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Bonestell Moonship



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by Tony Lee

Scale: 1/105

This model was inspired by an illustration I saw in a book I picked up on line titled "The Conquest of Space" by Willy Ley and illustrated by Chesley Bonstell.

When I saw the picture I knew then and there I had to have that ship. I suspected I could wait until the planets failed in their orbits and the sun died for lack of fuel before anyone at Revell would consider making a kit based of this design so I started to draw up plans to build my own.

The design pictured dates back to 1949 if not earlier. The only guide I had at the time was the Bonestell paintings in the book so I first opted to build a simple study model to try and get the proportions right. This was built out of femo plastic clay and scrap plastic sheet. I used two part epoxy resin to attach the wings and fins.

Once I finished my study model I sat it aside for a few months planning to work on it in the near future.

Then something serendipitous happened. I got an E-mail from someone named Ron Miller who happened to see an auction I had listed on E-bay that featured a magazine with a Chesley Bonestell art cover.

It turns out this person was Ron Miller the Sci-fi & Space illustrator. Ron is also very familiar with Bonestell's artwork and designs. He also oversees Bonestell's copyrights. Well, to make a long story short Ron provided me with all the design data I needed. His book "Dream Machines" as well as the "Spaceship Handbook" were invaluable to my efforts. It turns out my early built study model was rather close to the mark.

Now with regard to Revell, it was the A4V2 1/35 scale model kit made by Revell of Germany that I used as the starting point for this kit. Actuality I needed two kits because my plans called for a fuselage that was approx. 1/2" longer than the kit. The fins and engine exhaust needed substantial modifications and the fit to the fuselage was very poor from the beginning so a lot of filling and sanding were required. The wings were scratch built from styrene sheet and square stock. Bamboo cooking skewers were inserted into the wing cavity to help form the proper airfoil shape. Then two steel bolts from one of my erector sets were threaded into either side if the rocket fuselage to provide for solid anchor points to fasten the wings. Wing cavities were then filled one at a time with two part 5 min. epoxy, seated to the fuselage and allowed to setup. Any small gaps around the wing root were filled with super glue. The spine of the ship, which is meant to serve as a conduit for electrical and utility cables, was made of two layers of sheet styrene sandwiched together and sanded to shape, then applied to model with liquid cement. Lastly a small hatch was scribed into the fuselage next to the spine.

The paint job was a happy accident. I wanted to match the color in the painting as close as possible and tried using Tamiya gloss aluminum. It looked bad. Really looked more like a cheap toy than a historic replica. So with nothing to lose at this point I sprayed on a top coat of Tamiya gunmetal. Eureka! The color looks great. The only draw back it that is seems to be hard to photograph.

Image: Rocket and 'pad'

Image: Top(?) view




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This page was last updated 13 May 2003