 0.005'' (0,13 mm), which initially resulted in strips that were too wide (1,7 mm, 1,6 mm, ...).

So I placed three steel rulers on top of each other, which gave the required strip width of 1,5 mm.



Then I clamped an approx. 1,6 mm wide strip Styrene upright with a 1,3 mm thick steel ruler against the strip and filed it down finally to a width of 1,5 mm.



For the production of the lower 0,63 mm wide hinge parts on the side wall I used an Evergreen Strip (0,25 mm x 0,75 mm),



which I clamped upright between two steel rulers using the same method,



and then, piece by piece, with repeated measurements, I've filed it down to a width of 0,63 mm.



That's only 0,12 mm less, but otherwise I wouldn't get the scaled hinge length of 7 mm.

The hinge sleeve rod (Ø 0,4 mm x 7 mm) is then glued onto the lower edge of the 1,5 mm wide upper strip, against which the six short hinge parts are then glued from below.

Of these tiny hinge parts, I need no less than 84 short strips for 14 hinges, each of which can be only 0,5 mm long, which gives you an idea of ​​how demanding and complicated this solution is.

So much for the preparation of this adventurous solution, with which I will try to scratch one first hinge soon. Then we will see.

[roma847]

Hello friends,

what do you think, would it make sense trying to show the dividing lines between the hinge sleeves, and if so, how could one do it, especially since these lines would have to be extremely thin and should be only 0,63 mm apart at my small scale (1/160)?

It would certainly look better, but perhaps that would be too much of a good thing.

[EG]

I wouldn't have a clue how to do it brother, if you think you do, by all means go ahead and do it, just don't kill yourself over it, it's not worth it...

[roma847]

It was only a thought.

[EG]

It was only a thought.

Yeah, well we would like to keep you around for a while my friend... Talent like yours is as rare as live dinosaurs today...

Fantastic work brother, fantastic...

[roma847]

Thanks my friend,

what a great compliment regarding the comparison of my talent with the extinct dinosaurs.

Of course, that now spurs me on even more to look for a solution.

Hello folks,

and believe it or not, I already have a crazy idea for it that's been running through my head for a few days.

The idea came to me in our supermarket and is similar to the barcode labels,



and this should be possible with my previously described MS Word technique, which I tried.

It is a further development of my previous sketch of the hinges.



To do this, I extended the bottom six hinge sheets to 20 mm in MS Word using its thinnest lines to create a printable template,



that I could use for the 14 hinges.



But for now, let’s look at the 2025 Super Bowl in New Orleans.

EAGLES FLYING UP AND AWAY ...

And I’m flying into my bed ...

[EG]

But for now, let’s look at the 2025 Super Bowl in New Orleans.

EAGLES FLYING UP AND AWAY ...

No 3-peat.... Yay Team!!! go Eagles!!!

Get a good nights rest brother...

[roma847]

Thanks Elmer,

I held out until halftime.

[roma847]

Hello everybody,

so I printed the extended Hinge Sleeve strip on normal paper,



and tried to roll it up over a pin (Ø 0,5 mm), which wasn't easy because the paper is a bit too stiff for that. Next to it you can see the unsuccessful attempt to indicate the dividing lines of the hinge sleeves with a fineliner (Ø 0,05 mm).



I've then printed this strip on label paper because I wanted to kill two birds with one stone, as the peeled-off label is more ductile than normal printer paper and can be glued, which should make the whole handling easier.
 


At first I wanted to cut a narrow strip off of it, which would be enough to wrap the hinge wire, but I immediately discarded this idea again,



because it seems much easier to place the wire or rod on the adhesive surface of the label, or vice versa, because then it is already fixed and cannot roll away.



And that's really the case, so with a few tricks I managed to wrap the wire (Ø 0,4 mm), which in my opinion looks almost perfect and is a practical solution.

With this wrap, the hinge roll has a diameter of 0,5 mm. To get to Ø 0,4 mm, I would preferably have to use a Styrene round rod (Ø 0,3 mm), which is my iron reserve, but never mind.

I also have steel wire (Ø 0,3 mm), but I would have to cut it off after wrapping with a side cutters, which is a bit more difficult than cutting the Styrene round rod with the chisel cutter.



But that's not all, because six of the tiny hinge sheets(0,63 mm x 0,5 mm x 0,25 mm) still have to be glued under the hinge rollers, which I have tried to indicate in this image.



And for this last step, I will have to use my often-used Magnet clamping technique, probably again with slightly longer strips that I can fix to a sheet of metal with tape, and whose overhangs, after being glued to the hinge roll, will be cut off behind an upright steel ruler (0,5 mm) to the required length of 0,5 mm.

And the whole procedure for 14 hinges, actually an insane effort of work, which nobody but you guys can understand afterwards.

[roma847]

Hello everybody,

today I marked the positions of the hinges on the Payload Canister by fixing a narrow strip with the hinges from my PLC template over the dividing line between the PLC Door and the Side wall, which allowed me to mark the start and end points of the hinges with a dot.

Here on the Starboard Side,



and here on the Port Side of the PLC.



And here, for illustration purposes, I have placed only the hinge roll on the dividing line without the upper hinge sheets on which the roller sits and without the six lower hinge sheets that sit on the side wall.



The next step is to produce the 14 hinges, which will certainly take some time and require a lot of patience.

[roma847]

Hello everybody,

since the diameter of the hinge roll with the core wire (Ø 0,4 mm) after being wrapped is Ø 0,5 mm and therefore a bit too big, I also followed up with an experiment with a brass wire (Ø 0,3 mm).

It's just not that easy to roll up, so I tried a few things.





It is always important to have a tight clamp so that nothing slips or the wire comes off again, which is stressful.
 


Then let carefully stand up the label strip,



bend it around the wire and then cut off the excess overhang, is easier said than done ...



And here you can see the difference between the two hinge rolls with Ø 0,4 mm (above) and Ø 0,3 mm below, which is more scale-appropriate and is therefore applied.



And it goes on.



After the roll has been carefully glued to the hinge sheet, dried and the strip cut to length,



now to the scratching and gluing of the bottom six hinge sheets, which can only be 0,63 mm wide and 0,5 mm long, which is too tiny to be able to glue them individually.

That's why I've  cut six short strips (0,63 mm x 0,25 mm),



which I aligned using the hinge template and secured with strips of tape.



To stabilize the distances and ensure the dimensional accuracy of the hinge, I placed an Evergreen rod (1 mm x 1 mm) on top and glued it with MEK to form a kind of comb.





I then glued this stable structure with the hinge roll and let it dry.



Then comes the most difficult part of the game, namely shortening the six hinge strips to 0,5 mm length as quickly as possible, for which I used a complex magnet clamping technique with three rulers, one of which was vertically positioned as a spacer (0,5 mm), and cut off the overhangs behind this ruler with the wide chisel cutter.



which actually worked, as the bond was apparently sufficiently stable.



And this is what the first finished hinge looks like,



which turned out quite well and makes me confident that I can also complete the remaining 13 hinges.

[roma847]

Thanks guys for liking this crazy stuff.

[Metalskin]

Thanks guys for liking this crazy stuff.

Honestly, I live my dream of modeling vicariously through you. :-)

Unfortunately I don't have the room as I live in a unit, but I enjoy seeing your progress and how you tackle problems and challenges. Brings me a lot of joy!

Cheers,
James

[Naito]

Honestly, I live my dream of modeling vicariously through you. :-)

Unfortunately I don't have the room as I live in a unit, but I enjoy seeing your progress and how you tackle problems and challenges. Brings me a lot of joy!

Cheers,
James

There's modelling, and then there's what roma847 does.  I don't think there's a word that can sufficiently describe his level of detail.

[EG]

What you do is magic brother, we do modeling, occasionally well... you are several steps above us in talent level...

Watching you work is a priviledge we are all grateful for... Occasionally, we even learn something...

Thanks guys for liking this crazy stuff.

[roma847]

Thanks guys for liking this crazy stuff.

Honestly, I live my dream of modeling vicariously through you. :-)

Unfortunately I don't have the room as I live in a unit, but I enjoy seeing your progress and how you tackle problems and challenges. Brings me a lot of joy!

Cheers,
James

Thanks James for your kind words, which I am very happy about.

Then just stay tuned and enjoy my passion.

[roma847]

Thanks Naito and EG for your nice compliments.

Now you're making me quite embarrassed, I only want to entertain you, but I'm also proud that you like it here so much.

Show must go on!

[roma847]

Hello everybody,

with the remaining 'comb' I made the next hinges using the same procedure.



First, the label strip was rolled up to form the hinge roll in several steps.





Then again the gluing of the hinge roll to the hinge sheet strip, as well as gluing the six lower hinge strips to the roll.





To be on the safe side I also glued the hinge strips to the hinge sheet on the back, two is better than one!



Because shortening the hinge strips to 0,5 mm length with the upright steel ruler is too cumbersome,





this time I used an Evergreen strip (0,5 mm x 0,5 mm) as a spacer, which makes it easier to cut off with the cutter.



Then I had to file new strips (0,63 mm x 0,25 mm) flat for the hinge sheets.



For gluing the hinge strips of the remaining hinges, I remembered my tried and tested grid technique when gluing the tension rings to the SSWS ring lines.



To do this, using the hinge templates I first arranged six of these strips on Teflon non-stick foil (PTFE) to form this grid, fixed them with tape, and then glued Styrene Strips (0,25 mm x 0,5 mm) with MEK on top for stabilization.





And I can now glue this stable grid step by step to the remaining hinge rolls,



and thus produce the remaining hinges.



For this I then also printed a longer hinge strip on label paper,



which was supposed to be enough for the remaining hinges.