1/83ish "TWEgg" Moonliner  

by Matt Jacobson

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Silly Week 2006

 

The TWA Moonliner has always been one of my favorite rocket designs. I can still remember seeing the original at Disneyland when I was a kid. I have built several variations on this model, using the Glencoe reissue as a starting point for various kitbashes.

 When I found out the theme of a science-fiction modeling contest being held at another site I frequent (www.starshipmodeler.com) was going to be "Legs", it seemed only natural to build one of these beautiful ships for the contest. While kicking around ideas for how I was going to build the kit, I was suddenly struck with an inspiration. A few weeks earlier, I found a L'Eggs egg at my local thrift store for a quarter. (The nylons inside make great paint strainers for airbrushing, BTW.) I decided to build an eggplane variant of the Moonliner- a "TWEgg" Moonliner, as it were. Thus, I'd be able to hit the theme of the contest threefold- a spaceship with legs, made out of a "L'Eggs" egg, based on a design that is over fifty years old- definitely a design with "legs".

Assembly was straightforward, if a bit tedious. I cut the nose and cockpit off of a Moonliner model I had lying around and glued that to the end of a small plastic Easter Egg. This assembly was then epoxied to the narrow end of the L'Eggs egg. Meanwhile, I carefully cut three slots in the broad end of the L'Eggs egg with a razor saw. (You can see the tape layout for the cuts in the picture of raw materials for this project.)

The L'Eggs egg was made of an extremely brittle plastic, so after cutting the slots it needed some support and bracing from the inside. I glued styrene strips immediately inside the slots, backed the slots with styrene sheet (to duplicate the landing gear slots on the original), then backed the styrene up with Aves putty.

While that dried, I used Aves putty and a styrene template to fair in the gap between the nose and the top of the L'Eggs egg. I waited for that to dry, filed it into rough shape, then glued the two halves together.

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Did you know that a L'Eggs egg is not a perfect egg shape? I do, NOW. After removing the six "nubs" around the circumference, I applied more Aves putty to the various depressions and ridges around the equator of the egg, then sanded, then sprayed the egg with sandable primer (after masking the cockpit windows.) I repeated this process 3 or 4 times, each time getting closer to the final, seamless shape I was looking for. (An amusing aside: My wife, upon seeing me sanding away at the legless shape of the "TWEgg" Moonliner body, asked me "Why are you making a model sperm?")

I painted the body with Testors gloss white, then went in with 1500# sandpaper and smoothed the paintjob even further. The landing leg slots were masked and shot with silver paint. (I wanted this to be a clean, 1950's machine- no heavy weathering here.) An exhaust from an AMT/Ertl Star Wars Podracer model was trimmed, painted with titanium metalizer, sludge-washed, and epoxied into place.

The landing legs were shortened from the original legs, then new landing pad "cups" were shaped out of Aves putty packed into the now-hollow end. The landing legs were also primed and painted with gloss white, and sanded to a smooth finish. The landing gear actuators were shortened accordingly, and spray-painted silver along with the landing gear.

I'd hoped I could use almost all of the original Glencoe-issue decals, except for the new, wider-diameter stripes on the egg surface. I laid down several pieces of Tamiya masking tape over the area in question, and roughed in the approximate arc of the new stripes. I then carefully peeled the tape off, applied the tape to a thin piece of styrene, and created a template for the two new fuselage stripes (which I would need to repeat three times each.) I sprayed a piece of clear decal paper with Testors Italian Red, followed with a coat of Dullcote, then used the template to cut out the six decals that I needed.

Luckily, I made more Italian Red decal paper than I needed. When I went to use the kit decals, the first one I tried to apply (of course, the one with the most intricate details and curves) shattered into a million pieces! I tried not to panic, but realized that what I needed to do was to clearcoat the rest of the decals ASAP. Never try to do something that you've never done before at 3 A.M., two days before the contest deadline- the can of clear I used was obviously the wrong stuff, as it caused the rest of the decals to melt into a surrealistic mess.

I DID have another set of Glencoe-issue decals, but they were a funky dark brick red that didn't match the decals already on the body. I ended up Xeroxing those decals, and using the Xeroxes as templates to cut new decals from the Italian Red decal sheet. I found that I was able to reproduce in acceptable detail everything except the "TWA" logo- I ended up running out of paper before I got a set I liked. Luckily, the box art for the Glencoe kit doesn't show any markings other than the stripes, so I'm covered there at least.

After all of the decals had set, I glued the landing gear into the landing legs, and epoxied the landing legs to the main body. (A small pin takes most of the weight from the body into each leg- the main body is relatively heavy, with its creamy Aves filling.) A few touch-ups here and there, and she's ready to go!

Now, of course, the question is: do I make this into a garage kit?

Matt

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Photos and text © by Matt Jacobson