David's Shuttlecraft Project

(Current Picture as of 03-26-2006)

On this page I'll try to keep an update of how the project is going. Also I'll provide details of plans of how the rest of it is planned to be built. Not only will this answer questions as to what I have in mind but may open doors for suggestions that might save me time or money, or even improve the construction in some way. I've had lots of really good suggestions over the last several months that I plan on putting to good use.

WHY & GOALS- People often ask me why I'm making it. First of all, I would like to point out that I am not making this because I am a huge fan of Star Trek. Don't get me wrong, I do like Star Trek, but that isn't my motivation. Well, I've always wanted to build something. I have a lot of engineering skills that I never use. At first, I was going to make a jungle-gym or something like that for Hailey. But then I decided I'd build it in the shape of a space ship. The more I thought about it, I figured why not just make a spaceship. I had considered things like rockets and flying-saucer looks, but I eventually decided on the design used in Star Trek for the shuttlecraft. The overall shape seems more well suited to my purposes and easier to design. This will be, when finished, a fun place for me and my daughter (Hailey) to play. It will also be a good way, I hope, to interest her in science rather than dolls and stuff like that. I'll also enjoy playing in it too. In fact, I figure it will be my place to go get away from it all. However, building it has posed several challenges. The two biggest challenges I have right now is finding the time to work on it, and finding ways to build it cheaply. I'm on a tight budget and I'm trying to build it under $2,000. I still believe I can achieve that goal. So people may ask why I don't use this or that, and often the reason is simply cost or time. I don't want to still be working on this 10 years from now, so I can't make it look identical to the ones on TV. Actually, only the outside will look like a startrek shuttlecraft. The inside will have a totally proprietary look, based on my own design.

THE FRAME - I decided to make the frame from 1-inch square steel tubes using a wall thickness of 0.065. I debated what to use for this for months before beginning the project. I chose steel over wood for many reasons. One was authenticity, after all I'm supposed to be making a spaceship. Secondly, wood has a habbit of decaying, warping, etc. Especially considering it will be outside exposed to the elements and I wanted it to be around for a long time, metal was the choice. I wanted to use aluminum. Its light, and doesn't rust. However, it is expensive and hard to weld. So, I went with steel. I eventually chose square tubes because it seemed perfect for being able to screw on and attach walls to both the inside and the outside. I've had some trouble with rust, so I've sanded some of it down and painted it. We've had a lot of rain over the past few months and this has slowed the work down, and added lots of rust. I had to buy a small MIG welder in order to weld these pieces together. I paid $119 for the welder at Harbor Freight and it runs off of 110V AC so it is very convenient.

MOUNT - I'm using regular old 4x4 treated wood posts. They aren't really part of the craft itself, but it needed something to sit on that would keep it level and anchor it to the ground. I currently have 4 posts cemented 2-feet into the ground, but will have probably 6 when the front of the craft is completed. We have strong storms here in Texas so I need something that will be able to hold this thing down when those 80 mph winds come through. The posts have grooves that the steel bars will recess right into, and eventually will be bolted to these posts. --update: In retrospect I would have used steel beams into the concrete and welded it to the frame. Too late now. I am afraid the wood will eventually rot away. However, the "struts" on the front are steel and they are cemented in the ground.

THE SKIN - The outside of the craft will be made of sheet metal and will be screwed down directly to the frame. The pieces of sheet metal will undoubtably have small cracks between them, so I'll fill those with JB-Weld or Bondo and sand before painting.

THE INTERIOR - The Interior will be pure-white and pure flat vinyl material. I do not know the exact word, but they sell this stuff at Home Depot, usually in the area where you would buy tiles and sheets of things that look like tiles to line the walls of your bathroom around the bathtub and shower area. The material I have in mind is pretty thin, but hard to bend. It comes in huge sheets the size of plywood and has a smooth glossy white surface to it.

THE ELECTRICAL SYSTEM - The main electrical system will run at 12 Volts DC. Most systems will run from the 12 volt lead-acid batteries. The batteries will be charged from variety of sources. Mostly from either an electrical cable running from the house and also from solar cells. I plan on having switches to control where power is routed from and to. The lighting is going to be combination of 12V fluorescent lights and ultra-bright LEDs mounted everywhere. At this point the A/C unit will most likely have to be powered from 110V AC from the house.

THE COMPUTER SYSTEM - In order to save power and also the added benefit of having a cheap LCD monitor, the main system will be a laptop. Of course, the laptop will be dissected completely and the wires lengthened between the screen and the motherboard. Besides PC compatibles, I am planning on using a disected Commodore 64. Seemed like the best choice for what I want it to do. I am going to have it monitor various sensory equipment, such as interior and exterior thermometors, status of the doors, electrical voltages, and status of various electrical equipment. It will also be in control of an alarm system and some lighting, and if I can figure out how - the A/C and heater controls.

Ventilation - Main ventilation will come from regular computer case fans. They run off 12 Volts and if you get the right kind (IE: Tornado Fans) they can displace a lot of air. There will probably be several of these and most will be for circulating air from the outside through small air-filters. This way it should never be hotter inside than the ambient temperature outside. At this point I've decided to buy a $79 window-unit air conditioner for the mail cooling system. I haven't decided if I'm going to disect it and put the condensor coils outisde (maybe inside a warp nacell?) or if I'll leave the whole unit intact inside and route external air to circulate across the condensor coils.

03-26-2006 - Haven't been updating the website much, but have been doing work. Check the gallery for newest pictures. I update it more often than anything else. I spent an entire day (about 10 hours) removing a piece of the roof and replacing it with a thick metal plating that I could weld all the way around.. Idea being it will not leak anymore. The hardest part was removing all the different stuff I had tried putting in there to make it water-tight. I had to clean the metal off so I could weld to it.

11-08-2005 - I know I haven't update the website in a while, but I have actually been making progress over the last several months. However, most of the work as been on the interior. So the pictures shown of the outside don't look too much different than many months ago, except that it is entirely enclosed now and there are no missing hull pieces.

03-28-2005 - I have bought all the remaining metal and have assembled most of the nose-cone and various other things. However, I have not update the website to reflect any of this yet.

01-21-2005 - Got some more sheet metal on the sides.

01-15-2005 - Worked on it basically all day. Welded some more bars for the walls and attached 5 pieces of sheet metal, mostly ones on the roof.

01-10-2005 - Yesterday I made a lot of progress. I constructed the frames for the sides of the impulse engines, cut out sheet-metal for them, wleded them to the frame and screwed down the sheet metal. I have almost finished the frame for the rear door.

01-05-2005 - Ordered some more steel tubes and some big sheets of galvanized sheet-metal from Reliance today.. will pick up on Friday.

12-13-2004 - Okay, now it isn't raining anymore, but it is freezing cold outside. Couple that with the fact that it is now pitch black dark by the time I get home from work, this is really putting a damper on my progress. Nevertheless, I have been doing some little something to it every few days. For example, I finished putting all the sheet metal on the bottom and cut holes for the posts. It is now sitting back on the posts in the yard. This is bad, actually, as there is no light out there. But I'm planning to fix that.

11-25-2004 - Its been raining constantly for weeks now, so little has been accomplished. However, I have finished putting the sheet metal on the underside and added a few more small support beams for the floor.

10-24-2004 - The weather hasn't been very cooperative this weekend, but I still managed to get quite a bit done. I started work on the door. I'm almost out of steel, though. So I'll have to order more soon. Also I finally found some spray foam that actually works worth a darn and hardens well enough to be used. It is called "Great Stuff."

10-28-2004 - Put the first strip of sheet metal (Galvanized flashing, actually) on the bottom. Didn't do a really great job either, but I learned how to do it right from now on. That is one of the reasons I wanted to start with the bottom anyway.

10-21-2004 - Got another 4 pieces on, in 2 hours time. 3 on the sides and 1 on the roof.

10-19-2004 - Got 4 more pieces welded on, took about 3 hours. Two of the bars are on the roof and hard to see or notice in the picture. Updated picture on website.

10-17-2004 - Got 4 more pieces welded on today. Doesn't sound like much, but two of them were difficult. Took me about 3 hours to do it. Also added a new picture.

10-15-2004 - Got a lot of work done today, but no picture. I cut 12 pieces of metal and welded 9 of them in place. I finally completed the frame of the floor. I also bought some galvanized flashing (roll of sheet metal) to use for the underneath. So next time I get to work on it, I'll probably see about attaching that.