Star Trek First Contact Phoenix

[Muzza]

Before you ask what scale this ship is we call it printer scale. This is when you get the largest part you need to print and you enlarge it to fit the volume of your printer.
The model was designed by Robert James Models who also offers the print for sale.
The Phoenix will be mainly printed in resin with the exception of the engine bell that was printed in PLA on a FDM printer.

 

[Muzza]

This the largest part of the ship the center section that houses the nacelles. The Z axis on the printer is 400mm.
And yes I am making two of them.

 

[JNordgren42]

Robert is an amazing designer, his kits are extremely well engineered, well worth the money. He also has several available for free so yiu can see what his work is all about. I watched his progress on the Stargate Daedelus and the Phoenix, he puts a lot of thought and care into everything.

 

[Muzza]

The capsule comes in two different types windows open and windows filled in. For this project I will be building one with the blacked in windows and the other one with a fully lite cockpit.



The interior of the capsule has guide rails for the cockpit to fit into it neatly.

 

[Muzza]

I had quite a lot of problems trying to printing the engine bells in resin. And be for you try to give me advice on how to do it, I will let you know that I had about 10 shots at it. lots of angles, hollowed it put holes for suction the whole 9 yards with no luck.
So first print on my Creality MAX and I popped this out.
A little spray putty, sand and paint and this will do fine.

 

[Muzza]

Working on the arm for the nacelle I have opted to use a aluminum arrow shaft to increase the ridge ditty. The file already has a hole running straight throw the arm easy to slide a hollow tube into and also allowing the wiring for the electrical to run through it.
The tube will need to be trimmed down where it connects to the main body, as the distance between the two sides will just allow for the wiring to pass through.



Once glue together I also pinned the warm to the nacelle with some solid brass rod.

 

[Muzza]

On the original filming model the bell of the engine had a screen mesh located in the middle of the bell.
I used a lighter weave as I am going to fit a LED to the bottom. ( not canon ) but it will give a nice effect when mounted to the wall.

 

[Muzza]

Here is the mesh fitted inside the engine bell.
You can see the blue clear center that will have a LED fitted behind it.

 

[Muzza]

Not sure what they call this part of the Phoenix it is possible that's where the Warp Core was situated.
I had to reduce the size of the parts glued around the center core section by 0.5mm so they fitted neatly around.

 

[Muzza]

Jumped a head a little and assembled the bottom engine section and have thrown some paint on it.
Plus added some lights for effect. Even though in the movie the lower engine bells didn't have any lighting.



Just need to add a little weathering just to tone in down a little.

 

[Duncanator]

Not sure what they call this part of the Phoenix it is possible that's where the Warp Core was situated.
I had to reduce the size of the parts glued around the center core section by 0.5mm so they fitted neatly around.

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We molded the pieces on the real one very similarly to how you did.
Tony Preciado (one of the guys in the ILM mold room) referred to those as the "Slurpee dispensers" - so that's what we called them.

 

[Muzza]

We molded the pieces on the real one very similarly to how you did.
Tony Preciado (one of the guys in the ILM mold room) referred to those as the "Slurpee dispensers" - so that's what we called them.

Would you know what decals had been used around the cockpit? John told me that they were rub-on's but of what? If you could remember?

 

[Duncanator]

Would you know what decals had been used around the cockpit? John told me that they were rub-on's but of what? If you could remember?

We used a lot of Letraset rub-on letters and symbols - probably from the "microgramma bold extended" font sheets since that was the Star Trek font. I do recall some sheets having only symbols and lines, but I don't remember if those sheets had a special name.

Any other decals used could have come from ANY of the kits that the modelshop had lying around, so I couldn't even guess at that. We would dig through piles of stuff and see something cool, then just stick it on. We didn't worry about what it came from unless we needed multiples.

I think the Phoenix logo was a custom decal.

 

[Muzza]

We used a lot of Letraset rub-on letters and symbols - probably from the "microgramma bold extended" font sheets since that was the Star Trek font. I do recall some sheets having only symbols and lines, but I don't remember if those sheets had a special name.

Any other decals used could have come from ANY of the kits that the modelshop had lying around, so I couldn't even guess at that. We would dig through piles of stuff and see something cool, then just stick it on. We didn't worry about what it came from unless we needed multiples.

I think the Phoenix logo was a custom decal.

Cheers for the info, I just might make some decals for it and some funny sayings in the text. I did see a "M" on the Phoenix the exact symbol used on the AT-AT it would have been a rub on by the look of it.

 

[Muzza]

I have fitted the nacelles to the body, maybe not the best Idea at this time as I have to paint.
I can see myself braking one off before this is finished.

 

[tdb68]

VERY COOL! thank you for showing your build! i have the model but i havent started it yet

 

[Duncanator]

Hey Muzza!

Any more progress on your Phoenix?

Here's some paint reference of the original Phoenix. It may not have been done when I took these pics - John Goodson looks to be still working on it, but it must'a been close. Sorry these aren't great quality pics. I just took a picture of the photo with my phone.
I also included a couple shots of the engines under construction. That's me working on the Cochrane warp nacelle. Talk about a childhood thrill!

And here I am building Humanities first warp engine! I present to you: The Cochrane Warp Engine !

.... And here is the rocket engine. If you look into the maneuvering engine bells, you can see that we used large snaps for the insides.

 

[Muzza]

Hey Muzza!

Any more progress on your Phoenix?

Here's some paint reference of the original Phoenix. It may not have been done when I took these pics - John Goodson looks to be still working on it, but it must'a been close. Sorry these aren't great quality pics. I just took a picture of the photo with my phone.
I also included a couple shots of the engines under construction. That's me working on the Cochrane warp nacelle. Talk about a childhood thrill!

View attachment 1605926

View attachment 1605927
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And here I am building Humanities first warp engine! I present to you: The Cochrane Warp Engine !

View attachment 1605929

.... And here is the rocket engine. If you look into the maneuvering engine bells, you can see that we used large snaps for the insides.

View attachment 1605930

WOW these photos are fantastic!!
Thank you so much for taking the time to add them to the post.
I have never seen the Phoenix with the logo on it, was it removed for the movie?

 

[Muzza]

Drilling holes for the wiring. The distance between the pylons where they meat on the middle is not very thick.


Drilling a hole down the length of the middle of the ship with my (300mm x 6mm) 12" x 1/4" drill bit.


Now the hole has been made I can now thread the wiring through the Pylon into the center of the ship.

I added some punched out styrene circles and glued it to the pivot bracket so it looks like there is a pivot pin holding the pylon in place.

 

[Duncanator]

The logo was only on the side that has the cockpit windows.
I'd have to go back to see when it might have been visible in the film.