Very nice work there!
Mike
Simply outstanding! I have this in my stash, and I only hope when I get around to it that I am able to do even a fraction of job you’re doing. Thanks for continuing to share your progress.
Out of curiousity, what printer are you using for decals? What decal stock for printing?
Cheers, Rick
Thanks, gentlemen!
Decal stock is the Testors kit (I threw away the container that held the paper). I used the Testors decal bonder to seal the decal film. The printer I use is a Hewlett Packard HP Photosmart 2610. I used PowerPoint to adjust the size of the diagram and printed directly from this document. I’m too lazy to muck around with the images in Illustrator or Photoshop 
The first class your work to here. respect! [tup]
Greetings from Germany,
Thomas
Amazing work on the instrument panel.
Using my best Michael Dorn Klingon voice, “Impressive!”
Mike
Thanks, my friends. I’ll be posting some pictures this week of the finished assembly.
reeeallynice work, love to see true miniatures, can’t wait for more! Oh, several posts back, love that logic (4 reasons) for including obscured detail.
Amazing the construction… all in scratch? Cool! Where did u get the blueprints?
´s
Thanks!
This has been my main resource:
Project Mercury Familiarization Manual (November 1961):
(http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19740076527_1974076527.pdf)
Thanks man… very good the article… I´m building for now a AMT kit of the Nasa rockets…
´s
Added some additional knobs and switches. I also added the charts holder to the front. Two fabric sacks will be attached to this, and I will be making a tabbed notebook to go in the silver chart holder. I’m almost done with the periscope viewer, and I anticipate the entire assembly being done this week. I also added a bunch of rivets to both sides of the instrument panel mount, since I found some excellent photos of this online recently.
http://www.philsmith.us/Mercury51.jpg
http://www.philsmith.us/Mercury52.jpg
Hello,
I think that you are doing such a great job on your mercury capsule. I’m doing one of Faith 7 and was wondering if I can pick your brains a bit?
I was wondering how you are doing your rivet detail. I never done this before and would really like to know so as to improve my model. Also what method to you use to make all the batteries/inverters etc? I’m in awe over the ammount of detail you are doing it’s not an easy task to decipher the famillarization manual and then compare it to photos!
Thanks for the compliments and the questions. I look forward to seeing your Faith 7!
Rivets are made by cutting disks from the thinnest rod size available from Evergreen Plastic. Think of slicing a sausage, and you’ll get the idea. I then pick up each with a sharp X-Acto knife, lightly “spearing” it, if that makes sense. I touch the disk to a bit of adhesive (cement if going on plastic, superglue if going on painted surface), then affix it to the desired location. It’s tedious, but goes by surprisingly quickly when you get the hang of it.
The various components, including the batteries, were made with Evergreen sheet plastic. Basically, I just made a bunch of six-sided boxes (some components were a bit more than that, of course). I sanded these down and primed them. Small components were cut from solid square or rectangle rod stock.
The references are great, but I confess that my objective is to get the model around 75% accurate to the real thing. The documents are used as a baseline for construction, because the actual vehicles were modified and adjusted with time, deviating from the specs. I figure “close enough” works - like an impressionist painting, I suppose. I want to capture the essence of the Mercury Program in a model - cramped, cluttered, analog, scary, damn-the-torpedoes, all-or-nothing, spam-in-the-can…
Hello.
Thanks for answering my questions. I will now be able to do rivets! I’m basically doing a simillar approch to the ammount of detail. As long as it looks “cluttered” and has the basic differences i think it’s ok otherwise I could get very bogged down trying to get it perfect. I have found the mercury maintenance manual helpfull as it gives you more of an impression of how the thing goes together! I only have the 1959 version but it’s still good if you are looking at the major componants.
I look forward to seeing your model progress. It’s exciting!
You’re welcome!
Finally got around to adding the periscope screen. I also added a flight booklet (or whatever) and two small fabric bags to the front of the booklet holder. I’m not sure if this is accurate, but it does look like some sort of fabric bags or something are attached to the book holder in some photos.
The screen is composed of several layers of clear plastic and a few sheets of clear yellow plastic; the intent is to provide a sense of depth. The reticles are simply scribed lines in the plastic.
I’m just about ready to move to the back of the instrument panel. It is clear to me that the instrument panel is the most labor intensive part of the model, but there is a long way to go before completion 
http://www.philsmith.us/Mercury53.jpg
http://www.philsmith.us/Mercury54.jpg
What is better than superb? Whatever it is, that panel defines it.
I made good progress on the complex plumbing associated with the nitrogen pressurization system. What a pain in the neck this was! The tanks themselves are wooden balls I found at Michaels. The rest of the assembly consists of copper wire and plastic components. The pencil line represents the extent of the floor, and the shaded square the location of the periscope and instrument panel mount.
The box is the tape recorder.
Next up: The window and hatch frames, rivets and other assorted greebly.
Wow I always get so excited when I have found that you have posted new pictures!
Your work is amazing and an inspiration! I can’t wait for more. I havent worked out how to post photos on this website otherwise I would be posting some of my Faith 7.
By the way I’ve been doing the rivets the way that you suggested and It’s been working great.
It makes such and improvement to the model Thanks!![tup]
Faith 7 -
Thanks, and I look forward to seeing photos of you build. I was disappointed when I started this project to find so few online images of this model built. So many asked for it and bought it, but few are contributing to the pool of experience online, which would be helpful.
You can get a free Flickr account and post pictures, then provide links here.
I’m glad that the rivet thing is working. It doesn’t seem practical to do this, but the experience proves otherwise.