Hello everyone, I AM BACK! And it’s about time. Well my last post was about how I had just ordered (in March) replacement nacelle windows from Polar Lights. Well they did arrive in late April; however, by April I had moved on to several other pending projects (non-model) related, then I had to leave town for several weeks of training, then more projects, then I got promoted and placed on call 24-7-365. Anyway, I have cleared everything off my build table and put the Big E back on the table. I apologize to everyone that I left hanging. All I can say is life was happening.
So, I am back and to be honest, the break gave some time to think about some of issues I have been having with the model.
I have made some progress with the nacelles and I will touch on that in a moment. However, first I need to talk about a few things that are bothering me with the build. I have tried very hard to not cut corners. This has forced me to redo several things until I got them to a level that I was satisfied with. But there are a few things that I cannot fix because I am too far past that point in the build. An example of this is the Jefferies tubes in the shuttle bay. I did not know about the light blocking properties of silver chrome paint when I was working on the shuttle bay. I have since sealed the shuttle bay and to break it open would most likely do more harm than good to redo the tubes. If you look at the pics of the tubes I posted earlier, they do not look as good as I would like. Another issue is the rec deck, but I really do not have a better idea at this time.
Ok, so the nacelles... Well I painted the replacement windows.
However, I do not like how the turned out so I am going to paint the black lines with the silver chrome first then black over that. I will also end up redoing the blue as well.
As for lighting, man this has been a bear. The Trekmodeler kit comes with two big white LEDs that do not light the window evenly. Adding more LEDs made the window brighter but each LED stands out.
I considered using Acrylic rods with LEDs on the ends but this presented a whole new group of challenges.
So I built a box out of white sheet styrene and used clear styrene on the top. I lined one side of the inside of the box with several LEDs. I painted the inside of the clear styrene with the sprint white.
When I laid a cover on it with the window installed you can see the effect.
So in the coming week I plan on refining this method and using these kick butt LEDs
I should have more pics and an update by the end of the week. Thanks to everyone for the support and interest. I will endeavor to not droop off the face of the earth again.