S-II/S-IC Interstage
The S-IC/S-II interstage is 219" tall and 396" in diameter. This scales down to 2.29"
tall. I'm still using the same 4.25" ABS tube that I used for the second stage. Rather than
cut this as a separate piece, I'm choosing to leave it attached to, what will be, the S-IC
stage. This will give added strength and stability to the S-IC ABS tubing which will
support the weight of the entire model. I will be adding four ullage motors and an access door
from the New Ware kit. The Revell kit part is one corrugated ring with placements for
eight ullage motors.
S-IC
[Saturn V First Stage]
It's finally time for the big momma! The real hardware is 1425" tall from the bottom of the
aft skirt to the joint line of the interstage. Like the S-II, it is also 396" in diameter.
This scales out to 14.85" tall. Add the interstage, and you'll need 17.14" of 4.25" ABS
tubing. I must have measured this piece of tubing about ten times because it looked
absolutely huge! The Revell kit part consists of three heavily corrugated rings and two of the
flimsy styrene wraps.
Since the gray tubing tends to play games with my eyes, I marked off the areas that would
be covered by the Evergreen wraps to simulate the stringers, leaving the proper gaps to show
where the two tanks were located. The measurements are as follows:
Here's how the stage turned out with the wraps applied. The S-IC/S-II
interstage is on the left with the noticeable seam to depict the separation field joint
between the two.
After puttying and sanding the seams in
the stringer wraps, a base coat of white primer was applied. The painted stage now gave a very
distorted visual appearance as to size, so the interstage roll pattern was then painted.
This not only gives the eyes a visual "stop", but it also defines the four quadrants necessary
to apply the fin fairings, hold down posts, ullage motors, etc. It is also a very good
idea to have the black part of the roll pattern cover any seams in the stringer wraps. You can
also use the interstage ullage motors for this purpose. The roll pattern was then
painted on the thrust structure so alignment of the hold down posts and fin fairings could be
accomplished.
The systems tunnels on the Revell kit are over scale. They measure out at
approximately 1/4" high. New Ware provides wraps for these tunnels with the proper
corrugations. Once applied, you will have to sand off approximately 1/8" to bring these to
scale. You'll have to add a couple of pieces of .030" styrene sheet [or do some creative
sanding] to account for the gaps left over the two fuel tanks, as the stringers will raise the
tunnels by this height. If you don't want to use the four Revell parts that depict the two
systems tunnels, you can probably substitute 1/8" half-rounds and apply the brass wraps
accordingly.
Using the roll pattern as a guide, the proper
umbilical connectors and system tunnels were attached to the S-IC. The four engine fairings
were painted, metal foil applied to
each fin and engine fairing, and then attached to the aft thrust structure with CA. Note that
I have only attached four of the F-1 engines. The fifth engine will be attached last so I can
first attach a steel rod to the interior centerline to help support the entire stack. This
procedure is covered in the "Sweating The Details" section of
these pages.
The final step was to properly paint the systems tunnels and the umbilical
connectors and to make sure that the roll patterns all have straight edges. Once dry, the
entire stage was put aside for a coat or two of semi-gloss. Once dry, the decals from Rick
and/or Tomas will be applied and I'll start to finish the entire stack.
S-IC with Decals Applied 
