DeBoers Enterprise x 3 - WIP

THIS will be awesome to watch!

PHArchivist said:

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THIS will be awesome to watch!

Totally agree with you there....can't wait to see more

My update for this month is a little late, but I've been working on my master molds for the hanger and am going to be starting the casting process. I have a pic of the test casting for the Starboard side of the hanger deck as well as the rear wall. Both test pieces came out very well and I will start the final casting this coming week. I had a few issues with resin I was working with and had to adjust a few things to get this part of it set up right. I also have some of the lighting effects ready to be installed after the pieces are ready and primed and then painted their final colors. I'm trying to match as closely as possible what was seen in TMP, but I'm going to be adding a few of my own touches for the realism effect. I've also started working on the Botany deck. Since the secondary hull comes pre-assembled, it's a little bit harder to make measurements except by trial and error for the proper fitting of the deck inside the model. I've also cast some parts for the ceilings for the opened hatches on the saucer section. I'm also mapping out the officers lounge to begin construction of a master to be cast later on. The PL officers lounge does not match entirley what was seen in ST:TMP. So, I will have a few of my own touches to put in this piece as well. Also on the list of things to do is the creation of the crew rec-deck. I've seen several versions of other modelers re-decks for their PLE models and will be using some of their ideas for these models.

In preparation for things to come, I've purchased some of the lighting tubes and EL lamps and about 250 LEDs that I will be using to light the models, also trees and shrubs, rocks and other items for the botany deck, various resins and silicon rubber for casting multiple scratchbuilt parts.

Here's what the totals for these models will be that need to be built. There will be 4 officer's lounges, 3 for the DBE's and one for the DBReliant. 4 rec-decks, respectively for these models. 3 Botany decks, and 3 Hangers. 2 of the DBE's will have the opened hatches detailing. I'm recasting the main deflector dish and housing with a clear resin rather than the milky white or transparent blue versions.

So, even though you may not see a lot of new pics these last few weeks, there has still been a lot of prep-work being done to beautify these models. As I complete them, I will add more pics. Keep checking the site. You won't be disappointed.

~Mark~

Home - NemVia Productions

Hey Mark,

What are the chances of you building some extra sections of the drydock for duplicating?

I dont know about others on here, but I sure would be willing to pay for a 1:350 drydock (with lighting options)

brandomack said:

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Hey Mark,

What are the chances of you building some extra sections of the drydock for duplicating?

I dont know about others on here, but I sure would be willing to pay for a 1:350 drydock (with lighting options)

Well, it's actually somthing I've been pondering. I still have all of my original plans for the 1/350 scale dock, so I wouldn't be agianst doing it. All I ask is that you be patient with this. I'm very busy with the DeBoers project at the moment, but When I start on the Drydock part of it I will let you know what I'm doing as far as assembly pieces. I will be casting these pieces so it will be a little quicker than the way I did it before. Hang in there though. When I start on the drydock part of this model I'll give you more information. Thanks for writing!

Mark.

NemVia said:

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Well, it's actually somthing I've been pondering. I still have all of my original plans for the 1/350 scale dock, so I wouldn't be agianst doing it. All I ask is that you be patient with this. I'm very busy with the DeBoers project at the moment, but When I start on the Drydock part of it I will let you know what I'm doing as far as assembly pieces. I will be casting these pieces so it will be a little quicker than the way I did it before. Hang in there though. When I start on the drydock part of this model I'll give you more information. Thanks for writing!

Mark.

I'll be sitting patiently, my friend. you're doing one hell of a job there.

What kind of paint/paints are you going to use to re-create the extrememly complicated paint skeme of the original re-fit Enterprise?

JPolacchi said:

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What kind of paint/paints are you going to use to re-create the extrememly complicated paint skeme of the original re-fit Enterprise?

Well, one of my clients liked the paint scheme that I used for my PL Enterprise and for that I used, for the most part, the paint suggestions that are on the assembly instructions sheet for that model kit. For the most part the paints are Model Master and Testors original paints. I used a lot of pics that I found on-line for additional details of the ship. It was easiest to use these photos in Black and White. You can see the details much better. In addition to those pics I'm going to be following many of the pics on my website as well. So all of these things will be considered when I start the Aztec pattern for this project.

~Mark~

Home - NemVia Productions

If I'm thinking of the same web site,I have those photos too of the original Re-Fit in B&W.It would be impossible to see all the different pearlescent colors if the photos were in color.The light kickback would be blinding I would suspect. I have had a terrible time looking for and finding compatible painting products&sources to replicate the paint skeme of STTMP re-fit.It took me probably over a year to find&settle on something.

What I found were pearlescent,acrylic inks that are made by three different manufacturers. The first one was Shminke.The have a white/silver pearl and two color shifting pearls that go from a white/silver to gold and another that goes from white/silver to blue.Its very subtle, but it is just fantastic to see in the jar. The draw back? Its a German manufacturer and the inks are really expensive.I believe that they are $15 per jar and it is only 1oz increments I think?That doesn't include the additional items needed such as a airbrush cleaner and the airbrush medium.

The other manufacturer I found is Dr. PH Martin's.They have a much wider range of pearescent colors. They are pretty much "all opaque".They are thinned in the bottle and ready to airbrush,but I'd think thinning it out a tad more with some airbrush medium&distilled water would help it flow and spray better. The trade off with these aside from being opaque and not translucent colors like what the original miniature was painted with is that you only get I think 1/2 oz. bottles,but I submitt a little goes a long way and you do have the ability to really mix and custonize colors.

The last line I found are a new set of pearlescent acrylic inks made by Daler Rowney.They have three different white/silver pearlescent inks that color shift to green,red and gold. Don't confuse these with the other line of pearlescents they have that can't be airbrushed.These three can.So the trade off is you only have these three, but really the bonus is the two that shift to red or green to add to your painting arsenal and the ability to customize colors to match the original re-fit.

I had looked at a great many other means to get more pearlscent colors.Much of which came from pearlescent powders you can add to clear coats. I got some from an art store,and there is a huge line of such products from a paint manufacturer called Kustom Kolor I think?The other things I looked into but were way too expensive and complicated from me to use were a line of automotive pearlescent urethane paints. They are SUPER expensive.I'm talking $600-$900 per quart and some only come in pints.OUCH

In this update I've begun the building of the Flight deck pieces for the Hanger. I've started to build and assemble the Chase lighting effect or landing lights. I realize that this type of lighting was not seen in TMP, but my client asked me to add anything to the models that would enhance it's realism. I've already opaqued 2 of the decks and tested this lighting effect to see how it would look, and I think it works very nicely. In my next updat I will include a small video to show you the effects. Right now I have to finish opaqueing the 3rd flight deck, then paint it it's appropriate color, then add the landing strip details. After that I'll post the effect.

In other news, I've started on the Officer's Lounge piece. This piece is not going to look like the PLE officers lounge. I've been studying some stills from ST:TMP and building my lounge according to the movie. On the PL piece the viev screens are huge and out of scale with the lounge. I've made mine a lot closer to what is seen in the movie. Many of the walls in the movie are actually paneled walls in what appears to be a very light tan color. When you see DR McCoy in the shot, behind him are some more chairs, tables and a couch, and behind the couch are windows. They appear dark but I believe. at least in my version, that it is because no one is in the lower lounge area. You will be able to see through these windows on my version and will also be able to see the right side view screen some-what, whereas the wall on the PLE version almost completely blocks out that screen, being a solid wall.

By my next update I should be able to show you a painted Hanger Deck, possibly one of the Officers lounges finished, I'll have the molds done for these pieces as well as the Botony deck and I will be starting on the the Crew Rec-Deck. I've really been looking forward to building this piece because it is very intricate and is on of my favorite set pieces in the movie. I only wish that that had shown a lot more of it on the screen including a better view of the Warp Nacell outside the rec-deck windows that was barely seen in the movie.

See you next update!

~Mark~

Home - NemVia Productions

As promised I have a lot of updates for The DeBoers Projects. This time there are 28 new pics of a lot of progress that has been made. Photos 69 to 96 are all new and they begin on page 2 of the DeBoers Project photo album. I have finished casting all of the pieces for the Hanger deck and they are now opaqued and painted their appropriate colors. I've added the turbo lift tubes and scratch built the railings for the catwalks surrounding the cargo bay area. I now I promised a video of the lighting effects for the landing deck, But I ran into a fitting problem. Because the DeBoers models are all individually cast they all have variances in the thickness of the hull so I have to shave a lot of these problem areas down and it's taking some extra time to get this done. But for sure I will have something for you the next updat which won't be too long from now.

I've also continued work on the Botany section. I've added some walls and other details and am now begining the landscaping of 3 of these bays. One for each of the Enterprise models. This part is actually kind of fun. I'm beginning to see why model railroading is a big hit.

I've also made the Crew rec deck. This is a very complicated piece because there are so many different shapes to it and a whole lot of furnature to be put into it as well. I'm starting to get the hang of the resin casting and I now have 3 complete piece castings for the entire rec deck, 3 castings of the botany deck and 4 castings of the officers lounge. All of these pieces will of course need to be painted and detailed and that will be in a future update. I will also work on that video of the lighting effects for the hanger. It's all starting to move now. The tough part is making the masters for the molding process. After the molds are made it gets much easier to make these pieces.

Let me know what you think of the progress.

~Mark~
Home - NemVia Productions
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That's looking fantastic! I love the progress!

Clay

starwarsdoc said:

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That's looking fantastic! I love the progress!

Clay

Good, Clay. I was hoping you saw the multiple items there.
Mark
Home - NemVia Productions

That is looking VERY nice! I wish you could put that much detail into the PL kit and be able to see it!

Hi I just finished up one of the botany deck pieces. I just have to do a little touch-up work and add a few benches. But for the most part this piece is just about complete. Let me know what you think.
Mark

Insanely fantastic. The depth of the details on this piece is staggering. Thanks for such great work.

Looking great! Can't wait for more.

Okay, I forgot to post an overhead shot of the Botany deck so you can get an idea as to how similar it is to the PLE piece, only it's a lot larger. I also added some pics with this piece inside the hull of the ship. Not as clear as I would like, but I'll work that out later with the proper lighting.
Click on the pics to enlarge.
Mark.

Well, I finally was able to upload some test video of the landing light effects for the hanger deck. There are 4 total from a few different angles. Please not this is just the chase lights effect, the rest of the hanger lighting is not working in these clips. Let me know what you think.

Mark

YouTube - Chase ligthing test 040

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Looks GREAT!

Hi everyone,

I have several update pics in the photo Gallery. I've begun airbrushing the Rec-Deck, Officer's Lounge and a few other pieces. I'll be adding a few plants here and there inside these pieces, but more than likely they will not be viewable when they are placed inside the ships. But finally most of the interior work is getting finished up and I can begin working on the Outsides of the ships. Which I am looking forward to very much. I know there hasn't been too much news about the Reliant as of yet, but some of these pieces will be used in Reliant as well as Enterprise. I will be scratch-building a few corridors for a few of the other viewports but for the most part I am winding up on the interiors. The Reliant doesn't have the huge viewport windows to look into like Enterprise, so there isn't the need for as many interiors. I am putting the officer's lounge in Reliant because, believe it or not there are viewports on the back of the ship. On another Reliant build it was pointed out about the location of the officer's lounge. I went over all of the shots of Reliant in STII:TWOK and sure enough there was one pull-away shot through the ship's roll-bar where there were 4 light-gray windows in about the exact same position of the Enterprises only they were a lot smaller. So they are there and this is why I'm including the lounge in the Reliant model. There will be a few more pics of the interiors that I'm finishing up and then soon I can begin working on the ships hulls. See you next update.

Mark
Home - NemVia Productions

Warp Engine Update for 03/19/11 Hi everyone.

I've finally started work on the Warp nacells of all 4 ships. This is the first project that I've done using Epoxy. At first I thought Ididn't care for it so much, but after seeing the results and getting used to the smell, I believe I'm hooked. There are a lot of things you can do with epoxy resin that you can't do with cement. For you seasoned modelers I'm sure you might feel the same way. In this update I've cut out a lot of the holes for the lighting effects, I've added the Warp effect grills and added the fins to the rear of all of the engines. I've been able to run the wiring necessary for 4 seperate lighting effects needed in each of the nacells. About 6 months ago I had purchased enough Micro Fluorescent tube lamps to light all 4 ships and now I'm finally able to add these items into the nacells and secure them into the models. At the end of the album I have an engine lighting test pic. I'm very happy with the test reults so far. In these models you will not be able to see any LEDs in the warp grills like you could with the PLE version I did. When All of the components are added into the nacells, I will be able to seal them up and begin the finall touches on the seams and cracks and dings that are in the hull by doing some extensive putty-work along with sanding and filing. After this I will be able to opaque the engines and start there final paint jobs. Talk with you next update.

Mark
http://www.NemVia.com

Hard work and Debeor's hulls are a work out but make a hell of a good model in the end. I built his big Seaview and made it radio controlled so I know. Building this model folks isn't like building the AMT 1/350.

Great job Mark. Nice and clean. Can't wait to see her all done. BTW Dennis is a super nice guy!

Steve

SteveNeill said:

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Hard work and Debeor's hulls are a work out but make a hell of a good model in the end. I built his big Seaview and made it radio controlled so I know. Building this model folks isn't like building the AMT 1/350.

Great job Mark. Nice and clean. Can't wait to see her all done. BTW Dennis is a super nice guy!

Steve

I Agree with you 100% on this one Steve. Hence my comments for this update:

What a month this has been! A lot of problems encountered with these builds, but eventually they were smoothed out and fixed. I've added a couple of pics for the Enterprise this month. I have to tell you it's been a tough month though. First I had problems with an order of 3mm yellow LEDs that I needed for the thruster effects. They kept sending me the wrong size and the wrong color LED which was becoming a problem and putting me seriously behind on my updating. Next I had one of the lighting circuits go out on me and it was difficult to isolate the problem, but I managed to finally find out what was going wrong with it an repaired that with no problem. I also managed to break 2 of the fluorescent tubes that light the warp engines..... GAAAAAH! Now I'm in the process of epoxying the engine halves together which is no easy task because of the nature of the epoxy and it's curing time. At first I tried to epoxy the entire engine pieces together in one shot, but found this to be way too messy and cumbersome and it left a few gaps I didn't count on. So in order to avoid the mess I decided to epoxy only small sections at a time. First, I'm epoxying the fron't and rear of the nacell then clamping those together over night to ensure agood bond. Then with 2 exacto blades I apply the epoxy to the top seam only. I use one knife to hold the seam apart then apply the epoxy with the other knife, clamp it together and let it bond over night. I repeat the same with the bottom seam. This allows me to avoid a lot of mess by doing it a little at a time. The pictures I've added show that I've used an abundance of epoxy to make sure the seam is over-filled. This will minimize the need for a whole lot of putty later on. But at least now I have the Warp nacells assembled. I will begin smoothing these out and preparing them for opaquing and their final paint job.

I really should have gone over the assembly instructions a little slower. It does say very clearly that this is not a model to be rushed or assembled in one night. Not that I've been trying to go that route, but I would have thought maybe just that tiny iota molecule sized bit of "faster" progress would help just a wee bit. Sometimes you have to step back and tack a breather or two to collect your thoughts and strength to re-group and get back into it again.... which I have.... Feel much bettrer now that I've solved a few problems.

The real problem with these kits is there are no guide tabs to line up the pieces so you have to be very careful when assembling this type of kit. I've read in other forums about those who have built these models and have had the same reaction as to the dificulty level. Some of the pieces don't line up exactly so there is some improvising to be done. I'm not complaining... Just venting. I myself can't wait to see them finished that's why I keep plugging along. Any thoughts on this are welcome. I should be ready to start putty work and a lot of sanding by the next update, then I can start opaqueing and final painting on these warp nacell pieces. See you soon!

Mark.
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