Troy Downen
Active Member
Absolutely!
…so here goes MY build of a studio scale Battlestar Galactica Shuttle GAL 356.
Caveat: I am a SLOOOOOW builder. I like to sit and stare at my models while I build them, thinking through next steps and alternate approaches. So it seems like progress comes slowly. I also have very little free time (but hey, would any of us say that we just have too much free time for models? Nah…). The upshot is that updates may be sparse, but if you stick with me then I’ll stick with you all the way through this build. ;-)
It started as any other day… it was rainy in the big city and the sea was angry, it had been a dark and stormy night…
Nah, not really. It was a beautiful sunny day here on the East Coast of the USA and the mailman set down a LARGE box on my doorstep (with his usual “WTF” look as he walked away). Inside was that resin-y goodness that we all know and love. This is the kit currently available from JAWS Models.
Somehow all of this needs to find a home on the exterior of the shuttle. First order of business was to sort thorugh the parts and categorize them based on their location on the exterior (top, bottom, front, aft, side & landing gear). I relied heavily on the reference photos posted right here on Studio Scale Modeler. It really turned out to be a fun job of discovery and “ah ha” moments. A bit like piecing together a puzzle (BEST puzzle).
The shuttle requires an internal armature, and parts within the kit have been crafted to accommodate a very specific armature design, but it takes a bit of sleuthing to figure it out. Quality time wandering around my local home improvement store (which is fun, in and of itself) resulted in my learning that 3/8” galvanized pipe fit the internal resin brace included with the JAWS kit. The model is designed for a 5-point armature: attach points on the bottom, left and right hand sides, aft and front. I found it easy to find the various short lengths of 3/8” pipe at my home improvement store with one very important exception: to take advantage of all 5 attach points, one will need a 3/8” cross pipe. This guy right here:
I had to order one over the Internet, so naturally shipping ended up costing me more than the part itself! Maybe if you have a well-stocked family-run hardware store near you, you’ll be able to find one “in the flesh.” The big-box home improvement stores do not appear to stock them.
The resultant armature ends up looking something like this:
NOTE: I goofed – there should be no gap where indicated in the photo. That connector needs to be a “zero” connector (which are about 1 inch in length); not the 2-inch connector that I used and that is shown in the photo. Oops!
To the right in this photo is the aft-facing part of the armature. I have yet to install the forward-facing pipe which would point to the left side of the photo. See all of that resin dripping down the length of that aft-facing pipe? I poured some resin into and around the armature where it contacts the resin brace just for a little bit of insurance that maybe everything will stay together and not shift around once the shuttle is assembled. Totally unnecessary, I’m sure, but I tend to over-engineer everything.
Another view:
These two views SHOULD be sufficient for others to reverse-engineer the intended armature for this model. Note that the center portion of the armature – the part that consists of the cross pipe and left & right side attach points and which is attached to the internal resin brace with zip ties – is VERY difficult to get assembled. The short 3/8” pipes on either side of the cross pipe (each are 2” in length, if I recall) have to be screwed into the central cross pipe very tightly so that the total width of the center assembly fits to that resin brace.
In this following photo you can see how I had to secure the center portion of the armature in my vise, place some temporary 8” lengths of 3/8” pipe in the two empty cross pipe fittings, and HAUL on that puppy to get those left and right side pipes threaded far enough into the cross pipe. I literally feared that I would BREAK those 8” lengths of 3/8” galvanized pipe that I was pulling on. Fortunately everything held and I got the cross piece assembled and fitting into the resin brace. Generous lubrication of the threads with WD-40 helped.
A bit of trimming and sanding on the front and aft halves of the shuttle body (really not much at all; they’re in pretty good shape)…
…and, glory be, the first test-fit of the assembled shuttle! Huzzah!
Whew… time for an adult beverage. I think it’s 95 degrees with 500% humidity.
…so here goes MY build of a studio scale Battlestar Galactica Shuttle GAL 356.
Caveat: I am a SLOOOOOW builder. I like to sit and stare at my models while I build them, thinking through next steps and alternate approaches. So it seems like progress comes slowly. I also have very little free time (but hey, would any of us say that we just have too much free time for models? Nah…). The upshot is that updates may be sparse, but if you stick with me then I’ll stick with you all the way through this build. ;-)
It started as any other day… it was rainy in the big city and the sea was angry, it had been a dark and stormy night…
Nah, not really. It was a beautiful sunny day here on the East Coast of the USA and the mailman set down a LARGE box on my doorstep (with his usual “WTF” look as he walked away). Inside was that resin-y goodness that we all know and love. This is the kit currently available from JAWS Models.
Somehow all of this needs to find a home on the exterior of the shuttle. First order of business was to sort thorugh the parts and categorize them based on their location on the exterior (top, bottom, front, aft, side & landing gear). I relied heavily on the reference photos posted right here on Studio Scale Modeler. It really turned out to be a fun job of discovery and “ah ha” moments. A bit like piecing together a puzzle (BEST puzzle).
The shuttle requires an internal armature, and parts within the kit have been crafted to accommodate a very specific armature design, but it takes a bit of sleuthing to figure it out. Quality time wandering around my local home improvement store (which is fun, in and of itself) resulted in my learning that 3/8” galvanized pipe fit the internal resin brace included with the JAWS kit. The model is designed for a 5-point armature: attach points on the bottom, left and right hand sides, aft and front. I found it easy to find the various short lengths of 3/8” pipe at my home improvement store with one very important exception: to take advantage of all 5 attach points, one will need a 3/8” cross pipe. This guy right here:
I had to order one over the Internet, so naturally shipping ended up costing me more than the part itself! Maybe if you have a well-stocked family-run hardware store near you, you’ll be able to find one “in the flesh.” The big-box home improvement stores do not appear to stock them.
The resultant armature ends up looking something like this:
NOTE: I goofed – there should be no gap where indicated in the photo. That connector needs to be a “zero” connector (which are about 1 inch in length); not the 2-inch connector that I used and that is shown in the photo. Oops!
To the right in this photo is the aft-facing part of the armature. I have yet to install the forward-facing pipe which would point to the left side of the photo. See all of that resin dripping down the length of that aft-facing pipe? I poured some resin into and around the armature where it contacts the resin brace just for a little bit of insurance that maybe everything will stay together and not shift around once the shuttle is assembled. Totally unnecessary, I’m sure, but I tend to over-engineer everything.
Another view:
These two views SHOULD be sufficient for others to reverse-engineer the intended armature for this model. Note that the center portion of the armature – the part that consists of the cross pipe and left & right side attach points and which is attached to the internal resin brace with zip ties – is VERY difficult to get assembled. The short 3/8” pipes on either side of the cross pipe (each are 2” in length, if I recall) have to be screwed into the central cross pipe very tightly so that the total width of the center assembly fits to that resin brace.
In this following photo you can see how I had to secure the center portion of the armature in my vise, place some temporary 8” lengths of 3/8” pipe in the two empty cross pipe fittings, and HAUL on that puppy to get those left and right side pipes threaded far enough into the cross pipe. I literally feared that I would BREAK those 8” lengths of 3/8” galvanized pipe that I was pulling on. Fortunately everything held and I got the cross piece assembled and fitting into the resin brace. Generous lubrication of the threads with WD-40 helped.
A bit of trimming and sanding on the front and aft halves of the shuttle body (really not much at all; they’re in pretty good shape)…
…and, glory be, the first test-fit of the assembled shuttle! Huzzah!
Whew… time for an adult beverage. I think it’s 95 degrees with 500% humidity.
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