JPG Productions 1/350 Medical Frigate Build

Hey, Jeff thanks for the reply on your build, you brought a lot to the table for this build. I'm sure others who were fortunate like myself to get this kit will benefit greatly from it. it's nice to see what others have done and learn from their build. I am so ambitious with ideas for mine.
the way you mounted yours on the base was initially the way I was going to go, but now that the piece is a solid cast and not the 2 part clam shell part I had to re-think and engineer a new plan of mounting mine when I get to it. I was thinking of a more ILM approach and that is to do a side mount on the upper front section with a short horizontal pole attached then another vertical pole/pipe going down attached to a flange then mounted on a base, I will need to cleanly cut a panel section and glue some micro magnets to place in change of the pole mount. then painted black and then will give the illusion of it floating. the issue is to do it all on one pole and not use two of them (front/and back) to hold it up, also trying to mount the front and back sections together via the provided pipe in a way so that it doesn't look like it's sagging (my biggest fear) so, with this idea I have, you mentioned and as I noticed as well dry fitting the main hull together, you said there is a big gap ( open space ) before you put the side panels on. do you think that the interior will a need a structural change to accommodate the rear/middle sections weight to save it's integrity? maybe I'm just overthinking this. but I seem to have plenty of time to come up with a plan.

I see what you mean with LED lights. I did notice you did frost the windows, easy enough. and cutting out the square/rectangular windows already molded in the kit will be an easy task as well, just a pain to do. I now know how you did the ship hull parts on the main horizontal hull, sound to be a bit of challenge, but thats why I build these kind of kit's! would be no fun if it was easy.

I'm sure you know this as much as I do but there are a few fitment issues with a bit of the rear section/engines, they fit like a puzzle with notches and indented sections to be put together, I just noticed that the 7 engine cylinders that fit in the back piece have notches cut out for the cylinders piping that is molded on the outside of them.

I saw you scratch built Cygnus, WOW!! that is insane! since I saw the Black Hole in the theater as a kid I always wanted that ship! I also wanted the Palomino as well. skip ahead to 2001 I bought the MPC kit Brand New on ebay for a $85.00. I unfortunately sold it 5 years later. wish I never did, the MPC kit is OK for detail and time it was released. but your is a Museum Piece to behold. how long did that take? you must love that ship a lot to devote so much time/Money to it's cause and size!. it's Massive the MPC version could never look like your's ! Bravo Jeff!! where do you have that displayed???

Thanks for shareing
dockbay94

The Cygnus is the 1/700 3D printed kit by Primitive Dave on Shapeways. When I talked about the "gaps" in the front section I mean those side shield parts that contain the antennaes--you can see that before you attach those pieces, there's a large open area just behind the big, whale-shaped bow piece. So before you attach those shield pieces there is plenty of space to work inside the forward section so I saved soldering all my wiring for the 9V LEDs and battery for the end of the build before I added those final pieces. I attached the right (starboard) shield piece with magnets so I have access to the interior and 9V battery.
I was worried about the connections between the central tube and the bow and engine section sagging as well but I don't see any sign of that. I think mounting it from the side (even mounting it to a wall) is a good idea but I'm confident the way I built my stand will keep it steady--like I said, you can actually use the central tube as a handle to pick the ship up and move it around and I've heard no cracking or any indication that those joins are anything but solid.
Two areas you should be careful with are the area where the tube meets the engine section--as I said, there is one piece there that really needs to have a big chunk cut out of it and you might actually consult Jimi Glancy and Nick Sagan about that unless they've changed that piece. The other is the engine tubes--when I tried fitting them into the two mounting pieces that attach to the rear wall of the engine section, both pieces cracked because the engine tubes as molded seem too wide in circumference to fit there. I had to file all of the tubes down to get them to fit correctly.