Sovereign Replicas Enterprise E WIP

[DarthDuck]

Received an SR Enterprise E to build complete with the kit's PE and recommended electronics. This should be a fun one and will hopefully come to represent the handsome ship which the Sovereign Replicas model can build into. There was a slight delay on my part since I had little choice but to add some additional work surface to the shop to give me some much needed elbow room! A little bit of running around to the local home improvement centers yielded 19 more linear feet of countertop with some supporting cabinets although the gaps in those will be filled in later.

Back to the excellent kit though!

 

[Fetts.Sobriquet]

Re: Enterprise E Sovereign Class

I love this ship. Can't wait to see this made.

 

[MooCriket]

Re: Enterprise E Sovereign Class

Can't wait to see the work in progress on this!

 

[DarthDuck]

^^^
Thank you gents. Me too.:cool

A very fast mockup of the components shows it will be around 42" tip to tail.

 

[yt]

Looking forward to seeing this, I need some inspiration to start mine.

 

[dbhs]

This is going to be fun to watch, Don.

Is this a commission or for yourself?

 

[DarthDuck]

This is going to be fun to watch, Don.

Is this a commission or for yourself?

This is for a very good client who's had it for years and I'm lucky enough to live vicariously through building it!:cool

 

[Aztek Dummy]

DD,
take it from one who knows...

find some way to make an internal armature. eventhough the fiberglass is light. My ship is a little more than 3 years old now and the nacelles are noticeably sagging.

find a way to join the pylons to each other. I had braced the pylons against the hull, but it is the fiberglass in the hull that is buckling.

If I had Richard's ear for one moment, I would ask him not to have split the secondary hull down the center, but split it top and bottom along the pylon-line

I can provide photos so you can see the trouble spots

 

[yt]

I can provide photos so you can see the trouble spots

I would like to see those.

 

[DarthDuck]

This is going to be fun to watch, Don.

Is this a commission or for yourself?

I would like to see those.

Yes, ditto.
And how long before you saw the symptoms? Then how long till now and did you go back in to try and work with it? Just asking in advance to help understand what the pictures will represent.

 

[Aztek Dummy]

I'll take some new pics. I first noticed after about a year, also I forgot to mention the point on the belly where the support rod goes thru is also sagging due to weight. eventhough I reinforced the inside with a heavy brass plate.

After I get thru some other builds, I may see if Richard will sell me some new decals, so I can brake it down and rebuild

 

[DarthDuck]

Doing some preplanning on the lighting I used some very bright blue mini surface mount LEDs arranged in a row and then experimented with either clear tinted ("smoke") or some opaque "filters" at twelve volts and they were all too bright. I then switched to nine volts and also varied how close they were near the top. Some were taken with the lights at "mid nacelle" height while IMHO the better effects were from having the lights down at the bottom of the nacelle. All pictures were taken in a 'well lit' room without flash as you might normally view a displayed model.
Just goes to show how effective the fiberglas model is at passing light and how I will need to fine tune using the same LEDs to best effect.

 

[BradyBunch]

Any updates on this? I'm considering getting an SR as well, and I'd love to see your progress.