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The Descent Stage
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Pat covers the panel layout for the descent stage...
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Panel Layout
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The Lunar Module News Reference (LMNR) describes the internal arrangement of the descent stage octagon and gives the distance across the "flats" (where the legs attach) as 162". This works out to 13.5" at 1/12 scale. Based on other drawings, the width of the scaled "flats" is 4.5". I laid out these dimensions
on Plexiglas and cut out the top and bottom of the octagon. I cut a 3" hole in the top to accommodate the ascent engine. Four magnets were installed in the top to match up with the magnets installed in the bottom of the ascent stage's midsection.
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| Construction |
According the LMNR, the distance between the top and bottom was 65" which works out to about 5.375" for this scale. I thought about using Plexiglas panels for all eight sides of the octagon but was concerned about the weight that the legs would have to support. I decided that only the four sides where the legs attach needed to be Plexiglas. The other four panels are 6.375" wide Styrene sheets. I glued four Styrofoam blocks between the top and bottom to add rigidity to the assembly. The Plexiglass panels and Styrene sheets are attached with metallic duct tape.
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| Coat-hanger Jig with Outrigger |
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Bending Truss
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Bending Diamond
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I used coat hanger wire for the landing gear struts and 1/2" wooden dowels for the legs. In order to ensure that all four legs were as identical as possible, I built a jig for bending the wire. These pictures show the bends for the outrigger at the top, the truss in the middle and the "diamond" at the bottom.
I used 1/4" dowels notched in the middle and at the ends to form the "X" bracing inside the diamonds. The supports were laid out so that the diagonal distance across the foot-pads would be 31".
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Strut Assembly
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Available pictures of the descent stage show that the ends of the legs were tapered so I cut lengths of 1/2" dowel and turned them down with a file and my drill press. The wires for the outrigger and the truss pass through an eye bolt screwed into the top of the leg. Here's a picture of an early mock-up of the landing gear assembly.
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Turning the wooden footpads
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The footpads are 1/2" thick balsa wood 3" in diameter that were turned on my drill press.
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Final Strut before finishing
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To give them the right appearance, I covered the landing gear wires with 1/4" plastic tubing. I ran a knife down one side of the tube to split it, pried it open and wrapped it around the wire. Prior to installation, I wrapped the wire with a couple of pieces of masking tape to keep the tubing centered.
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It's got balls
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Before installing any gold foil, two of the octagon walls were covered with crinkled aluminum foil and painted flat black. The engine cowling on the bottom of the descent stage is foam board insulation. Styrofoam balls were used to model where the fuel tanks projected through the bottom of the descent stage.
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More Special Dark Chocolate...
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I covered the bottom of the decent stage with pieces of gold foil from the previously mentioned Hershey's Special Dark chocolate bars. Each bar comes wrapped in a sheet of foil that is about 10" by 10". I ended up using (that is eating) about 6 bars. The very bottom of the engine cowl is covered in aluminum foil with the shiny side showing. The foil was applied much like wallpaper. I spread Elmer's glue on one side, let it sit for about thirty seconds and then applied the foil to the surface to be covered.
To save weight (and because I didn't have any large enough pieces of balsa wood) I glued some pieces of Styrofoam together and turned them on my drill press into the shape of the descent engine. The engine nozzle is 4.5" in diameter at the bottom and about 3.75" high. Here is a picture of the finished bottom.
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Strutting Foil
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Covering the struts with foil was a little complicated. Each piece of foil was cut to length and was 1" wide to wrap around the strut. I spread glue along one edge, let it set and then laid the edge along the long axis of the strut. It was necessary to let the glue dry on each piece before wrapping it because if I didn't it would just slide around and smear the glue. Smaller pieces of foil were used to cover where the struts meet each other and the walls of the octagon.
The remaining two walls of the octagon were covered in crinkled gold foil. The top of the ascent stage was covered with sections of aluminum foil (bare and painted flat black) and gold foil Finally, the outer halves of the legs and the footpads were covered with gold foil.
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The Ladder
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Per the LMNR, the ladder on the front leg is 20" wide and has nine rungs spaced 9" apart. At 1/12 scale, this works out to 1.625" wide with .75" between the rungs. I ended up using some "mini dowels" I found at a local craft store for the rungs. The sides of the ladder are Plexiglas. The ladder was painted with
metallic paint to give it the look of machined aluminum. Here's a picture of the unpainted ladder showing the notches in the front leg.
According to the LMNR, the egress platform or porch was 32" wide and approximately 45" long. This works out to 2.625" wide and 3.75" long. I cut two pieces of Plexiglas and beveled the edge where they met to get the right "bend". The handrails are coat hanger wire. I used the same "mini dowels" to provide the corrugated surface of the porch. The porch was then painted gray.
The final touch was to add the decal with the American flag and "UNITED STATES" to the side beneath the pilot. Here is a shot of Matt exiting to the surface. You can see Stormy through the pilot's window. I'll post some more on the MajorMatt message board (any suggestions?).
The 20th of next month will be the 34th anniversary of the first moon landing. I can still remember watching it live at my grandparents' house in Melbourne, Florida (we had watched the launch from their front yard 3 days before). I had always wanted to build a Lunar Module for Matt and Storm but the tools and techniques were beyond me. A third of a century later (and one year after rediscovering MMM) I'm glad that I took the time (about 5 months) to make it a reality.
You can contact Pat through Facebook about his amazing custom here.
All Mattel images and captions are copyright Mattel and used without permission. All other content, including images and editorial, is Copyright © 1997-2023 John Eaton and/or contributors unless otherwise stated. If there are any comments or objections, please contact John Eaton.
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