Steven Vasko’s Clavius Base

This model of “Clavius Base” from “2001:A Space Odyssey” is my first completely scratch-built model in my Forty-plus years in the hobby. The first couple of months were spent gathering and printing screen-captures of the Moonbase as seen in the film, as well as behind-the-scenes photos found on Douglas Trumbull’s website. The base of the model was a laminate of a canvas panel, foam board, and Bristol board around which a “do-it-yourself” aluminum craft store frame was applied around the base. The main buildings were made of foam board over which various thicknesses of sheet styrene were laminated over. These sheets, as well as various styrene details for the surface of the buildings, were cut with the aid of a cutting point installed in a professional drafting compass. The round discs on the buildings were thin slices cut from wooden dowels, that were then sanded, treated in Acrylic Gloss Medium, and glued down. The main landing pad “Astrodome” was a clear acrylic hemisphere that was trimmed, flat-sanded, and detailed with styrene and thin strips of tape. The lunar ground-work was sculpted in Prang “Das” air-drying modeling compound. The model was painted in a combination of Krylon Fusion Satin While Spray Paint and artists acrylic paints. As a final touch, tiny pieces of “Scotch-Lite’ reflective tape were glued to the ground-work to duplicate tiny markers visible on the ground around the Base as seen in the film. The Base “Meatball” was printed off the Web, lacquered, and placed on the final model.

Steven Vasko