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Space Cadet Huygens Lander


Roktman

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The real space genre got a little more crowded with the formation of Space Cadet Models. These guys have started their catalog with the Huygens probe that went to Saturn with Cassini and landed on the moon Titan. More on the mission here - LINK .

 

Opening the kit revealed a LOT of parts -

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With the kit is a CD for the instructions. I thought Whoo Hoo! Someone finally listened. My pet peeve, for a long time, with a lot of GK Co's is that when you get instructions and there are fiddly bits the illustrations are usually photos. Sadly the photos look like 20th generation of copy of a copy. I thought I was golden. I loaded the CD and hit print. Out came 30+ pages, and the images were the same tough to see. Too bad.

 

The other thing that's noticed was that most of the experiments on board are TINY. For example is this one. It's made up of three parts. I didn't even add the 32gauge wire that's supposed to connect the upright (I'm not near the instructions and don't have the part names memorized). As you can see the assemble is less than 1 CM -

 

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On to the build -

 

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Two thirds of the bus assembled, There are PE rings between the resin sections.

 

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Moving along I came across parts that IMHO make the kit more difficult than it needs to be (B,C).

 

The tiny parts make for a slow go. More later.

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I must have been really cranky last time, with what looks like a less than stellar review. Apologies for that. It really is a nicely done, detailed kit.
Being the kit does have a lot of small parts I'm still taking my time on this.

This session, I finished building and installing the landing radar - the 4 PE parts that look like shelves (B in the previous post image).

I then started cutting out and installing the fins on the bottom (red arrow). These take time. Besides cutting the part off the fret you need to get rid of any nub that remains, what slows you down is the fin is prolly one 1mm or so long. Tough for my big sausage fingers. :P
Thanks for looking.

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Edited by Roktman
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Nice kit and very esoteric. Just the way I like them. The base is also very cool. It should build into a nice model. Let's hope for Mars Landers soon!

 

Thanks. Yes the base goes above and beyond. When it first came I studied the cast to see what was done, so I could try and mimic something similar on my other space "landers."

The "Co." is brand new so the sky's the limit with options. The other good thing about these 2 man GK operations is someone who contacts them with a suggestion has a high chance of getting his wish than contacting Revell or the like. ;)

Edited by Roktman
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Moving along, todays session was to finish adding the rest of the fins on the bottom of the lander.

Just as soon as I thought I had a system down, things would go wrong and I'd have to come up with another "system". Also have a fin jump out of the tweezers and have to go searching took time as well. But they are all in now. :D

 

Are they all straight? No way. But they're in. ;) Doesn't look like much progress, but this was almost 2 hrs. of work.

Thanks for looking.

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Thanks. If I had younger eyes and non sausage fingers it would have gone more smoothly. But I'm almost there.

 

This session was to assemble the Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument (HASI). First thing that needed to be done was cut the two pieces off the PE fret. Then a resin piece was added to make the "T' on the short side. After that I had to laminate 1mm half round styrene strips onto the straight parts. I thought this would be a lot harder than it was, save for my first cut which was short.

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Next was to add the mounting base. On the instructions it said to leave a little PE showing that would mate up with a slot in the hole for the HASI. No good. I could see the slot but the were no way I could fit the PE in there. I ended up just drilling out the hole, eliminating the slot and trimmed the exposed PE to fit.

That was essentially it. They made further instructions for those wishing to do more. I wasn't going to but then I saw one step was to add wiring for the parachute jettison on top. Being crazy, I took some .010 lead wiring and added that one. Came out ok.

 

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Next stop is the paint booth. The instructions and images show a gold/silver color. That's next time. Thanks for looking.

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Showing my Lander on the Yahoo Space Modelers group, I got a note later on saying I installed the landing radar upside down. I have no idea how it happened was was happy when they simply snapped off the Lander and I was able to reinstall them correctly. Thanks Scott.

While I was waiting for the glue to dry on the Lander I turned my attention to the base. Instructions says Titan is between a wood and dark brown color. So I went with V's Orange Ocher which is really more brown than orange as a base. The sun was streaming in and it cast some shadows across the base. I thought it may not be 100% correct (tho clouds have to break on Titan even momentarily) but I'm going to add that too. Some Titan ice was also added and I was called the base done.
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Then I turned my airbrush back to the Lander. The instructions say it's a combo of gold and silver, So I went to Vs new Metallics line and sprayed a 4 to 3 mix of gold to silver. The image makes it look too silver. But in real life there gold in there.
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Experiments get painted next.

Thanks for looking.

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Thanks guys.

If one doesn't have the names of the experiments memorized (I don't) it was a bit of a hunt and peck to find what colors went with which color. But now I have my list and am ready to finish this up.

 

The real space genre (as tiny as it is) is pretty well represented not including the big mfg's, with Real Space Models, New Ware and now Space Cadets (apologies to other GKs I've forgotten). Then there's all the card models which can be used as templates to scratch a craft in styrene.

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This last session I could call the model done. I painted the experiments, and then used Citadels Agrax to highlight the rivets a bit. Then I added the parachute cord and added little bits of thin Tamiya tape to replicate the Velcro hold downs on the cord.

The last thing I did was to get rid of the lander's shadow. I always overdo it, and that was true this time when I added black to the shadow. All it did was make the ground look burnt. So away it all went.

Thanks for looking.

 

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Edited by Roktman
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Simply outstanding! What an amazing model of an unusual and not-often-seen vehicle.

 

Thanks! Yes, you wouldn't see this from any of the big mfg's. Thats why I pay so much attention to the GK side of the hobby. ;)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Two thumbs up!

 

It looks like where it should be...on a moon somwhere. Great job Kev.

 

Bill

 

Thanks.

It's on Saturn's moon Titan as part of the Cassini mission. ;)

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