1/350 Klingon Bird of Prey - Improving the AMT Kit

[Neon Nautilus]

Hi and thanks for checking out my thread!

I've always really loved the design of the Klingon Bird of Prey from the original Star Trek movies and The Next Generation.
The shape and complex colour schemes really appealed to me as a lover of sci-fi and a modeler so I wanted to build a kit.

Anyone whose wanted to do the same knows there's not a lot of choice out there. I was not invested enough to get a large resin model so went for the AMT/ERTL kit.
Found the Flight Display version on eBay for a reasonable price and set about checking out the contents.

To be honest I was not very impressed. The details are very much of their time. The more I looked at reference the more details I saw missing from the kit and would have to scratch build to end up with a model I'd be happy with.

My motivation was sapped.....


THAT WAS 10 YEARS AGO NOW!
Last week I was looking for a time out project to be working on alongside my Deckard's Sedan kit and I opened up this guy again.
Started feeling all nostalgic and like I'd really like a nice KBOP in my collection.
I feel a little more prepared for the job now I've got 10 years more experience to lean on so thought I'd give it a go.

This may be a bit of a slow build but having this thread on the go should help with my motivation.
Would be great to have you along for the ride!

 

[Neon Nautilus]

Please forgive me a little on these first few posts. I have done a little on this kit on and off over the last 10 years which I do not have photos for.

So first up, one of my biggest issues with the kit is the hull panels. The outlines are soft and over simplified.
I wanted to tackle this back when I first got the kit, but it seemed like such a daunting task.

Well, I'm not letting that get in the way now!
The area I've started with is the 'hump' just behind the 'neck'. Here's a before shot taken from the box art.

I've linked here what it should look like from the reference I found online at the Modelers Miniatures & Magic site.

I'd already made a start on this several years back by sanding the raised details to flat.
This is part of a larger upper hull piece that has been chopped up to accommodate a hinge mechanism kit that I'll cover later.

Next I laid strips of masking tape over the form.

I then started marking out the centre line and hull plating forms around this from the reference I had available.

Next step was to cut out the pieces leaving a gap between them. Originally I was just going to do this by cutting two lines but then I remembered a tip I'd picked up somewhere and made this little tool.

It's two 10A scalpel blades superglued together with the tips parallel to one another.
This was run over the lines and the strips it left peeled away until I had this.

Each panel template was then carefully peeled off and stuck onto a sheet of 0.25mm styrene sheet.

They were cut out and then using the reference each one was detailed with notches.
The masking tape was peeled off and the pieces glued in place using EMA Plastic Weld. The panels at the front needed a bit more encouragement at this due to the more pronounced curvature of the hull.
This is where I'm up to so far.

 

[scotthothpatrol]

Please forgive me a little on these first few posts. I have done a little on this kit on and off over the last 10 years which I do not have photos for.

So first up, one of my biggest issues with the kit is the hull panels. The outlines are soft and over simplified.
I wanted to do tackle this back when I first got the kit, but it seemed like such a daunting task.

Well, I'm not letting that get in the way now!
The area I've started with is the 'hump' just behind the 'neck'. Here's a before shot taken from the box art.

View attachment 1589602

I've linked here what it should look like from the reference I found online at the Modelers Miniatures & Magic site.

I'd already made a start on this several years back by sanding the raised details to flat.
This is part of a larger upper hull piece that has been chopped up to accommodate a hinge mechanism kit that I'll cover later.

Next I laid strips of masking tape over the form.
View attachment 1589611

I then started marking out the centre line and hull plating forms around this from the reference I had available.
View attachment 1589615

Next step was to cut out the pieces leaving a gap between them. Originally I was just going to do this by cutting two lines but then I remembered a tip I'd picked up somewhere and made this little tool.
View attachment 1589618

It's two 10A scalpel blades superglued together with the tips parallel to one another.
This was run over the lines and the strips it left peeled away until I had this.
View attachment 1589616

Each panel template was then carefully peeled off and stuck onto a sheet of 0.25mm styrene sheet.
View attachment 1589619

They were cut out and then using the reference each one was detailed with notches.
The masking tape was peeled off and the pieces glued in place using EMA Plastic Weld. The panels at the front needed a bit more encouragement at this due to the more pronounced curvature of the hull.
This is where I'm up to so far.

View attachment 1589621View attachment 1589622

That's a cool trick putting two blades together for the gap between the panels.

 

[modelerdave]

This is an ambitious project, and I agree with scotthothpatrol, the two blades trick is really cool and helpful.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

That's a cool trick putting two blades together for the gap between the panels.

Yeah, simple but effective. You can use it to cut consistent width strips of tape for masking or strips of styrene for detailing too.
You can also put shims between the blades to vary the width of strip.

This is an ambitious project, and I agree with @scotthothpatrol, the two blades trick is really cool and helpful.

Yeah, its going to be a lot of work but I think it will look great when finished so that helps with motivation.
The bit I'm most daunted by is cutting all the slits for the windows, definitely some potential there for a major FU!

 

[Regis Armouries]

Looks like you're off to a good start! And the twin scalpel blades for panel lines is a good tip, thanks

 

[Neon Nautilus]

Well, as you can probably tell by the big gap this one got shelved for a while. There were a couple of elements that I just couldn't get right which got a little frustrating so the KBOP went on hold.

A coupe of months ago I picked it up again and have gotten back into it in a big way. I've got quite a lot of pics to share so I'll be putting them up over the coming days.

I'll pick up where I left off with the KBOP's 'hump'. As you can see from the images below I've refined the surface a bit with some light sanding. It was looking a little rough before where the glue had distorted the thin styrene sheet I'm using for the paneling.

Here I'm drilling the circular holes that are clearly visible on the studio model but completely absent from the AMT/MPC/Round2 kit.
I used my Proxxon drill stand and rotary tool for this to help with accurate positioning. It was still quite nerve inducing though as a slip would mean a lot of work to correct.

Luckily it came out great although now I cannot look at it without seeing a rather kooky skull face!

 

[Neon Nautilus]

One of the things that I was having issue with before, was replacing the tiled strips that run along the sides of the hull. I'm not sure what these are for in the Star Trek lore (minor research resulted in some conflicting answers) so I'm going to call them the cloak strips as I'm guessing they have something to do with this. Happy to be corrected if anyone knows what they're supposed to be.

They appear in a few spots on the ship, sometimes as a single row or as reflected double rows on the main hull sides. The below image shows the positions (there's also a strip that runs between the engines at the back).

In the kit they are rendered as really basic square tiles, ridged rows on the wings or just missing entirely due to moulding limitations. See the before shot below:

And here is a close up of what they should be like. Notice how they're much smaller, more rectangular and have a notch at one end.

I had a go a while back at recreating these by etching styrene sheet with my laser cutter. It seemed the best way as there was no way I'd be able recreate by hand consistently.

It did not go well. I found styrene, being so thin and a thermoplastic, to be really difficult to work with on a laser. Either the power was too low resulting in too shallow an etch or too high resulting in warped material. I tried several different thicknesses of styrene and settings but just couldn't nail it. I gave up.
.
.
.
After taking a bit of a break I was able to tackle it with a different approach and eventually nailed the result I was after.
I etched in several quick low power passes on a 0.5mm styrene sheet. Then did a final pass on a slightly higher setting with just the deeper horizontal line through the centre. Here's the result:

 

[Neon Nautilus]

Before I could fit the cloak strips to the hull I wanted to do a few other improvements first.

Using files and sandpaper I removed the molded in panel detail around the bottom part of the hull. You can see the before pic showing how basic this was in the previous post.

Now that I had a nice smooth base to work with I applied and formed a piece of masking tape around the curve of the hull.
I then used the reference images I'd gathered from Modelers Miniatures & Magic to draw the panel shapes onto the masking tape.

Once everything was in the right place to my eye I removed the tape, applied it to some 0.25mm styrene sheet and cut out the pieces.

These were then glued onto the hull, smoothed down and lightly sanded.

The same process was then repeated for the opposite side.

You may have noticed that the final pieces on this side differ to the initial outlines I made and cut out.
This side was a little difficult to make out in my reference images. When I looked at some different angled shots the initial shapes were off so I recut them. Always good to look at as many images as possible to make sure you're nailing the shapes.

 

[pengbuzz]

If this would help, I found the working hinge kit that Lake Monster is selling for this model:

Bird-of-Prey Wing Hinge Conversion - 1:350 - SOLD OUT - More Coming!

This wing hinge conversion kit, originally designed by M-Factory’s Coby Lorang (Coby-Wan) and re-designed by Lake Monster Details is now produced in .030 gauge silver acrylic plastic sheet. This laser cut plastic naturally slides easily past each other so your Bird-of-Prey's wings manually...

lakemonsterdetails.com

Also: some detail parts from Green Strawberry that might help cut down on your need to scratchbuild:

Klingon Bird of Prey - B´rel class

Resin detail set with photo etch for Klingon Bird of Prey – B´rel class for AMT model kit from STAR TREK Search for Spock movie.

greenstrawberry.cz

 

[publiusr]

I don’t see many kitbashes of the Bird of Prey…no fan art showing a larger model with its own lines…or nacelles in place of the disruptors…a longer neck.

With 3D printing, you could have smaller and smaller hinge sections and the wings still fold.

A single set of hinges, is the smallest…then smaller hinges in front of that to step down…

In ST VI we see a true torpedo bay…in ST III, that area looked like a giant disruptor…an “outie” versus an “innie.”

 

[Neon Nautilus]

If this would help, I found the working hinge kit that Lake Monster is selling for this model:

Bird-of-Prey Wing Hinge Conversion - 1:350 - SOLD OUT - More Coming!

This wing hinge conversion kit, originally designed by M-Factory’s Coby Lorang (Coby-Wan) and re-designed by Lake Monster Details is now produced in .030 gauge silver acrylic plastic sheet. This laser cut plastic naturally slides easily past each other so your Bird-of-Prey's wings manually...

lakemonsterdetails.com

Also: some detail parts from Green Strawberry that might help cut down on your need to scratchbuild:

Klingon Bird of Prey - B´rel class

Resin detail set with photo etch for Klingon Bird of Prey – B´rel class for AMT model kit from STAR TREK Search for Spock movie.

greenstrawberry.cz

Hi pengbuzz, thanks for checking out my build and for your help, very much appreciated.

As it happens I have one of the older versions of the Lake Monster wing hinge, or Don's Light & Magic as it was then. I got it in 2011, put it together but wasn't totally happy with it. It goes together well and the hinge mechanism works great, the problem I had was that the position of the wings when attached is noticeably far from the hull. It seems like the baffle parts are a bit flattened in profile and a bit wide. To my eye anyway.

Looks like there have been some upgrades since I purchased. Better material for the baffles and decal options. Not sure the shape looks different though.

Here's a shot of the DLM / LM hinge in place to show what I mean. Followed by a shot of the studio model to show the difference.

Also because of the way the hinge works, with brass rods through the leaves, the slots cut into the baffles on the main hull are left out.
See the below Studio model that shows the slots I mean. I've marked one with a red arrow passing through. To me it's missing something without that detail.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a huge upgrade over the solid plastic kit parts and I'm maybe being a bit picky. It just didn't feel right for my build.

It's one of the issues that made me shelve the kit for a while. It was however the KBOP Green Strawberry Fruit Pack that helped to get me back into it recently. I'll cover the parts it offers in a little more detail in future posts as it does have it's pros and cons. For now here is a shot of the Green Strawberry wing baffles which position the wings much nearer to the hull.

It also features the slots cut right through the baffles so I'm much happier with these. It does only have 4 slots (matching the AMT kit) rather than the 5 on the Studio Model but I can live with that!

 

[Neon Nautilus]

I don’t see many kitbashes of the Bird of Prey…no fan art showing a larger model with its own lines…or nacelles in place of the disruptors…a longer neck.

With 3D printing, you could have smaller and smaller hinge sections and the wings still fold.

A single set of hinges, is the smallest…then smaller hinges in front of that to step down…

In ST VI we see a true torpedo bay…in ST III, that area looked like a giant disruptor…an “outie” versus an “innie.”

Hi publiusr, thanks for checking out my build. A kitbashed 'whatif' of the KBOP sounds like an interesting idea. Maybe that's something you could have a go with. A mashup between the NG Romulan Bird of Prey and the KBOP from AMT could look cool.

The hinged wing/size paradox is something I'm not really considering with this build. For me it's just a celebration of my love for an incredible ship design and the amazing work of ILM. I just love how much incredible detail is crammed into the studio model.

With the torpedo bay (love the 'innie' and 'outie' analogy), I'm still a bit unsure on the best way forward. I quite like both looks, my understanding on the 'outie' is that it's some sort of cover/hatch, makes little sense but looks cool. Still undecided.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

So this next improvement to the kit had me on the fence for a while due to the work involved but eventually I decided to go for it.
The AMT kit's 'belly' is much slimmer than the studio model's more portly physique.

Here's a shot of the kit vs the studio model side on. To illustrate the issue I've traced the side profiles of the various layers that make up the underside of the hull over the studio model image. The same lines are also shown over the kit parts and clearly show that the lowest section is far too flat.

This has a bit of a knock on effect with the rear engine area. Due to the hull being shallower at the back, the impulse engines are squashed flatter to fit. The dome on the underside of the hull is also positioned too far forward when compared to the studio model.

So time for a bit of a reverse nip'n'tuck!

The first step was to cut out the bottom part of the hull. The plan was to keep this, angle it more steeply from the back, then extend the sides down further to meet it. Below you can see the start of the cuts, I just used a scriber and a scalpel to make soft repeat cuts until I was through. First around the curved area...

...then from the back on the flat surface to meet the curved cuts. I took this really slow, applying very little pressure to avoid slipping with the blade or deforming the plastic too much.

Eventually the whole underside was free.

I've marked the various shapes of the hull's 'belly' that needed attention on the images below.

Green shows the conical outline of the belly panel which I feel needs to be made a bit sharper and shorter front to back.
Purple shows the circular dome that needs to be further back in relation to the wings. This will be achieved by reducing the width of the orange rectangular area.
The prongs that stick out either side of the engine are too long but I'm going to have to live with that as adjusting them causes too many knock on issues.

In the image below I've altered the conical shape, separated the rear prongs and filled the display stand slot with styrene

Next up was to remove a strip from the progs section. This makes it more accurate to the studio model and moves everything back a bit.
I marked the cut in pencil, trimmed almost to the line with sidecutters and then filed the last bit flush to the line.

As the parts were loose and easier to handle, I took the opportunity to remove all the raised detail. I used a razor and curved scalpel blades to chisel away the majority of the material. It was then filed and sanded smooth. The panels will be replaced at a later stage with 0.25mm styrene sheet.

The two sections were then reconnected with a styrene brace on the reverse side for added strength.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

Now to reattach the underside to the hull.

I started by gluing the ends of the prongs and then using them as a pivot point to reposition the angle of the panel.

I opened a side profile image of the studio model on my phone's screen and sized it until it was a 1:1 match with the model kit.
This meant I could use the image as a template to get the right position for the belly panel. I held the newly attached panel at the correct angle until the glue held, then cut and glued in some styrene struts at the open end to hold it in place.

Now to fill in the gap. I started by adding another support strut at the front of the curve, then cutting and bending a strip of 0.5mm styrene sheet to bridge the gap. I test fitted this piece of panelling several times first, bending it to form the curve, then test fitting until it was spot on.

I panelled the rest of the gap using multiple strips rather than one big piece. This meant I could build up the transitional curves needed between the sides of the hull and the underside more easily.

First I'd cut the curve to fit the side of the hull from a piece of 0.5mm styrene sheet.

Once I had that shape fitting nicely, I'd mark and cut the sides of the panel section. Once they fitted, I'd mark the curve where the panel met the belly panel and cut that.

The piece would then be shaped by hand to get the required curve and bow to fit the contour I was aiming for.

Once that all looked good I'd glue it in place and repeat for the next piece until the whole gap was filled.
The last pieces to go in were the sides of the 'prongs', which was relatively easy in comparison. Just needed a strip of styrene and the excess cut away once the glue had set.

All done and looking much closer to the original's shape. This basic form will eventually be covered with panels in a similar way to the side pieces so the slightly rough look will all be covered up.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

All that work on the underside of the hull had a bit of a casualty. The rear deck above the impulse engines cracked whilst I was cutting the underside out.

It's not such a big deal, as I'd already decided I wanted to rebuild the details on here anyways. A nice flat surface to work with will help that.
I started by cutting the middle part out and removing the raised detail

I trimmed and filed the gap to be as square as possible. A strip of 1mm styrene sheet was then cut to the full width of the underside of the top deck (marked in red). This was glued in at either side on the inside of the hull with support strips at either end to give it more strength. I then layered various thicknesses of styrene sheet, cut to fit the gap, on top of that until it was flush with the existing plastic of the model.

The excess plastic from the original kit details was trimmed away and Tamiya Basic Putty was used to fill the gaps. This was then filed and sanded flat.

I now have a nice smooth base to work with for the panel and scratch built details in this area. I'll be getting onto those later in the build.

 

[publiusr]

Well, you have to make room for the whales

I had forgotten those two ventral fins altogether.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

The next area I tackled was the neck. The kit has a lot of soft and inaccurate detail here which I'd removed several years ago.
Here's a couple of box shots to see the before.

Here's the same areas on the studio model.

This is where I was at before revisiting this area. It's pretty rough looking so a fair amount of work ahead.

I started by trying to visualise the shapes that build up the neck. I always try to think of projects like this in simple shapes that can be build up to achieve the final look. So I started by studying the studio model images I had of this area and sketching the shapes I saw.

It looked like the base structure was two rectangular profile tubes stacked on top of each other so I started there.

I'd already got the bottom section mostly there so I built onto that. I'd worked out that the height of the tubes should be around 4mm so I cut a couple of strips of 0.5mm styrene sheet and attached those either side of what was already there.

The pieces I'd added before were really uneven in height so I needed to trim them flush. Despite taking this slow I still managed to gouge a bit out of the newly added pieces. To fix this I cut a thin sliver of styrene and glued it into the dip. I left it for several hours so the plastic had time to solidify again and then trimmed the excess and worked everything flush with a home made sanding stick.

Now that little blip was dealt with and I had two parallel sides, I added a top to close up the bottom tube. This was cut slightly thinner than the neck's width to create the groove I'd seen on the studio model between the upper and lower tubes.

The upper tube was built up using 0.5mm styrene sheet. I cut a bottom, top and two sides and then assembled them before attaching to the model. To cut the correct width I measured the model with my calipers then used them to scribe a guide line in the styrene.

The pieces were glued using EMA plastic weld applied with a brush along the seams.

Here's the finished tube and then a shot of it glued into position.

I then cut the upper part of the bridge to fit over the upper part of the neck. I took this really slow, just gradually shaving away plastic from the kit part to create a recess until it fitted nicely over the parts I'd just built.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

I then turned attention to the bottom of the neck, started by removing the existing details there as I intended to replace most of it.

There were a few holes left where the chunkier raised details had been removed, so I filled these with pieces of styrene. That left a nice smooth surface to start building up detail.

First thing I added was a couple of thin strips either side. When I was studying the studio model images the underside looked like it was built up of a few stepped layers so the strips are replicating the uppermost of these. You can see these in the above image. They run the full length of the neck.

Next I added one of the replacement parts from the Green Strawberry set, the two 'radiator' looking units either side. See the image below.

These are made of two parts. First is a sort of tapered box with the back face open, then a grill panel is attached.
The boxes were folded and then soldered for a nice solid connection.

To help me accurately attach the grill panel I first stuck the box part to a piece of masking tape. Then lined up the grill part by butting up and centring to the bottom edge of the box. The tape then acts like a hinge so I can fold the panel up against the box part lining it up correctly. Lastly I added a dab of CA glue and folded the tape up attaching the part in the process. When laminating two flat surfaces with CA like this I find it impractical to position parts by hand so this method worked great.

I then glued the two finished parts in place under the neck. Couldn't resist testing out the resin rod part from the Green Strawberry set here too!

I'm afraid that after this I did get a bit lost in upgrading the upgrade resin rod part and didn't take any progress pics. Here's the end result of that.

I cut and drilled out the left end of the wider diameter part, then drilled and inserted a 2.5mm dia piece of styrene rod. This was so it could extend further into the bottom part of the bridge; the part seemed a bit too short to start off with.
I also cut the far right end of the thinner rod section and replaced with an extended piece of 2.5mm rod. The end was bevelled so it fitted against the main hull.
I then layered a 0.75mm x 0.25mm strip of styrene and a 0.5mm x 0.25mm strip around the right edge of the wider diameter section to replicate the ridge visible on the studio model.

This part in particular has had several revisions since. The more I looked at the resin upgrade from GS the more it didn't feel like much of an upgrade. I've rebuilt it from scratch twice but I'll cover that more in a future post.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

After adding the radiator parts in the previous post I starting adding various diameters of styrene rod (0.5mm, 0.75mm, 0.88mm, 1.6mm) to the underside. I do not have many clear images of this area so there is a combination of study from the studio model shots, what was originally there on the model and artistic license. This will be added to as I go on.

I then moved onto the lower bridge part and adding the 'cloak strip' that wraps around it.

The kit does not even replicate this due to injection molding limitations. Green Strawberry do provide a piece to replicate this but it is oversized and is intended to be stuck on top of the part rather than recessed so does not replicate the look very well.

Here's the photoetch part compared to the laser etched styrene part I've made.

You may have already noticed in some of the previous posts that I'd already planned for this upgrade by carving a groove around the lower bridge. My first step was to refine this using a thin file and a curved scalpel blade as it was a little uneven initially. Also to add a bevel to it as the cloak strip on the studio model is not parallel to the sides of the bridge but bevels out from bottom to top.

This did mean that the plastic at the lower part of the bevel became very thin. So to prevent the bottom half essentially being cut off I added a strip of 0.75mm styrene sheet around the inside of the lower bridge.

You can also see here the end of the rod that runs under the neck. Also the crescent shaped piece is some styrene I've added to allow me to round off the top edge of the lower bridge so it matches the studio model better. This also fills the gap that was visible there when all the bridge pieces are assembled.

Now I had the groove ready and at a suitable angle I needed to prep the strip to fill it. In order for it to fit the angle the radius of the bottom of the strip needs to be shorter than the radius of the top of the strip. To achieve this I made a small slit using a scalpel, about half way into the strip between each segment.

You can see that this starts to bow the strip into a curve as the tension on the inside of the curve becomes greater than on the outside.
This was just enough for me to be able to fit the strip around the curve at the required angle.
I moved around the circle in small sections, holding the strip in place and then applying a small amount of plastic weld to the edges until it grabbed.

Here's a couple of shots with the upper bridge attached showing the rounding off of the lower bridge that I mentioned earlier in this post.
You can also see a few details I've added onto the sides of the neck.