On lighting, I think Sean Sides used .5 fiber on his SS Gal build, and that looks "right" to me so I planned on using the .25. Plus the jacketed stuff I got had like 72 strands per bundle for easy routing. Bit more of a pain with drill bits than the stouter size, but I think scale wise it will look better. And I bought a LOT of extra bits and an extra pin vise and dremel fitting too. I think I will need them.
I'm trying to work out my overall lighting plan and placement, and figure out where I want the main parts to go. Not many choices, but I do want to be able to access things later so that is making it more complicated that it could be if I just planned on testing and buttoning it up for good. Thinking whatever I do go with will be recessed magnets to hold down the detail covers.
For the Landing bays, I'm thinking of hogging out the cap, build a new styrene insert, and I'm in the process now of building up the chaser strobe kit that I bought. Forgot how much I suck as soldering! I'm thinking hollow out one of the landing bay arms to run the fiber from the main body for each bay with synchronized strobes by placing the main chaser strobe in the main body and running fiber from that right into the insert where needed, using larger (.75 or 1) fiber for that and lensing the tips to help spread the light. Think I will add a small lightbox, with power ran through another arm, for behind the viper painting for backlight and maybe from that run a couple of fiber "spotlights" on bulkheads/deck as well. Not sure yet on if this will all work, I will have to get the mockup build and see how much or little room I'm playing with. Luckily Mike made the majority of the bay hollow so depth isn't much of an issue, but I think fiber bend radius could be. And I may be able to make that painting lightbox serviceable too, but I'm doubting it. I REALLY want the landing strobes though so that's priority 1 for me.
On the side, I've started basic clean up and dry fitting, and keep getting amazed at what I have to work with. Never thought I'd see the day!
Oh, and I stand corrected by Mike, I guess it WAS pressure cast. Which is crazy when you look at the size of the subassembly's.
Ryan
