Comic Book Jupiter 2 by Orne Montgomery part 1
“It’s Back….and It’s Not What You Expected!” by ORNE MONTGOMERY
CONSTRUCTION-PHOTOS and article copyright 1992/2000 by ORNE MONTGOMERY. ALL OTHER PHOTOS copyright 1992 by ANDY HARLOW.
In 1991, Innovation Comics’ illustrated revival of the ‘Lost in Space’ TV-series was announced in Starlog Magazine (July 1991, #168). The Starlog article was accompanied by several artist-renderings of a radically modified Jupiter II. Coincidentally Lunar Models’ had just released a 1/24 scale Jupiter II kit (half-scale to the four-foot prototype).
As I already had one of the new kits on order from Lunar Models, the decision was reached to make over the model to resemble the updated spaceship. (In the comic, as seen through Penny Robinson’s “diary”, the Jupiter II that was viewed on TV – as well as the Robinson’s’ adventures – were her fanciful daydreams of reality. Otherwise, with additional repairs made during eight long years of star-travel, this was the Jupiter II’s true appearance.
NOTE: While this article divides the construction of exterior and interior assemblies, these were actually built simultaneously. For this reason, many of the steps taken to align the Flightdeck interior with the Upper and Lower hull-halves – such as the matching sets of magnetic-strips glued around each of the hull extension-rings to temporarily hold them together – were required
BASIC CONSTRUCTION:
Unfortunately, the artists’ renderings were far from complete on specific details, or even plan-views, and I was left with the task of extrapolating all other facets of the design from scratch. Unlike my usual practice, I didn’t draw up any plans for the modifications and, immediately upon receiving the model, began construction over the Lunar Models kit. The kit itself includes clear vacform pieces for the dome-bubble and fusion-core insert; and cast resin pieces for the fusion-core, flight deck window frame, control-console blanks, and the landing-gear casings.
The kit’s basic structure was first altered by adding an inner retainer-ring, cut from a sheet of .030 thickness Lexan plastic, and in a later step, an extension ring cut from .060 sheet styrene plastic, onto the Lower Hull. This combined ring, extending the hull-diameter from 24″ to 26″, allowed the outer perimeter of the Upper Hull to be raked far more sharply toward the rim, as depicted in the illustrations; with the addition of spruce friction-rings around the rims of both hulls, the retainer-ring would also hold the Flightdeck interior in place. A clear plastic bottle was welded with liquid cement into the dome-opening of the upper hull to provide illumination for the dome from the interior.
No lower decks (crews-quarters and fusion-core) were built, as none could possibly be fitted into the original studio models the kit is based upon. The Lunar kit has hefty gauge hull-halves, which allowed modification without a great reliance on interior-formers; only small triangular ribs were required around the edge of the retainer-ring.
(Theoretically, the dimensions of the Jupiter II would need to be enlarged from 18’x 48′ to 3O’x 80′ -gear retracted – to encompass all decks and bays seen in the series. In 1999, I put theory to practice and began the conversion of a Polar Lights Jupiter II kit into a “Centauri Colony Vehicle”, which matches the larger dimensions in 1/72 scale.)
LANDING GEAR:
Plans for the 1/35 scale Jupiter II were obtained from Lunar and the retractable landing gear templates were enlarged thirty-three per cent.
Operable retract-struts were made from aluminum tubing, with brass tube and piano-wire inserted into the T-bars; the lower stalks are flexible drinking straws with rubber cores cut from a screen-door liner.
Three landing-gear bays were constructed per the plans and the finished struts and casings dropped in. #64 rubber-bands were attached to the T-struts, then epoxied in place – through the center bulkheads – with nylon washers. Styrene plate anchors were used to keep in place the nylon-cloth casing-hinges.
LOWER HULL:
The outer ring of the hull was elevated one-quarter inch from the surface, to provide the recessed area surrounding the central fusion-core/landing gear section, with 3/16″ wide plastic support-beams – aligned toward the center – were glued around the rim in intervals.
Eight 46X pie-section panels were cut from .030 Sintra plastic (Sintra can be curled and bent more readily than styrene, simply by rubbing a piece between your fingers and letting friction-heat do the rest) and curved to shape over the outer ring. Prior to being glued in place over the support strips, all cut-outs for recessed panels were opened, then boxed with sidewalls, and panels/detail-parts added. (Mostly auto parts such as flatheads, carbs, and intake manifolds.)
UPPER HULL:
The Flightdeck window frame and working airlock-hatch (with its adjacent porthole, the latter was moved twenty degrees toward the window frame to correspond with the original studio-floor plans) were fitted into the Upper Hull.
The Upper Hull was then aligned with the Lower Hull retainer/extension-ring. Semicircular plastic sections were glued in place around the rim to construct a duplicate extension-ring, overlaid with another series of magnetic strips. With the exception of the airlock area, joint-spacers with curved vertical formers of plastic were glued. Each ended at the “midway-mark” up the hull (shorter lengths were used beneath the flight deck windows).
A doubled ring of spruce and plastic was cemented in place over the “midway mark”, then double-walled panels of .030 Sintra and .020 styrene were laminated over the vertical formers. Shaved to a narrow angle – the wider part butted against the ring – vertical spruce strips were added to the remaining upper half of the hull. Sintra sections were added to the upper-half of the hull; this provided the necessary radius which curves more sharply toward the “roof” from its “midway-mark”. The Upper Hull was marked for extra paneling and cut-outs.
The remaining cavities were sealed with twelve full-height Sintra plate-sections, 22.5 degrees apart; these also had cut-outs with boxed sidewalls of styrene-strip, into which were inserted detail-parts. Roof-panels – with inserts out from various styles of Evergreen roofing/railroad siding sheets, and additional placement of selected parts from the spares-box – were edge-sanded, like all of the many raised panels on the model, to provide a “machined” appearance.
HULL ASSEMBLY:
Temporarily remated to check alignment, the edges of the Upper and Lower Hulls were filed and sanded flush. Additional detail panels (some to conceal mating-bolts) were glued on with nylon-hinges; piping and other detail parts were then added to both hulls. Extension pieces were made for the landing-pads to fit the revised lower hull, and Sintra plastic was used to make the Lower Hull collision-shields.
