For the past year or so I've used several AMT/Ertl Moonscope kits as donors for other modeling projects, but have never built an actual Moonscope. I rounded up the parts I had left and decided to build one. I tried to stay as close to box-stock as possible, but did make a few modifications to hopefully enhance its realism.

I thought the Moonscope might actually be a lunar utility vehicle that would be called upon to do some pushing and pulling from time-to-time, as well as transporting astronauts, so I added a trailer hitch to the frame and a push-bar to the front. The hitch is a spares box item and the push-bar is made from nested styrene tubes.

The Moonscope has interesting motor and frame detail that is hidden when the interior bucket is installed, so I cut the bucket in half and discarded the rear portion to expose the motor and batteries. Some wiring was added to connect the batteries to the motor. To mount the seat I added a crossbar to the frame that surrounds the motor. As you can see, the vehicle was converted to a one-seater in order to accommodate those bulky moonsuits, and a stock seat was cut down to fit the astronaut's backpack. The kit's pistol-grip steering wheel was replaced with a circular one, an internal rollbar was added behind the seat, and a pressure-tank was attached to the rear wall - all from the spares box.

It seems like nearly half the kit's parts are chromed, so they were all dunked in Castrol SuperClean to remove the plating. The body exterior was base coated with Krylon flat-black and then fogged with Krylon gold. The interior is painted gray. The wheels, and several previously chromed parts, were also base coated with flat-black, and then fogged with Krylon chrome.

The trailer is an item from the AMT/Ertl Fireball 500 kit. It's a simple one-piece structure and all I did was modify the suspension to accept two pairs of Moonscope wheels and tires. It's also base coated with flat-black with the top fogged with gold and the bottom with chrome.

Image: Cockpit

Image: Trailer