Robert Hargrave’s Jupiter 2 part 1

After seeing some of the great work on your site by other modelers and Mr. Ron Gross I have decided to dive in with my rendition of what I think the Jupiter II would look like, These photo’s are for posting in the (Workbench section) as it is a work in the early stages of progress.

To start off I purchased a Polar Lights model kit of the Jupiter II then as can be seen in (Fig #1) I made a full scale drawing of the lower level using the model hull as my guide. In this drawing starting at the bottom and working your way around clock wise you see the Lower level flight deck, next is the lab area with the computer memory banks behind it. Next to the lab is the mystery hallway that I have used to reach the back areas of the hull. Next is the galley and behind it are the air pressure and Co2 scrubber control room, then the food preparation plant last is a large walk in freezer area. The next area is the ladder, elevator and hatch to the rear landing gear bay and stairwell, behind the ladder is the water storage tank and pump room, then comes the main reactor and back-up reactor connection trunks from the upper level (where the reactors are) to the drive motors below deck. Behind this area are the fuel cell storage battries and the power generator, behind the rear landing gear bay is the heating and cooling units. The rest of the way around are the crew staterooms and behind them are storage areas.

In photo Fig #2 this shows the assembly procedure for the main barrier wall between the different areas of the lower level, these are formed from .030 sheet styrene cut into 3 pieces and shaped to match the contours of the hull, for areas where doors are to be shown the two outer sections will have the door openings cut out then a decal applied to the center section to make the door seen to be inset inside the walls.

In fig #3 you can see the landing gear well have been cut out along with the lower flight deck view port, this has also be widened to reach across to meet the interior walls.

In fig #4 you have a view of the casement I have installed around the viewport to recess the view port into the hull like the upper level unit.

In fig #5 you get a look and the newly formed bulkheads setting inside the lower hull awaiting final touchups like door openings and notches cut for inserting wall panels that reach from bulkhead to bulkhead and then to be cemented in place.

In this shot you can see I have plugged all the mounting lug holes with pieces of sprue melted and stretched to fit into the holes and dipped in ACC, then pushed into place and allowed to dry, these plugs are then cut flush and sanded. Also the elevator and ladder wall locating tabs have been cut away and sanded smooth.

In this view you can see the lower level outer hull after all the landing gear wells and view port have been cut out, you get a view of the new casement unit for the view port. Being that my design has no place for the space pod I have filled in the pod bay doors, using several thin layers of filler putty.

In this shot you see the lower level floor after the floor base has been installed and cemented in place, then filler putty was spread along the joint between the floor and hull to fill the gap and make the unit seem seamless and solid. Then the interior was sprayed with Testors Panzer Interior Buff #2104. The outer hull was sprayed with Bright Silver #1146. After painting several areas showed some scratches and a couple of raised areas around the space pod door that still need work.

In this shot you get a view of my modified Reactor Core unit. I cut 32 fins from .020 strip styrene with a 55′ degree angle on both ends and for the side that attaches to the reactor core there is a small notch cut to match the contour of the reactor lip to allow a snug fit these fins were attach with slow setting ACC.

In this shot you get a cut away view of the bulk head assembly steps used to make each of the 10 interior walls for the lower level. Each wall is formed using 3 sections of .030 sheet styrene cut using a poster board template using the dimensions shown in the pic. If a door is to be inserted I cut the outer 2 sections out, and leave the interior section intact this will form the door and give it the look as it is part of the wall, a door template will be made out of .050 styrene and attached to the center section later. the 3 sections of styrene are cemented together and then all the edges are sanded smooth, last a strip of .010 X .100 strip styrene is placed along the top and interior edge to cover the seam lines in the wall.

This photo shows all the interior wall panels I constructed to seperate all the section inside the lower hull, there are a total of ten, all made from 3 layers of .030 sheet styrene As seen in Fig #8

In this shot you can see all the seperate pieces that were made from .020 sheet styrene to form the cabinet bases, counter top and control panels, for the Flight Deck

This is a finished shot looking from the right side of the Lab across to the left side of the flight deck, here you get a good look at all the control panels and other details.

This is a finished shot looking from the left side of the flight deck across to the right side of the Lab, again another good look at the control panels and other details.

Here are the right and left wall of the Galley under construction, the raised panels were made from .080 X .080 styrene strips to form the boxes then the bases were made using .010 sheet styrene to make the cover and raised panels. The five rows of square pieces are .080 X .080 strip styrene cut into chunks, the eight round pots are made from wood dowel, the rest of the items are also pieses of sheet styrene awaiting more details and paint.

Robert Hargrave

On to part 2