Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS-FINISHED with VIDEO!!!

[trekriffic]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

Today's update...

Spent about 3 hours altogether on the masking and making "hatch" covers for the stern.

I cut square pieces of tape for the windows using a ruler and my xacto knife using a piece of the square brass window frame tubing
pressed down hard into the tape on my vinyl work matt as a guide.

I cut a ton of tiny round holes from Tamiya tape with my smallest nail set tool for the round ports:

I applied the masking tape with tweezers and a dental pick:

Tamping the pieces down with a microbrush:

After masking, I coated the ports and windows with Future to seal the edges so hopefully no paint leaks underneath.
Keeping fingers crossed on that.

I did a bit more sanding and cleaned up the ship's surface with alcohol and a rag before spraying with Mr Surfacer 500 from a spray can:

Unfortunately, I ran out before I could do the underside; guess I'll have to break out the airbrush and mix some up from the bottle to finish the bottom.
Once that dries I'll do some more wet sanding until it's nice and smooth.
I've already seen a few spots that need a little more puttying; I'm using a little of what I have left of my grey Tamiya polyester putty at this stage.
That stuff is great, only wish it was still available.
I estimate another hour or so of work before I'm ready to hit it with the final finish coats.

I also made the two rectangular hatch covers for the stern.
The one on the port side will work the slide switch for the lights.
A piece of brass tubing will be glued to a slot carved in the inside face of the cover:

The slot showing the slide switch:

I glued in two pieces of styrene strip to either side of the opening so I could make the hatch covers narrower and still slide the switch far enough left and right to switch the electrical circuit between the internal batteries to the left or the external battery connection to the right.

The slide switch knob needed to be trimmed with my narrow xacto chissel blade to fit a short piece of smaller brass tubng which I glued to the knob with 5-minute epoxy:

The tubing on the cover will slide over the tubing glued to the slide switch.

The hatches in place. The starboard hatch is glued on but I won't glue the port cover on permanently until after applying the ship's finishing coats:

Well that's it for now!

Thanks for reading along.
Comments welcome as always.

 

[trekriffic]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

So today I tried airbrushing some thinned down Mr Surfacer 1000 thru the old Paasche VL airbrush and didn't get very far before it clogged up on me.
After cleaning the brush twice I finally gave up and broke out my can of Krylon grey indoor/outdoor primer.
The conditions in my garage were ideal based on what it said on the can and it went on beautifully. No runs, no drips, no errors.

Here are some primed pics:

Overall I was very pleased with the finish after this last sanding session; however, I did find some spots on the stern that need further attention.
It was the one area I hadn't primed with Mr. Surfacer from the last session so I wasn't that surprised really.
There's a tiny blob of AVES putty there on the starboard hatch and the portside stern corner needs puttying and smoothing.
Also the lower rim needs a little filler under the "disposal tube":

Should be able to lay on some more Tamiya Basic type putty in another 45 minutes or so followed by more sanding and hopefully that should do it and I'll be ready to start the finish coats and move on to the decaling real soon!

Thanks for following my progress everyone!

 

[trekriffic]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

All the little surface imperfections fixed she's primed and literally hung out to dry...

Funny, this one reminds me of the scene at the end of the episode...

She's actually a much darker grey than this to the naked eye. More of a charcoal grey.
Here's what I used:

So a little wetsanding with 600 grit for a smooth finish and I should be able to hit her with the first basecoat this weekend!

:thumbsup

 

[SteveNeill]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

Looks great! What a lot of work!

steve

 

[trekriffic]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

Looks great! What a lot of work!

steve

A compliment from the master! I am honored sir.

I started this project back in March partly as physical therapy for a broken wrist. The twisting and flexing motions of puttying, filing, and sanding were great therapy!

 

[trekriffic]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

So sprayed her with Tamiya white Smooth Surface primer this past weekend. Figure on attaching the bussard domes next before the basecoats:

With the Talon fighter:

Thanks for any comments!

 

[mach7]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

Really nice build!

I think you have taken the old AMT kit as far as it can go.

 

[Ruddigger]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

That tiny talon next to the BoP really puts things in perspective. You've really outdone yourself on both.

 

[Mauiman]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

This thing is looking very great. Yeah not a big fan of the Romulan bird of prey at least this one. But still none the less it looks very great.

After this think you could do a Klingon Bird of Prey?

All the best!
Alex

 

[trekriffic]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

Thanks mach 7. Yes, I think you are right. Anything more and you might as well build it from scratch.

Ruddiger,

That Talon has been quite a lot of work for something so small it can sit atop a bottle of Mr Surfacer with room to spare:

Mauiman,
I do have a KBOP kit sitting on top af a cabinet in my garage; however, I think I'll take a break from Birds-Of-Prey after this one is finished and build my 1/1000 scale Constitution class Defiant with lights. It's part of a group build I volunteered for over on the Tholian Web site and I really need to get to it.

Thanks for the kind words everyone!

 

[Mauiman]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

One thing that I do notice about these ships. They look like a bird.

{Edit}

Found a video for you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBACWRga_W4

And if you could swing it. I would suggest you get Steve Neills constitution class kit. Though you will need to change the name and registry number on it. But all in all it would be wonderful.

 

[trekriffic]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

Thanks for the video Mauiman. I saved it to my favorites.

I'd love to get Steve's kit but it's a little out of my price range for something that I don't have the room to display.

 

[Mauiman]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

Got around to watching it which I have it on the dark mirror universe collection DVD set but a lot of the time all I am seeing is this.. Would like to see if I could get the disc exchanged but don't know how. It is even my first time getting around to watching the content.

 

[trekriffic]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

Looks like you got the snowy universe edition bud.

 

[Mauiman]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

Yeah and CBS wants me to take it back to wall mart which is where it was purchased. I received it as a gift for Christmas from my sister. But only just now got around to watching the show. Wall Mart will not accept it and thus I am stuck with it.

The USS Defiant which is MK II Pre-refit Constitution class star ship and the fact that Archer took command of the ship along with some of the enterprise crew intrigued me. I then realized that it was in the Alternate Realities collection and I was making plans to get around to watching the show. Just to get this kind of frustration. Though what I saw was really good. Much better than the first episode of the first season.

Never knew that such a boy scout could be such a war hardened power hungry maniac.

 

[trekriffic]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

Did you see if it's available on Hulu?

 

[Prologic9]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

Got around to watching it which I have it on the dark mirror universe collection DVD set but a lot of the time all I am seeing is this.. Would like to see if I could get the disc exchanged but don't know how. It is even my first time getting around to watching the content.

I've been staring at this for 5 minutes and I just don't see the hidden image.

 

[trekriffic]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

I've been staring at this for 5 minutes and I just don't see the hidden image.

:lol That's classic!

 

[trekriffic]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

Anyway... back to the RBOP...

Picked up an 8" diameter round mirror at Michaels today.
With my 40% coupon it came to $2.39 plus tax.
This will mount on the wooden base beneath the ship to show off the Bird-of-Prey on the underside.

 

[trekriffic]

Re: Romulan Bird-Of-Prey from TOS

New update...

So I finished spraying the base coats top and bottom. I used Tamiya Medium Sea Gray for upper and Tamiya Light Gray for lower surfaces. This was my first time using Tamiya lacquers from rattle cans and I must say I'm very impressed with the finish you get with them. I may decant the light gray and Tamiya white primer and mix them together so I can airbrush an off white coat on the underside towards the rear as in pics of the original studio model the hull almost appears to be white aft of the wing and tail feathers. I'm still debating this as it's also possible the whiteness is merely caused by how the model was lit. I'd be interested in hearing the opinions of the membership on that question.

Anyway, I spent most of the past weekend removing little bits of masking tape from each window and sensor port.. Then I carefully cleaned each frame up with my xacto knife and a sandpaper stick so they would be clean for painting the frames by brush. Then I applied more Tamiya masking tape around each frame rim to make it easier to brush on Testors Steel enamel:

Here are the square window frames after one coat of Steel:

The bussard dome wires were soldered and glued to the front of the nacelles. Any gaps were filled with AVES Apoxy sculpt:

The domes light up really nice. The camera overexposes them; in person, they have a gentle blue glow:

All lit up on top. Cupola windows are still masked in this shot:

I figure another 4-6 hours to finish painting all the window and sensor frames afterwhich it'll be time for decals... FINALLY!!! :lol

Thanks for reading! Comments welcome!

:thumbsup