# Space Station One Refit



## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

I enjoyed building my TOS era Combat Cargo Ship so much that I wanted to do another, more ambitious scratch build project. Thinking about it, I came up with the following list of things I wanted to incorporate into my next project:



Scratch build
An engineering challenge
Designed on paper first (well, most of it at least)
Brand new design or very loosely affiliated so I can be creative
Chance to try out some things I've never done before (and practice for the 1:350 TOS _Enterprise_)
Lighted (combination of home grown circuits and specialty boards e.g. Federation Flasher)
A/C adaptor powered instead of battery powered
Power plug connection btw mounting rod and model
A design that I can leave lit for long periods of time
Incorporate magnets
Custom decals
Paneled (3D, not just painted)
Include removable panel(s)
"large" scale (perhaps N scale so can include figures)

With those ideas in mind, I started looking around for a subject that might be suitable. Something that I have wanted to build for years shortly came to mind: _Space Station One_ from the Gold Key comic "Space Family Robinson".










Building the odd "H" shaped craft exactly as depicted in the comic, however, would restrict me more than I liked and likely wouldn't allow me to incorporate all the features I have listed above. That's when the idea hit me..._Space Station One_, which debuted in 1962, is very 
"Star Trek" TOS like in that it has smooth skin with rounded corners. What if I made a "refit" version of the craft, similar to the refit of the _Enterprise_ that was done for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"? Same basic shape, but modernized and with a lot more detail to the model's "skin".

I liked that idea and, after a weekend of scratching out plans, I decided to tackle the project. Since the ship includes a couple of atriums on the top of each tower, I decided to build the ship in N scale (1:160) so I could use readily available foliage and figures. This left me with a ship that would be about 12" wide, 9.75" long, and over 7" tall.


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

_Space Station One_ was drawn remarkably consistent throughout the run of the comic, but there were some variations from time to time. Sometimes the towers were drawn as rectangles, for instance, but other times were drawn wider at the top than the bottom. Often, they were drawn slightly canted inwards, but--again--not always. The size of the craft varied as well, looking small when the crew were shown inside the atrium, and looking huge when the shuttle (or spacemobile as it was called) was shown being launched from the hangar in one of the towers. I decided on some basic dimensions for the ship based on my observations and the dimensions of 100' x 70' x 30' for the towers that I found on a fan website. When I used these dimensions with an N scale figure, things looked right so I extrapolated from there.










Instead of rounded towers, I designed ones with beveled corners. I also changed the design of the atriums slightly as a result, giving them end caps. One change I decided on right away was to lose the huge dome and telescope mounted on the main deck of the ship. There are no apparent engines on the thing, so I added some, and I also added navigation and anti-collision lighting.

With my drawings finished I started cutting styrene, going with .040 for the main structural elements.


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## Xenodyssey (Aug 27, 2008)

Great Idea! Are you going to do a spacemobile hangar and a pair of spacemobiles as well?

I've got to admit it won't be the same without the dome and telescope.

I loved the comic as well (and have the new Volume 1 collection on order). 

Please keep putting up photos of your progress. My only model of the station was done in lego although I've thought of doing one before myself.


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

The transparent domes for the tower atriums were one of the things I wanted to mock up before I finalized the design of the towers. I spent about half a day playing around with various ways to get the curve I wanted, and the support rib going around that curve. During this phase I also designed the door that would give entry to the atrium and the lighting system. Finally, I created a tower frame unit that I would duplicate and use to glue the tower's skin to.










I cut out the upper and lower main decks and two interior tower faces. I added a second attachment slot to the tower face shown in the previous post. The picture below shows these elements slapped together. They form the basic structural elements of the ship.


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

For those of you unfamiliar with the Space Family Robinson comic, it debuted in 1962 and predated the "Lost in Space" series. The similarities between the concepts of the comic and the TV series (a family named Robinson lost in space) have led many to believe that one was a rip-off of the other, but this is not so. It is simply a good example of the fact that ideas are not unique.

A total of 59 issues were published. In 1966 the "Lost in Space" title was added to the cover. Later, the title became "Space Family Robinson Lost in Space on Space Station One". Yeah, a mouthful.

The crew of _Space Station One_ was a family of four: Scientist father Craig Robinson, scientist mother June, and a teenage boy, Tim, and his sister, Tam.

The entire series is being reprinted in hardcover form. The first collection is set to be released this week.


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

This is SO cool. I used to love that comic and always had a hard time understanding why I couldn't find an issue- of course this is from the days before comic book shops, I got mine from the spinner rack at the drug store, and I had zero understanding of how newsstand distribution worked. I understand now but that doesn't help with missing issues and lost time in my youth 

I thought there was some really good, solid design work in that comic. I'm excited to see how you progress!


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## Lloyd Collins (Sep 25, 2004)

Fantastic choice for a scratch build! I remember the comics, and I think I might still have an issue, somewhere.


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## Joe Brown (Nov 16, 1999)

Awesome!:thumbsup:

I've got a treasured copy of issue 56 -- shape changing alien prisoners take over the station! 

My (nebulous) plans for a scratch of the station were to be roughly 1/144, with an related build of one of the spacemobiles in 1/32-ish scale to have the family in there.

It's my eternal problem - cool ideas are easy - getting them built and completed, not so easy. :drunk:


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## portland182 (Jul 19, 2003)

I love Space Station One!
I have often thought about scratch building one, The only thing holding me back is a complete lack of skill (oh and no time).
Great work so far.
I will follow this thread with interest!

Jim


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## kenlee (Feb 11, 2010)

I have collected every issue of that comic, it is one of my favorites. I remember my cousin having an issue of it in the 1960's and could not understand why it didn't have the Robot or the Jupiter 2 in it (I was only 7 at the time). I rediscovered the comic in 1973 at the local drug store and I got every issue that came out from then until 1979 when they quit carrying comics. 
I attempted to build the Space Station when I was a teenager, but finally gave up when I couldn't find the right size domes to cut up and use for the tower corners. I look forward to seeing more of your build.


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

In the comic, the top of each tower is drawn as a hydroponic garden (see the excerpt from the comic in post #2 of this thread for an example). This makes absolutely no sense to me (unless the station is parked near a star) so, in my refit, one of these will be a park with trees and grass where the crew can commune with nature. The other will be a grass field which can be used for playing games. Sure, it isn't as big as a football or baseball field, but I'm sure that the crew could invent some games to make use of the limited space imaginatively.










The layout show above is simply to illustrate where the atrium will lie on that deck. I intend to add a path, some rocks, and maybe a couple of bushes in addition to the trees. The atrium is approximately two decks tall.

Access to the two atriums is by elevator. Either end of the atriums will have an elevator.




























On either end of the atrium "bubble" will be a section of hull that will house the elevator shaft, the light source for the atrium, wiring, and a blinking red or green navigation light which will be placed on top and powered by a Federation Flasher board.


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## JGG1701 (Nov 9, 2004)

*Too cool Fozzie!* :thumbsup:
-Jim


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

I finished up the first atrium last night. The grass was cut from a larger sheet. The path was created by scraping the "grass" from the paper and then painting the path "earth brown". The trees and benches are N scale scenery pieces. The boulder is leftover talus from my The Sad Fate of Ensign Wainright diorama. The benches and sitting people are from a packet of unpainted, sitting N scale figures.



















The standing, waving figure is from a set of "waving" N scale figures. I decided that the uniforms for this crew were going to be red, so I repainted his shirt to match the red I painted the sitting figures. I left his pants tan just for a little variety. The man on the bench is in a completely red jumpsuit.

I will add another figure standing in the elevator, but I have to be careful I don't use up all my "crew" as I figure this ship only has a complement of about 12 people and I want to put some behind windows in other parts of the build.

This morning I added the canopy. I had practice built this once, so I pretty much had the technique down pat. I had a bit of a bad moment because I couldn't find the measurement I had written down as to exactly how big the sheet had to be to get the bend I wanted, but I was able to re-figure it easily enough (it's 4" plus gluing surface area).










Then it was a simple matter to add the support ribs.










I am debating whether or not to build the rest of this tower, or start on the other atrium. I may do the tower just so I can catch any potential problems with this design prior to my building out the next atrium. BTW, the end panels are not glued into place. They are just there to show where they will go. They will need to be painted before they are secured in place.

So what do you guys think?

P.S. And I am proud that I REMEMBERED to clean the inside of the canopy surface of finger prints BEFORE bending it over and gluing it into place!


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## kenlee (Feb 11, 2010)

Fozzie said:


> I finished up the first atrium last night. The grass was cut from a larger sheet. The path was created by scraping the "grass" from the paper and then painting the path "earth brown". The trees and benches are N scale scenery pieces. The boulder is leftover talus from my The Sad Fate of Ensign Wainright diorama. The benches and sitting people are from a packet of unpainted, sitting N scale figures.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think that I like where this is going.


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

Xenodyssey said:


> Great Idea! Are you going to do a spacemobile hangar and a pair of spacemobiles as well?


I intended to include a hangar, but the hanger as depicted in the comic simply isn't possible because it is sooooooooo out of scale. When they show the spacemobiles leaving the station all of the sudden the station looks gigantic compared to when they show it with the crew in the dome or the atrium. At N scale, the spacemobile is somewhere btw 2" & 2 1/4" long, but each tower is only 7.5" tall, 5.5" wide, and 2.5" thick. It just doesn't work in the real world. I CAN fit a hangar in, but it will be much bigger than the comic depicts.

I'm still thinking about this one.


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

Hm, yeah, the 'Yamato problem'. That is, you've got all this carefully planned, designed and scaled equipment but when you put it all together, it just can't work the way it's shown.

Seems there's two solutions. Just build the spacemobiles in scale and don't worry about the hanger deck (the solution most often picked with Space Battleship Yamato fans) or make a serious change in the arrangement. 

for example, conformal slots in the underside of the flat hull ala the Enterprise-D.

Third and most uncomfortable idea is rethink the scale, going by the 'proven fact' of the spacemobiles and hanger needs. I think 1/144 gets those shuttles inside the ship as shown in the comic. 

Or, again, don't worry about it.


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## flyingfrets (Oct 19, 2001)

I had quite a few of the "Space Family Robinson" comics when I was a kid, but I hadn't thought about it in *years*. Man does *this* bring back some memories! Great idea and looks mighty fine too! Be looking forward to more...


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## jbond (Aug 29, 2002)

I always loved these designs as a kid--cool to see them being realized, sort of! Great work so far...


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## Xenodyssey (Aug 27, 2008)

I can see your problem. A common one for vehicles in comics (and TV).

Well, it's going to be interesting to see you solution. Like what you've done so far.



Fozzie said:


> I intended to include a hangar, but the hanger as depicted in the comic simply isn't possible because it is sooooooooo out of scale. When they show the spacemobiles leaving the station all of the sudden the station looks gigantic compared to when they show it with the crew in the dome or the atrium. At N scale, the spacemobile is somewhere btw 2" & 2 1/4" long, but each tower is only 7.5" tall, 5.5" wide, and 2.5" thick. It just doesn't work in the real world. I CAN fit a hangar in, but it will be much bigger than the comic depicts.
> 
> I'm still thinking about this one.


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## SJF (Dec 3, 1999)

You could look at this 'out of scale problem' as your chance to correct an oversight in the original comic book design. Regardless of how you work this out, you've done a superb job on it so far. This makes me want to scratch-build something. 

Sean


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/509/SS1_Refit_3.JPG 

One of my stated goals was that I wanted a "quick disconnect" of the model from its stand via a power plug connection between the mounting rod and model--something I did not do on my 1:350 _Enterprise _refit which I regret to this day.

To that end, I came up with the solution illustrated in the pictures below. The attachment point for the stand's rod will be a circular resin piece with a hole in the center. This will be secured to the belly of the model. On the inside of the model will be a size M coaxial power jack to which all the lighting will be wired. Inserted into the end of the mounting rod will be a size M DC power plug.

The first photo shows the three (3) parts. The second shows how they will fit together to give the model a quick disconnect capability.



















I make no claim that this is an original idea. Others have done it before me and far better, I'm sure!


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

For those of you not familiar with the comic, you may be a little confused that this craft is called "Space Station One" when it seems to be, for all intents and purposes, a spaceship. Well, I agree with you! It was shown moving under its own power, traveling from star system to star system (via magnetic drive), and even landing on planets (once underwater!). So, despite its name, it really is a spaceship.

My back story for this model is that, after the loss of "Space Station One" (in issue #2), a second, and then a third ship was built. The model I am building is going to be this third one in the series. It has obvious roots to the original, but is more advanced (hence the "refit" tag) and has a crew of roughly a dozen who are not a "space family".

For an explanation of why I'm not just making a model of the original, see post #1 which explains what I'm trying to accomplish with this build.


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

These aren't finished pieces, but works-in-progress. I have been working on building one of the towers, in particular, the inner and outside surfaces.

While test fitting the inner surface, which will face and rise above the main deck, I got the idea to include three "spotlights" which will shine down onto the deck illuminating it. I drilled three holes where the spotlights will go and will mount LEDs there each angled appropriately. I also drilled a large hole between the two deck slots which I will use to run wiring into the tower. I also added a little paneling detail, but there is more of that to come.










The outer surface of the tower includes a circular airlock and more paneling. Again, I'm not finished detailing this section, but here's what it looks like so far.


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## Xenodyssey (Aug 27, 2008)

This is bringing me back memories of when I built a scratch model of the Hooded Swan many years ago. Wish I could remember where it is now...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/5631570879/

It was a really nice design to build, lots of flat surfaces.

Latest work on SS1 looks good. The panelling should add needed detail to the exterior.


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## Rotwang (May 25, 2011)

While the cover art is by McKie, it sure looks like a Foss design.


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

The Federation Flasher Board 2X/1000 that I ordered from Don's Light & Magic came in today (the plug is free, Don--you deserve it)! I'd love to dive right in and start assembling it, but I'm going to leave it for the weekend when I have more time and won't be tempted to rush it.

This is the revised, smaller version of the FFB. It is the same circuit as the original, but with a smaller footprint to fit in smaller models. I used the original FFB in my 1:350 _Enterprise _refit. I still remembered being amazed that it worked first try after I assembled it since I had never soldered anything like that together in my life.

The board, for the 2 or 3 of you out there who've never heard of it, provides 4 blinking circuits and 4 strobing circuits for navigation and anti-collision lights for your model. It comes with two sets of instructions, one for general use, and one specifically for wiring up an _Enterprise _model (of pretty much any size). Somewhat confusingly, one set of instructions says you can use 6v-9v to power the board while the other says 4.5v to 6v. Since I'm using 6v, though, I figure I'm covered either way.) 

I love the FFB. This board will really bring your model to life! I will mount the board inside the main deck of the model. The blinking nav lights will be on the towers.


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

I test fitted a few of the major structural components and got the shot below. Nothing is actually glued together. The surface of the main deck shown is the top.


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## kenlee (Feb 11, 2010)

Fozzie said:


> I test fitted a few of the major structural components and got the shot below. Nothing is actually glued together. The surface of the main deck shown is the top.


I like what I see, great work so far.


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

I finished paneling work on one of the outside tower surfaces and both of the inside tower surfaces. I glued a solid bottom plate to each of the inner tower surfaces so that, when mated with the upper plate of the main deck, I would have a structure that could be stood up and support itself. This was necessary so that I could install the three (3) spotlight LEDs into each of the inner tower surfaces and angle them so they would shine just where I wanted them to on the main deck.










I intend to have a large "3" decaled onto the outer tower surface and it occurred to me that this might be a great place to use the "Raytheon Effect" technique to light it up. I wasn't sure how it would work with .040 plastic, but tests were promising so I taped off the area I wanted to light up before I light-blocked the back of the tower wall with a coat of Krylon black. As the test photos below show, it looks pretty good!



















The outer wall and the atrium aren't glued in yet. They are just "sitting there" for this test. There is no wiring harness yet either (which is why I can't show you the spotlights in operation), but I was able to use a simple 3v battery hookup to test the spotlights individually and the "Raytheon Effect" lighting shown above.

This tower will need a light on either end of the atrium, a light in the elevator, blinking navigation lights (2x), and a not-yet-decided-upon light effect in the boot of the tower (not yet constructed).


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

Got a bit of the wiring harness in place, so here's a shot of the spotlights illuminating the top of the main deck. Exactly the effect I was going for.  Should look really neat when the other set on the second tower is in place.


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

A busy week at work has kept me away from the model for several days, but I did get a little bit of work done tonight.

I masked off the edges of the atrium glass and installed the two end pieces. These had to be painted and decaled ahead of time. Each of them includes a doorway, controls (decals), and a large lens lit from behind.










The tiny circular decal on the door is a circle with a number in it. The four elevator doors will be numbered 1-4. As tiny as it is, it actually is readable (if you've got good eyes).

The elevator door on the other side is open and the elevator car (which I showed in earlier photos) is visible. You can see it on the left in the photo below.

For the light test shown below I temporarily hooked up LEDs and inserted them into the lens on each side. One is powered by 2 AA batteries and the other by a 3v adaptor (which is why one is brighter than the other). I was very pleased with the results.


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## Xenodyssey (Aug 27, 2008)

It's going to be very interesting when the station is complete and lit. Great stuff so far.


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## SJF (Dec 3, 1999)

This is looking great!

Sean


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

Thanks, everyone. This is turning out to be a tougher build than I expected. The encouragement helps!


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## JGG1701 (Nov 9, 2004)

Fozzie said:


> This is turning out to be a tougher build than I expected.


Hey, that's part of of what model building is all about.:thumbsup:
-Jim


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## Lloyd Collins (Sep 25, 2004)

Never give up, never surrender! You can do it, or so I have seen so far.


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