Start by chopping up silver solder into 1/16 inch long pieces.
Next take bread rapper ties, strip of the outer plastic and use the steel inner wire wrapping it through the lid holes around the frame.
Next carefully drop the pieces of solder into the lid and frame where they meet each other (sorry for the blurry pic).
Next dribble a small amount of liquid flux into the crevasse, then apply the micro torn heat from underneath. The little pieces of solder will just flow right in and disappear!
Here are shoots of the solder completed.
Steel wool and it bright and shines.
Gamma is the communicator that you see in "The Making of Star Trek" book. This particular communicator had a deeper brass lid with rounder
sides. It was also one of two that had a steel frame rather then the more common brass frame on the lid.
Technically mine isn't a replica of "Delta", but a comm influenced by various versions! But I've always liked the wide Delta ring. I like the ring you made much more than the one that came with my JLong kit. Below are some pics Looking forward to seeing you finish the Gamma build. It's one of my favorite comms. In fact, I kind of wish I went with a steel wire for my Jlong comm, as I pretty much wanted to incorporate all of my favorite details into one comm haha!
Your soldering is wonder! That is a beautiful build. And thank you for following this thread, nice to see someone from TPZ. I'm posting here and over at ASAP now. Is that Abroid glue that I see being used to hold the shell to the mid plate? Very original looking!!
Thanks! I can't take credit for the soldering though, that's something I never learned to do. A member on TPZ helped me with that (I sanded down the antenna piece that came with the JLong kit prior, to make it thinner. Looks much better now.). I've helped him build a couple midgrade phasers, so it was cool for him to help me with this antenna.
I just use contact cement to hold the shells to the mid plate, but it does mimic the appearance of some of the originals pretty well! I add a light touch of matte medium with slight yellowish/dark tint along where the shells meet the mid plate, and then add some dust into it. Makes for an aged look hehe
I have a question about the lid: how do you get such a nice sharp bend at the point where the wheels meet the lid, especially with the lid so close to the wheels? It seemed like it should have been easy, but this was a big headache for me when building up my JLong kit--I just couldn't get the bend close enough to the wheels or sharp enough--it was always too round-looking.
Thanks!
Yep..that does indeed set a standard by having the wheels properly grooved. Here is the set you made for me a while back which i used for my Delta build.