Revell 1:144 Space Shuttle

[dr_gn]

Someone gave my son this kit for his Birthday this year, and he decided to build it for a school project next week. I ‘helped’ with any scalpel based work, closely supervised spray painting and as usual gave unreasonably harsh criticism during construction.

It’s an old kit - I remember building it nearly 40 years ago, and it shows. Not obvious in the photos, but there are some pretty large gaps that are difficult/impossible to fill. We glued the bay doors shut, filled and sanded the gaps, then drew the shut lines on with a pencil. The tubular SRB and main tank aren’t that good a fit either. Engine detail is very basic.

What is much better than the original boxing is the decals. They are very cleverly done, such that most of the black area outlines are decals, and once applied you simply block in the rest with paint. Simple idea, but the result is superb, with virtually zero masking required. We used Windsor & Newton Matt varnish to give a beautiful, reflection-free high contrast finish.

Whatever the age of the kit and it’s shortcomings, the end result is impressive, and an experienced modeller could undoubtedly turn it into a show stopper. Especially if some resin engines were used, and the out of scale crawler was replaced by the card version from Educraft:

http://www.educraftdiversions.org/ProductDetails.a...

(One of these may well be on its way to us...there are some incredible super-detailed builds of it online).

Anyway, here are the pics:

[dr_gn]

robemcdonald said:

Great effort.

Is there a decent space shuttle kit out there? I wouldn't mind trying to build one.

The Airfix version is supposed to be the most accurate in shape, and there’s the Minicraft one that looks visibly wrong around the nose.

I’d say overall this Revell one is possibly the best compromise, especially with the excellent decals. If you can use filler effectively, and can get some replacement engines it really would look great. Unlike a conventional aircraft, the orbiter itself has very few appendages to model, and at this scale what’s there are effectively represented by decals (door hinges, thrusters etc) .The heat resistant tiles are available as decals for some versions, although on balance I thing solid colours look better at this scale.

ETA if you just want the orbiter, Revell do a 1:72 version, and Tamiya a 1:100, both of which look good. Aftermarket details are available.

Edited by dr_gn on Saturday 21st October 22:50

[dr_gn]

If it’s just a size comparison, I found this with a P-51 to scale. It would be a fairly significant size to display at 1:72, and I think representing the TPS tiles would be a must.



Re. The Star Wars models, As an aside I don’t think the AT-AT walkers in the film had a set scale - it changes depending on which scenes you’re looking at.

[dr_gn]

El stovey said:

IroningMan said:

Didn't Monogram also produce a 1/48 Shuttle? I seem to recall going through a 'bigger is better' phase which featured one, as well as a 1/48 B-29 from them.

1/48 would be huge, around a meter long, just for the orbiter.

Edited by El stovey on Tuesday 24th October 11:18

1:72 was the largest Monogram Shuttle I think. The Revell and Monogram 1:72 shuttles are a bit different, but confusingly are both sometimes re-boxed in Revell packaging.