Another photo dump of the last ten days or so progress on my Build Something Contest 2025 entry. My LAF project thread is getting much more regular updates (new photos every other day or so at this point) if you want to follow along!
As of the last blog post the nose had been skinned but not much else. Since then I’ve tried several designs for the wings, disliked every single one of them, built and detailed the removable roof for the cargo bay, and started doing detail panels on the nose.
Check the captions of the photos below for more details.
Engine/wing mockup in cardstock. This is the second, smaller, angular wing.Second wing in place, with the first bigger slab-like wing on the cutting mat. Still not happy with either design, so I left the wings alone to do other stuff for a bit!One of the wing mockups taped in place alongside the open cargo bay.The underside, showing the three landing gear bays and the un-skinned belly.Primer! I’m going to be painting the cargo bay before gluing the rear bulkhead & ramp in place, so it got primed.Rear ramp deployed, couple of 28mm figures hanging out for scale.Wider view of the rear bulkhead & ramp with the whole shuttle propped up to about the height it’ll sit on it’s landing gear.The ceiling of the cargo bay all detailed.Roof! The start of the removable roof of the cargo bay.The top of the roof, with the docking port/escape hatch detailed. It’s recessed into the roof.The roof in place, looking foward toward the nose of the shuttle.Detail panels in 0.5mm styrene being installed. When installing across a bend like this, much easier to glue one side down, let the solvent glue cure, then do the other side across the bend!Second detail panel installation, side view.
The belly skin will be installed today, and then I’ll be able to carry the detail panels aft from the nose, down the belly, and around the landing gear bays.
I’ve also (finally) started building the actual landing gear, because I need to set the height of that before I can make some detailing decisions for the underside of the beast.
Then it’ll be back to the engine & wing subassemblies, where I have a third wing planoform I want to try out that I think will work better than attempts 1 and 2!
This is such a great build . It’s amazing that you are already at the primer stage.