trekriffic

Thanks Greg!

For those of you still following this thread, I posted finished pics in a new thread here: http://forum.ipmsusa3.org/index.php?/topic/8395-uss-enterprise-ncc-1701-in-11000-scale/ Live long and prosper!

Here are the finshed pics of my recently completed production series version of the most famous starship in science fiction history-the USS Enterprise! Outdoor pics taken on an overcast day to capture the actual colors. I've been told she looks much larger than actual size in the first three pics: Shots taken indoors against a neutral backdrop with "natural" lighting: On the stand: Anyone interested in this model's construction can view my build thread here: http://forum.ipmsusa...e__gopid__56178 For more finished and in progress pics view my album on Photobucket: http://s146.photobucket.com/albums/r259/Trekriffic/TOS%20Enterprise%201-1000%20scale/

Hi everyone. Sorry not to have posted much lately. I did end up making the bulbs with brass collars for the stern strobes: I also did the following... 1) Added the tiny lights that go above the bussard dome collars. They light up too.: 2) Finished the spine lights over the hangar bay: 3) Shaped and filed the tiny teardrop-shaped lights outboard of the flashers on the upper saucer: 4) Replaced the round nipples on either side of the bridge deck with clear red acrylic rod so they light up: 5) Drilled holes and added the tiny lights that can be seen on the saucer rim itself at the 90 and 270 degree positions: 6) Replaced the plastic tip on the brass deflector spike with a brass piece turned on my dremel/lathe. I also repainted the dish to be copper metallic with no weathering.: Here is the ship as she looks right now after basecoating and weathering with pastels and gel ink pens and a few coats of Dullcote. I tried to keep it subtle... Lit up! SInce these pics were taken I've given her a rubdown with Model Wax. She's satiny smooth now and just a tad darker than before. The weathering is even a little more muted. Next up is decals!

No. That kit appears to have died on the vine I'm afraid.

The hangar bay was scratch built Bill. It's lit with a green rectangular LED in the forward bulkhead, 4 spot lights along the base of the inboard wall, and one "tractor beam" LED in the center of the floor. Here are some in progress shots of it: Fiber optic spotlights: Test fitting (the other bay is the onboard battery box): Lit up: Tractor bean emitter installed and lit:: Talon fighter (in progress) in bay: You can see all the WIP pics on this build here: http://s146.photobuc...!cpZZ7QQtppZZ36

Here are some more pics of the hangar bay and fighters:

This is my build of the re-issued AMT Romulan Bird-Of-Prey kit completed after about 9 months of work. The kit was extensively modified in an effort to more closely approximate the look and feel of the studio model. Most of the changes involved lengthening the hull and flattening the aft angle of the upper cupola, shortening and adjusting the angle of the wings for a more forward tilt, adding a stepped rim and angle to the hull perimeter with styrene tubing and sheet, drilling and filing out round windows and square sensor ports then framing the openings with brass tubing, construction of a hangar bay complete with two "Talon" fighters of my own design, and installation of an LED lighting system powered either by internal batteries or an external battery box. The stand was also custom made. Decals were from JTGraphics. Box Art: And here are pics of my model: Let there be lights! Kirk: "Full astern! Emergency warp speed!" Here's a video where I discuss the construction. The Tholian I refer to is the admin over on The Tholian Web forum who asked me to make the vid.

Updates from last weekend... So after work last Friday night I skipped (errrr... make that strode purposefully) out to the garage and spent about an hour on the old girl. First thing I wanted to do before spraying her with Testors black enamel was to drill holes for the lights on the spine over the shuttle bay and the tops of the bussard collars. I figured it would be easier to see what I was drilling against a gray exterior as opposed to one painted black. For the spine lights, I drew a line down the center of a piece of Tamiya masking tape and using my drafting calipers took measurements off Alan Sinclair's blueprint (which I had previously blown up to match the size of the model) and transferred the location of the three tiny lights onto the tape using the front edge of the stern beacon as my reference point. After that I laid the tape down as close to the centerline of the secondary hull as I could using my drafting calipers to measure where the pencil line was centering it from the front edge of the hangar beacon, between the nacelle struts, and up to the centerline of the dorsal. Then I took my straight pointed dental pick and pressed it thru the tape where I'd marked where the lights should be leaving indents for drilling into the model... I removed the tape and drilled with my pinvise. The center hole of the three spine lights is about 33% larger than the other two. The holes on the bussard collars are the same size as the middle hole of the spine lights... Here she is after the black paint dried... And after giving her a light sanding to smooth everything out. Of course, she'll need dusting off after this. Sanding really attracts any crap floating around in the air doesn't it? So tomorrow it'll be time for the basecoat to be airbrushed. Before I do that, though, I'll mask off the areas I want left black such as the ridged baffles behind the bussard collars and the impulse engine vents. Once I'm done with the painting I'll turn clear green and red acrylic rod in my dremel and insert them into the holes I drilled out last night. I figure I'll just glue on the tiny teardrop shaped lights on the edge of the saucer outboard of the running lights. I'm not sure yet if I'll just use the decals for the blinkers on the sides of the shuttle bay or if I need to drill more holes and make those out of clear rod. If I do that I might as well turn some brass tubing for the metal collars around those lights. You can see them here... I'll probably make the bulbs for these as they don't sit flush to the surface like a decal would and I'm really trying to be a stickler for details on this build if you hadn't guessed that already! ;)

Musings on the next steps...So I was checking for light bleed the other night and noticed some minor leakage around the rim of the bussards. I'll sort that out by applying some more Mr Surfacer with a brush. This will be followed by some light sanding with 600 grit paper and even finer grit polishing pads. Then I'll shoot the entire model with a coat of Testors flat black before I airbrush the first basecoat of Shady Cove enamel. Using the airbrush should allow me the control I need to have some of the black showing thru to leave faint weathering streaks. After the initial coat dries I'll be using Alan Sinclair's blueprint of the upper saucer to draw the gridlines using a mechanical pencil.I printed the drawing off onto 8.5 x 11 inch paper and then zoomed out to 124% on the copier at work to match the 5" diameter of the kit. I'll cut it out and lay it down on the model then make tick marks along the rim of the saucer where the gridlines terminate. I'll do the same thing along the perimeter of the B-C deck housing then use a piece of styrene strip to draw the radial lines. The tick marks will be erased before more paint is applied. The circular lines will be drawn with a compass. I don't want the compass needle to mar the upper sensor dome so I'll cut a short length of tubing to fit snugly around the periimeter of the bridge (with a slot cut out where the turbolift is) and glue a round, flat piece of styrene to the top of the tubing with a hole dead center for the compass needle to rest in. The tubing will need to fit snugly enough around the bridge deck without gluing of course. The compass needle will thus rest just above the level of the dome without touching it. Once the gridlies are drawn I'll seal with a light spray of Dullcote and use them as a guide to mask off and paint the rust ring with Testors Rust and lightly scribe lines where the four rectangular upward facing saucer window decals will go. Then I'll mask off and paint the front of the dorsal and the area under the front of each nacelle behind the three flux constrictors with a mix of the hull color and Intermediate Blue. The rust ring, gridlines, and weathering streaks will then be muted down to be very subtle after another thinned down layer of the basecoat. As far as the nacelle encaps, the rear retangles on each side of the nacelles, and the impulse engine vent assembly and accelerator on the back of the upper saucer, I plan on painting those a 50/50 mix of Testors Medium Gray and Euro Grey as Medium Gray seems too light and Euro Gray seems a little too dark. The slot on the inside of the nacelles will probably be painted Medium Gray as they appear to be a shade lighter than the rest. These will be painted after the second basecoat has been applied to the rest of the ship. I'll allow 2-3 days for the paint to cure before hitting her with Glosscote, then apply decals, wait a day and spray with more Glosscote, and then finally 3-4 coats of Dullcote. Then I'll unmask the clear bits, clean up any "holidays" (hopefully there won't be any) and call her done! Well, all except for the base which will be a resin U.S.S. Enterprise base I bought from The Model Base Guy years ago for this build. Here's a pic:

Curses! Foiled again! Top notch work!

I grew up when all the moon missions were going on and I absolutely love this! Well done sir!

Pics from this past weekend... Masked and ready for the first coat of primer: I wasn't satisfied with just using a decal for the impulse engine vents so I cut a piece of thin styrene sheet using an impulse engine from another 1/1000 kit as a template to trace the outline. Then I and cut out the rectangles with an exacto thin chisel blade and drilled the tiny center hole before gluing it to the face of the kit part. This is a nice improvement in my opinion and really defines the vent openings: After priming I noticed several spots that needed more sanding so I dobbed on red putty as needed and sanded and sanded until I was satisfied everything was uber smooth. Based on the photos below, I'm quite satisfied that no seams are visible. After a quick go over with 600 grit to ensure absolute smoothness she'll be ready for the initial basecoat: Thanks for reading!

Funny! I'd thoguht about taking a few more pics with a Martian poking it's head out from behind the rocks but never got around to it. Here's another pic of the two ships side-by-side:

The TWA Mars Liner is lit. Here's the lighting assembly made from booklight parts and an empty xacto blade tube:: The booklight: