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My primary source material
was Space Ghost And The Sorceress of Cyba-3, a Big Little Book published by Whitman in the late 1960's. I borrowed it from a friend and scanned all of the pictures of the Phantom Cruiser in the book, and was able to find a shot of Space Ghost charging out of the door located on the starboard side of the ship just aft of the control room/cockpit, and I made my measurements and scale judgments based on that door.
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I started with a standard 12"x 3&7/8" Styrofoam cone, and carved and sanded it down to the spindle shape that you
see for the hull. This was then completely covered with
spackle, and repeatedly sanded and re-coated until a very sleek and smooth shape was left. I experimented with various thicknesses of sheet styrene for the wings, and was unsatisfied--then Spike, one of my cat-model assistants, knocked over one of the empty bird-seed cans in my basement work area. As I picked it up, I saw that the curve of the side of the can was virtually perfect for this wing!
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I traced out the shape of the wing onto the side of the can, and went after it with the jig saw. After rough sanding the
edges smooth, I used a propane torch to bend the
forward and tail sections of the wing piece gently downward (to conform to the spindle-shaped hull), and the wing tip edges upward. After several coats of primer/ sand/ primer/ sand, I had a very nice finish.
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Sanding was done in the following pattern: 300 grit, 800 grit, 1000 grit, 1500 grit, 2000 grit. These sanding papers are
available at Walmart, in the automotive section, and used carefully, produce a very smooth surface.
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I used Weldbond (a white glue) to join the wing to the hull. After that completely dried, I applied spackle--lots of
spackle. When there was a smooth contour joining the wing and the hull, I let that dry, and then sanded it smooth.
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I masked off the lower hull, and sprayed the upper portion with Testors Gloss Yellow. After it dried, I masked it off, and
painted the lower portion of the ship with Plasti-Kote
Enamel OSHA Safety Orange. The cabin door, the canopy over the cockpit, and a small patch at the rear tip of the ship were all painted Blue-Black, using Chessex Dragon metal Metallic waterbase paint.
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The Space Ghost logo was drawn up on Superpaint 2.0, and the area outside of the Ghost silhouette was painted with Citadel
Colour Ruby Red. When that dried, I trimmed it to shape (I trimmed off the point on top), and carefully glued to the top center of the wing.
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I am pretty happy with the final results; I entered it into a local model show and while I
didn't place, I saw and heard many, many people walk by and say: "Cool! That's Space Ghost!" Good enough for me!
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