A few notes that were saved from some messages posted about the NARAM shuttleassembly.-------------- Started on the Orbiter mid-fuselage, getting it to the frame-upstage including its forward and rear bulkheads. Some notes are included in theJpeg that's attached. Main thing to add to the orbiter midfuselage is the 1/16"balsa side pieces, that will go up to the bay door hingeline. Once those arethere then it's time to add the nose section and start on the bay doors. The baydoors will be a 1-piece assembly similar to the other orbiters, except thoseother orbiters only ran 3/4 of the bay length and these doors will runfull-length. The doors will be 1/16" balsa curved across 5 bulkheadsThe mid-fuselage is at 18 grams now, nose is 22 grams, rudder assembly 11 grams.It's been over 15 years since I made the boilerplate 1/72 orbiter so I don'tknow how the masses are comparing to the old one. I just know the old one wasaround 195 grams before I upgraded it for staging after NARAM and its now around212 grams glide mass. This one will not be staged, and will have a little bitlighter radio gear. But till have various details the old one didn't have, notjust the upgraded rudder but OMS pods and main engines, plus of course a finishwhich will be iron-on Towerkote for the balsa part of the orbiter and paint forthe plastic parts.------------------Some scans showing the rudder, orbiter nose, and mold for the engine base regionof the orbiter.The rudder (OK, Òvertical tailÓ)  pic shows two scans, one with movable rudderattached, and one with the movable rudder and other parts separated. The realshuttle has the rudder done this way, a separate top and bottom portionapparently for an expansion joint (not to be confused with the ÒSplitÓ aspect ofboth rudders whereby they open outwards in left and right halvesbutterfly-wing-like to act as a speedbrake). I found out long ago that if an R/Cmodel of the orbiter had the full-height rudder to move, then under low angle ofattack flight the rudder acted like a vertical aileron, left rudder caused rightroll, not good! So, thatÕs why just the lower part moves on the model.In the pic at right showing the separate pieces, you see the movable rudder hasa move extended nose than seen in the first pic, it is rounded and nestlesinside the main rudder, much like the real thing. Below and slightly right ofthe movable rudder is a cream colored tube. To the right of the movable rudderis a sort of green-yellow rod which is a length of Sullivan Gold ÔN rod pushrod.It is not used as a pushrod, it is used as a torque tube, due to the 8-pointsplined cross section it has. Below it is a cream colored tube that is a castAlumilite tube that used a piece of Sullivan pushrod (with a lot of moldrelease) as a core mandrel, so this cast tube would work as a slip-on externalcollar over the gold ÔN rod torque tube. The movable rudder also has one ofthose cast collars inside of it. So the assembly process is to put the movablerudder into place, and slide the Gold ÔN Rod torque tube up inside to engage themovable rudder. This will allow painting and decaling the rudder and movablerudder without the hassles of having to mask them of paint getting into some badplaces.The angled pieces of balsa will plug into an assembly in the orbiter tail, sothe whole rudder is removable for transport (Been doing that kind of thing onthe R/C boosted orbiters since day one). The cast Alumilite collar will bemounted to a torque rod assembly inside of the orbiterÕs aft compartment so thatwhen the rudder assembly is plugged in, it also engages that cast collar.  Iused that method on the current boilerplate when it was upgraded in late 1994.The Orbiter nose is made up of .03Ó plastic vac-formed over molds from theMonogram orbiter kit. The left and right nose pieces of the kit were carefullyrazor sawed off, along the plane of the forward bay door joint. To avoiddamage/warpage of the kit parts from the heat of vac-forming, they were filledsolid with a combination of scrap balsa and out-of-date Alumilite. The halveswere joined together by using a piece of 3/16Ó balsa cut to the exact profile,is it acts as both a joiner and structural reinforcement. Also built inside ofthat 3/16Ó piece is a launch lug with a spring assembly, located at the ET nosestrut attach point. The ET nose strut has a 1/2Ó rod that protrudes inside, sothe spring assembly helps to push the orbiter nose up (or ET nose down) to helpwith separation when the orbiter sep servo unlatches the orbiter from the ET.To the right is a view of the aft end of the nose assembly. It shows the 3/16Ócenter piece and also two narrow slots on the left and right sides that showsome balsa that was glued to the inner side walls of the vac-formed nose halves.The balsa is to reinforce the assembly, especially as the 90 degree turn of theplastic from the side to the rear is not particularly strong thing forvac-formed parts. Some balsa was also added along the lower inside was well forsimilar reasons.Last pic is a view of a mold that I hope will vac-form well. ItÕs the enginecover domes for the orbiter main engines. I used clay to dam up around one ofthe domes in the kit and make an RTV mold, then cast 3 Alumilite copies. Markedout where to put them on some 1/32Ó plywood and glued the plywood to some scrapbalsa in two layers at 90 degrees for stiffness. Drilled a bunch of little holesto hopefully make them all form well, and CAÕed the Alumilite dome pieces inplace. If it works as hoped then itÕll produce a .015Ó thick part that will betrimmed to the exact cross section needed, painted black, and attach among someof the last things done to the orbiter