Space Shuttle Atlantis by Metal Earth

[coptermech]

Picked this up at a craft store today. These photo etched metal models are being seen more and more in stores. While in no way accurate, it is a fun little distraction and I may get more. They have a Mustang, but I cant seem to find those right now. Assembly is easy. It's all tabs and slots. The hardest part is rolling the flat pieces into tube shapes.



One sheet of photo etched metal. Quite heavy for its size.





The body shaped and formed.







Some nice etched details

[BlohmWolf]

I've not seen a full metal kit. Looks interesting.

[JohnRatzenberger]

Not seen one of those, builds up nicely, and you have done a very good job with it. You are obviously more patient at rolling PE than I am

[mattbacon]

Apologies if I'm teaching my grandmother, here...

You'll probably find that if you heat the part you're rolling to red heat over a gas flame and let it cool naturally, it becomes much softer and more flexible. Then, when you've rolled it, heat it up again and drop it straight into cold water, and it'll harden again. You won't need to do it for all the parts, but it does make the curved ones much more tractable. I'd experiment first with a bit of spare fret, just to check that it has the expected effect on the particular material of these kits, but it works like a charm on most of the etched metal I've dealt with...

bestest,
M.

[IvanV22]

Wow , I have never seen or heard about all metal kits before…..

[JamesPerrin]

Very interesting. Though I'll be the pendant and point out it's laser cut not photo-etched

[AndrewR]

Very interesting. Though I'll be the pendant and point out it's laser cut not photo-etched

I think you mean pedant James. if you're a pendant you are probably swinging from a chain

[coptermech]

True James, it is laser cut. My mistake.

And good advice on bending fret Matt. But the metal in these kits is already super soft and quite a bit of detail etched into the parts. The only real issue with forming any of the curved parts is finding something with the appropriate radius to bend it around.