Revell Space Station (1959)

by Dick Montgomery

San Antonio, Texas

montgomery@stic.net

SCALE: 1/96

INITIAL RELEASE: 1959

MEDIUM: Polystyrene

RARITY: 5

 

Space Station / Revell H-1805

 Decals –

  • An original set of decals was scanned and cleaned up. The clean-up process took about 10 hours to cut and paste good portions of the decal sheet over that which was damaged by age.

Space Station ( main component) –

  • All observation blisters were replaced with vacuformed copies.
  • Some interior ladders were replaced with HO scale equipment.
  • Radar dish had missing sections which were replaced with Evergreen strip plastic.
    • The tripod within the dish is scratched from Evergreen plastic tubing.
  • Camera tripod (orange tripod at bottom of cylinder) was scratched from bits and pieces to duplicate appearance of original parts.

Auxiliary Craft -

  • Satellite: (Two spheres with cat whisker antennae) was completely scratch built to resemble the original craft from the kit. The spheres are from the parts bin. The antennae are constructed of two pieces of wire and placed through fitting holes drilled in the payload sphere. The small girder connecting the spheres was taken from an HO accessory light pole.
  • Maintenance sled: Two astronauts ride the Maintenance sled. While the astronaut figures are original the sled is 95% scratch built.
    • The only original parts are the “floor” and hemispherical nose cone.
    • The instrument panel and handrail are scratched from sheet plastic and sprue.
    • The grappling hook is made from sprue.
    • The center instrument console is original but the engine and engine cage are scratched from sprue and from an air tank from the parts bin.
  • Personnel Transport: The Personnel Transport is about 99% scratched. The only original piece is the clear ring-shaped window.
    • The main body of the Personnel Transport is made from PVC pipe.
    • The rounded bottom is actually a marble which was pushed into the PVC pipe and faired in with body putty.
    • The orange exteriors supports are constructed from Evergreen strip plastic.
    • The small rocket nozzles at the base of the craft are 1/72 nozzles from an Apollo LEM model.
  • Shuttle Craft: The delta-winged Shuttle Craft is constructed of original parts with the exception of the nose cone and the “windscreen”.
    • The windscreen was vacuformed over a carved wood master mold.
    • The nose cone was cut from an Estes rocket nose cone

A message was engraved into the plastic of the cylinder end-cap under the radar dish. The message identifies those parts of the model that came from the original Space Station purchased from the gift shop at the Seattle Space Needle during the World’s Fair in June, 1962. It is fitting that this model was completed in its restored condition in June, 2004, almost 42 years to the day of the kit’s original purchase.

Dick Montgomery, San Antonio, Texas