Here Goes Something Awesome!

Hello again everyone. What a week of work..
Today I've finished up the hull's preliminary work; decaling and finishing of the tile coats. We've done the same paint job as described, but along the belly of the hull, I subbed the white base coat out for a grey coat, which will lead into the dish's grey and blue paint job.
You'll also notice that the pylons have been finished, and reinforced. For those of you who are about to glue these together: STOP... When complete, the nacelles will pull down the pylons, and over time, snap, crackle, pop. What I've done is lay two peices of hollow steel pipe from my hobby shop along THE TOP PYLON PEICE(parts 42 &41), glued them down, and THEN finished the pylons. This reinforce the top piece,while the bottom piece sits there and does it's job correctly(the stress test was done on my baby, and wow, R.I.P.) I've also run small poly rod into the pipe to feed future wiring, etc.
The painting was the same process I discussed on the pylons. As you look at the hull, note the sharp lines around panelling. This was acheived indirectly by the AztecDummy pattern. As much as I bad mouthed it, they are, again, very detailed. If you too have a problem with the stickyness, they make the greatest frisket pattern make you could have. I only needed one "hull side" frisket to do the entire hull pattern, with light hand painting for details sake (check out the top of the tail.) Decalling this thing is maddening, but worhtwhile, as you can see. A big warning, they are shiny, shiny, shiny.. Keep the flat coat paint handy before the final plate coats.
You'll also notice the display stand, which appears to be heavily detailed. What can I say i'm a genius...
Truthfully, I didn't do squat except figure out how not to waste Byran's AztecDummy patterns anymore than I had too. I layed down the vinyl squares, as well as a few panels of thin poly, then coppered the thing to death, adding in the guidewires that hold the lights on the side, and added the final frontier behind. The decals of the lights are white under all that detail, so cudos the the decal designer (it made me think about the shuttlebay florr decals for the moment). Upon close inspection, you'll catch that underneath, the kitmakers have the "lightsquares" ready to be masked, so that you can light this guy as well. Bryan hasn't decided on a lighting system, so work on the base will stop at this point until we both know where to drill.
Here is the arboretum, and it was pretty simple. You don't have to go into to much craft detail, as you can't see the floor clearly, but the trees make up for the lack of deatils.
So enjoy my model builng buddies... You keep veiwing, I'll keep painting.

Be still my heart.....
Great idea on reinfrocing the pylons. What do you think will be needed to mount the ship on that base without it falling forward on the primary hull?

I'm thinking we build little docking pylon details to hold the rest of the belly, using the holes already present in the base. The model is well balanced(again tested on the dead dummy enterprise) and I think a "triagle" base would work We'll see. Anyone else have an idea out there? we know you're looking.. B)

Originally posted by Hotshot@Jun 1 2005, 07:56 AM
Anyone else have an idea out there? we know you're looking.. B)

[snapback]1001227[/snapback]​

Click to expand...

Looking good Hotshot..

I hate how PL did the attachment for the base, it is totally lame.

So here is my solution and attachment method for my Enterprise.

I used a 5/8" clear acrylic rod, drilled a hole in the lower hull so that it would fit. I cut a peice of PVC pipe that fit tight to the rod as I could and wrapped it with tape to make it tighter and long enough that between the lower hull and docking bay section.

I then screwed it in place from the docking bay section to the rod, you can't see the screw from veiwing it outside.

I then puttyed the PVC pipe in place to the lower hull with Plumbers epoxy putty to make it rock solid so that it wasn't going any where.

I then drilled a 5/8" hole into the middle of the base for the rod and got a 12" X 14" wooden base for it, you can use a 8" X 11" wooden base if you wish, and added a peice of wood to it to get a little more height and drilled a hole for the rod to fit.

The base will fit right over the top when done and I will screw the plastic base to the wooden base.

The same idea can be used with brass tubing so that you can run wires up it to light it.

I will not be lighting mine so I went with the acrylic rod instead.

HTH in giving you some ideas.

Lynn

Nice .. I don't think it's lame at all... Byran and I are close to a lighting solution, but were trying to keep the "in the docking bay" look going. Probably two nice looking docking pylons right under the hull to dish joint, so we don't lose the detail of the belly phasers or nav dish panels. Bryan's biggest artistic inspiration for me was his description of seeing the ship for the first time on the big screen. I remeber mine as well, and am alaways keeping that great moment in my mind while building.


BTW am I the only guy singing the trumpet themes in my head while building?? B)

I'm having so much fun building these, if anyone else wants one, let me know...

Here's a great thread over at HobbyTalk on lighting.
http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.p...84&page=1&pp=15

This is the look for the nacelles Hotshot. This was done using 2 blue LED's and painting the groves of the clear part. THAT how I want it.


[attachmentid=2078]

Thank god it's laundry night, I need new boxers . . .

Then get a load of this (all of these are over at HobbyTalk.com)


[attachmentid=2094]

Hotshot would like to reply, but has fallen on the floor from a heart attack, hit his head, and is currently dreaming of nav dishes. Thank you. B)

Here's some initial lighting tests done by a builder over at Starship Modeler's Forum:

This is my testbed for the big Polar Lights monster.

This is an early lighting test. The engines are EL wire through DLM's clear resin parts. Very effective, fairly light. The main lighting is a super bright white LED through the clear conduit that comes stock with the ERTL lights/sounds kit.
The nav beacons are done with a 3mm white LED inside the saucer halfs with a short bit of 2.5mm fiber optic through the holes. This gauge fiber optic is much more scale correct than the larger LED. It also allows for less lights inside the saucer, as one LED can light both the top and bottom beacon.

[attachmentid=2111]

[attachmentid=2112]

[attachmentid=2113]

I stole these from StarFleet operations...a very covert mission including 3 Klingons, 2 Ferengi, abd a Cardassian named Bob. Real crack squad. These are the ORIGINAL blueprint for the Enterprise Refit...be prepared.......






[attachmentid=2166]

This is HotShots light diagram from the secondary hull. Pretty spiffy, huh?

Bob was there?


(this was lit with a cell phone and a light board used for tracing)

Hey Rhett, take a lit shot of the arboretum through the windows, I'm curious to see how opaque they are. Just drop it in there to get an idea of what it may look like. We have to put a light source in that base, it looks killer.

Here's how to do the nacelle's, my man.

[attachmentid=2167]

"I took a large clear stray, sprayed the back of it white, then the other side with satin clearcoat. Stuck 2 5mm blue leds acing in on each other, and taped the "bar" to the back of the already frosted and painted grill. I'll get pics of the hardware once I figure out the RCS thruster pack, and what I am going to do for the tail ID spotlights."

Here ya go. This was the clearest dark shot I could get. The windows are actually very clear, and to block the light, white pin striping tape was used. This will be coated with matching tones today, as the belly and two walls of the hull are together, filled, and ready for their last coat of paint. The top of the belly piece will also get her "wood plank" paintjob, with those nice ribs along the side. i should also not that she'll be affixed to the base for the lighting. As for all of you asking how I'm getting the top piece on with the pylons attached, let me tell you here and now: The bottom two tabs on each side of the hull walls that attach into the pylon slots are not nessecary. They can be cliped down, fitted and then glued TO the pylon slots, not into. You should always worry about the top connection, as that is where all the weight will be pulling from. I'll post more an thind process when I close up the hull. Now I'm off to buy lights.. Bye.

I can see a tree....

what tree? I didn't build any trees. . .

Dind't relaize the work was downhill from here. Here's the belly and the way we'll display the ship in drydock. Neck amd nacelles on there way.


Do you guys think there should be one arm or two? let us know . . .
Thanks for the hosting as usual wackychimp.

Where are you going to run the wires out from? We may want to consider a mounting similar to what Lynn did above, giving good support and a conduit for the witing harness. I think we should really consider doing this the same way. It just looks much more solid. we can still use the base, but we need a sold and heavy wood base to keep this thin upright. If you mount the rod like Lynn's, I'll do the base when you send it back.

So, we are going to need, what, 130 LED's?. This is ThomasModels lighting chart.

[attachmentid=2175]

He's gonna melt his model. this thing isn't metal . . . As for the base, we'll run the wire through the rod, and another one. i've tested this on the test model, and it works(uless you hit it as hard as you can) B)