Yet another studio-scale BATTLESTAR UPDATE 1/12

This is a complete body structure build for a client who wants to handle the surface detailing himself. This is being built using the same patterns and components developed for the Custom Replicas battlestar project.

I started this build a while back and it was delayed by a movie model project. After that, my good friend Richard2001 stepped in to help me move things along.

At the same time, my shop was being remodeled. Richard is a talented craftsman. In addition to being an excellent model builder, he's also an experienced carpenter. I designed custom cabinets and shelves for the shop and he built them. Together, we got them installed so I could at long last get my rather extensive plastic kit collection out of storage. What you see here is only part of what I have -- the rest have spilled over into the garage.

Re: Yet another studio-scale BATTLESTAR

We're making good progress on the build so far. It's very tedious and precise work. Our goal is to achieve a very high degree of precision. That means everything should be square, plumb, and neatly fitted.

To that end, I have developed special jigs and tools to make construction as accurate as possible. This includes an expensive machined aluminum table that is absolutely flat and allows parts to be bolted and clamped directly to the metal surface during assembly.

Right now we have the main body and neck sections permanently attached to the armature. This required a good deal of fiddling and adjustment. In addition, both landing bay cores have been built and fitted to the rest of the ship. After final alignment of the arms is completed, the bay bottom skins can go on and then the end caps.

The coffin and pyramid that go under the main body were built a while back. Before we can fit them, however, a pipe sleeve must first be fabricated. The armature I designed goes together without welding because it uses IPS pipe. This allows the use of very special fittings. But, the outer diameter of this pipe is slightly smaller than the one used on the original Galactica. As a result, this replica armature must be modified where the pipe is exposed under the main body and neck.

Re: Yet another studio-scale BATTLESTAR

I love seeing such clean and consummately professional work in situ.

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Thanks!

The amount of work that goes into this is just staggering. I would be far behind where I am now if I didn't have a capable helper. It’s quite easy to spend a year or more building something like this.

Fitting the bays was quite an experience. I created a design whereby the ship can come apart in sections for easy detailing. This is a huge blessing but it has also made things more complicated to assemble. For example, the armature cross arms have been split into two sections so the outer part that is attached to the bay is removable. This allows the landing bays to come off so they can be detailed more easily.

Unfortunately, we discovered this important design feature makes the bays challenging to test fit. To get the pipes to fit together, there has to be some wiggle room at the joint. This means the bays can sag at the point where the two pipes come together.

Once the cross arm pipes are epoxied in place, none of this will be an issue. Until that happens, however, we can’t fully align the landing bays without adding some temporary supports underneath.

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Your work is just too beautiful, inside and out!!

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I don't think my CAR is this well engineered :lol

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Ha! That means a lot coming from you! You do very nice work yourself my friend.

Once we complete the body structure, I will be making a plug-and-play wire harness before building a large crate in which to ship the model. The client does not want to have to worry about any of the wiring or lighting. I have a background in electrical engineering (and a good bit of experience with wire harness design – see the movie model thread for a great example). So, I will be making it easy for him by pre-installing all the lights and wires in the ship.

If anyone reading this is building a studio-scale battlestar, would you be interested in a complete lighting “kit”? I’ve invested in some special tools to do this kind of work. The components needed just for wiring have become very expensive in recent years thanks to ravenous demand from China. Also, I don’t like to cut corners so I use only quality parts such as gold plated connectors wherever possible. A complete wire harness for this model won’t be cheap. But, you can be assured the quality and reliability will be very high. PM or e-mail me if you’re interested.

Thanks!

Re: Yet another studio-scale BATTLESTAR

Your craftsmanship is staggering enough, but the fact that you're justified in titling a thread 'Yet another studio-scale BATTLESTAR' is simply mind-blowing! :lol

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Amazing work as always Charles!

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Thanks guys!!!

There's still a good way to go to get this beast finished. She's not an easy subject to build, that's for sure.

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Richard and I held another marathon building session last week. The bottom of the ship is now complete. We installed the coffin and pyramid assemblies that Richard had so elegantly built earlier. We then trimmed out the exposed armature pipes. That turned out to be quite a job!

The armature on this replica is made from rugged IPS pipe. It's a bit smaller in diameter than the muffler pipe used on the original. The typical solution is to wrap the exposed pipe in styrene sheet to make up the difference. Because the plastic needs to be rather thin to wrap onto the pipe, this can require many layers to get the proper thickness. I've also learned from experience that thin styrene tends to wrinkle when glued. Thus, keeping everything nice and neat could be a challenge.

This time, we chose a different approach. We crafted "sleeves" out of stainless steel tube that is nearly exactly the same size as what was used on the original studio miniature. This way, all the visible pipes have the correct diameter. Later, when all the parts get glued on, everything will be spaced correctly.

On the original studio model, they wrapped the lower longitudinal (i.e. length-wise) pipe in styrene while the bay cross arms simply had parts stuck on them. This replica also features exposed metal bay cross arms. And, just like the original, we wrapped the lower main pipe in styrene the exact same way it was done at Apogee in 1977/78.

Thanks to the sleeve, the pipe had the correct diameter. Thus, we had to apply only one thin layer of plastic. This was accomplished using epoxy. Since the sleeve could be removed, we were able to apply the plastic wrap with everything off the model. To keep from having any wrinkles or other surface blemishes, we hid the seam where it would not be visible. The result was a very clean finish.

We also made more progress on the engine section. The side boxes were built and the rear "thruster module" was fully assembled. All the cast resin "thruster vaults" were cleaned up, fitted, and installed. They are simply tacked together for now. In order to detail them, it will be necessary to split them apart again. Then, once they are fully detailed, they can be glued together permanently.

Richard also completed work on all six of the arms. These are built as shells that fit over an internal acrylic structure. The bottoms of each one are simply taped in place at the moment so the entire arm can be removed for detailing.

Right now, the entire ship is assembled upside down on the work bench. Next, we will start work on the landing bay interiors and we will also continue working on the engine section until it's done.

I chose not to install the landing bay bottom panels yet for a couple reasons. First, the rear end caps are rather complicated and I want to make sure we have full internal access to get those installed. Also, I decided to make a revision to the internal bay structure. That's because the client will be using circuit boards for the rear bay end caps supplied by Custom Replicas. These have surface-mount LEDs and a number of resistors that are likely to generate some heat.

To make sure the model stays cool, I was able to figure out a way to mount a small computer case fan inside each bay to blow air across the boards. The most important thing is access for future service and repair. Due to the number of components crammed in there, this was quite tricky to engineer. I got it all figured out, however, and the needed parts were laser-cut. I also ordered the fans themselves (quiet models with a stated noise output of only 12 dB each) along with some anti-vibration mounts like the ones we're using for the engine fans. These will keep the bay fans from sending vibrations into the structure over time. All those items should be here sometime this week.

Bottom line: Progress continues, but there is plenty more to accomplish. As always, no matter how much work you put into a project like this, there's always still more left to do. Even so, we are very excited to see it so close to being completed.

More soon. . .

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Wow....so impressive !

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You're crazy Charles. Really ! But it's so beautiful !
You're the Galactica king and you make it look so easy !

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LOL That means a lot coming from you! Thanks!!

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Builds like this just blow my mind, I will be following this thread.

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That's just incredible!

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Awesome work you're doing guys

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It's time for a long-overdue update!

We got a lot done in March. Unfortunately, I had the flu for much of April. Then, in May I got run over by a car! Thankfully, I was not badly injured. But, it has taken some time to recover.

While all this was going on, we had a few more week-long marathon building sessions. The most recent one was just last week. We made every effort to completely finish this beast. Of course, she did her best to fight us every step of the way. LOL

The engine section is now completed and ready for detailing. All that’s left to do is glue in the “waist” with the custom-made air intake assembly. That is built and fitted and ready for permanent installation.

Re: Yet another studio-scale BATTLESTAR UPDATE 7/16

The rest of the body of the ship is pretty much done as well. We’ve spent a great deal of time working on the landing bays. The rear end caps have turned out to be a project within a project. I think we've put almost as much effort into building those as we have the rest of the ship (minus the head section).

The original plan was to use the cast resin parts I designed for Custom Replicas. These form a finished shell, ready to detail, with an interior framework made of plexiglass. Unfortunately, the resin parts warped. While this could be fixed, they also shrank a bit. This shrinkage was not uniform. As a result, in terms of angles and dimensions they no longer fit the bays.

The client asked that we discard the resin parts and build all four landing bay end caps from scratch. That has turned into a major undertaking. Because this model uses custom made printed circuit boards (PCBs) for the sequenced landing lights, we were forced to use the lower resin shells for the rear end caps. These were specifically designed to fit the circuit boards and allow then to slide out for servicing.

The rest of the end caps were then carefully built from scratch around the existing lower resin parts. At the same time, the resin parts had to be altered to precisely fit the surrounding bay structure.

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Inside the rear of each bay is a cooling fan, a custom printed circuit board, a complete miniature interior “set” to match the one on the original studio model, and a back-lit module containing a copy of the matte painting that was used on the original studio miniature. All this is connected via a plug-and-play wire harness.

It is ironic that, on a model this large, we were forced to cram so many components into such a small space. In many ways, this was like what we went through last summer working on the C movie model.

Fortunately, both rear end caps are now built, the interiors are finished, and all the landing bay wiring is done. Before finishing our last work session, we connected both landing bays for a lighting test. After all this work, it was quite a moment when I plugged it in and turned on the power switch. They worked perfectly!

I need to shoot some video to show how cool it really looks. The pictures just don’t do it justice. It’s also neat how the fans are so quiet you can barely hear them. If you place your hand over the bay opening, you can feel a gentle breeze.

The next step is to continue wiring the rest of the ship. I spent more than a month working on the wiring diagrams and they are ready to go.

This replica of the Galactica was always meant to be a museum-quality display model. It was never intended for filming. The client, however, is a professional cinematographer and he wants to film the finished miniature. As a result, extra steps will be taken to ensure all the wiring is compatible with that intended purpose. As with the C movie model, all the lighting will accomplished using LEDs and no pulse-width modulation (PWM) will be used for dimming of any lights that I install.

Since this model is very time consuming and expensive to build, no time or expense will be spared with the electronics. I will also be installing a microcontroller and temperature sensors. The computer will monitor internal temperatures along with the operation of all four cooling fans. If a fan quits, or if the temperature inside the model gets too warm, the lights will shut off automatically.

In terms of the structure, we also need to build the new front end caps. After that, all that will remain will be the mount covers for the landing bay side mounts. All the parts we need are here ready to go. It's just a matter of getting it all done. . .

More soon!

Re: Yet another studio-scale BATTLESTAR UPDATE 7/16

You guys are a regular Galactica factory! Well done.