Plastic modelling - Battlestar Galactica WIP

[gamblor916]

I love following WIP threads. Nice work.

[SharkyMcShark]

Are the flight pods going to slide out like in the series?

[SkyWarp91]

Awesome that you're going through the efforts to build it man, I got lazy and just pre-ordered the completed, painted version.

[Iriorne]

Are the flight pods going to slide out like in the series?

No, the flight pods will be static. The model has inherited one of the quirks of the CG model in that the landing bays are slightly too big to fit inside the ship. It's possible to fit them in if you leave out the recessed 'garage' inserts, and I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to scratch up something to fill in any gaps from the inside to fake the garages but it would be permanent.

I don't think it's possible to make the arms retractable, or at least it would take a lot more skill than I have. There's just not enough room at the point where the arms connect, and if you make the arms into two part slider mechanisms, the pods might end up being too heavy.

Awesome that you're going through the efforts to build it man, I got lazy and just pre-ordered the completed, painted version.

Haha, yeah, the prepainted version looks pretty good and it's actually about the same as I paid for the kit alone, let alone the detail sets, tools, paints, electronics. The unpainted kit does allow me to mod it for accuracy and add electronics, plus I (mostly) enjoy building it.

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Lighting

I'd originally decided not to light the model, but had a change of heart recently. I figured, I'd spent so much on it already, why not go all the way?

The plan is to have:

• White fibre optic lights in the head
• Red fibre optic lights in the garage recesses
• 6 blue LEDs in the engines, with the central engines on a separate switch
• White surface mount LEDs in the hangar bays

The model will be powered through a 3.5 mm audio jack, at the top of it's support stand, with a corresponding socket mounted inside. Space is a big problem but I managed to find a small socket designed for PCB mounting which will work perfectly.



One of the SMD LEDs I got from China via Ebay. The LED itself is a little yellow square at the end of the black tube. Easier to see in the photo below. These things are TINY (~1.5 mm square) but it makes them pretty easy to fit in the bays. I've drilled holes through the arms and into the bays and the shrink tubing fits nicely inside the arms.



Garage inserts sitting on the lower hull with an arm in place. Also the socket and jack for power. Putting this together will be a bit awkward as I'll have to glue the garages to the hull first in order to fill the seam properly. Will probably have to solder some wires on to the socket first so I can then attach all the other wires without melting holes everywhere.



I was having a play with LED positioning in the hangars last night and decided to use four LEDs instead of two to get more uniform lighting through the hangar. If I had the skills I would probably have soldered the LEDs in series, directly within the hangars but because they're so tiny and I've never soldered before, I decided it was safer to get pre-wired ones.

The hangar arms have room for two sets of wire, all I had to do was drill another exit hole on the inside end of the arms. Looks like a bit of a mess at the moment, but I think there'll be enough room for everything.

This is as much as I can do with the lighting until the rest of my components arrive in the post (should be any day now). LEDs are crazy expensive here, for the same price I got 3 LEDs in Australia or 30 from the UK. Only downside is the waiting time.

[Deonasis]

I too, like wip threads and this is a great one. I am not following all the modifications because i have not see much of the show but i thought this was a slap it together and paint it deal. I was really wrong

What is the single styrene strip taped onto the green mat for? It is in many of the pictures.

[Iriorne]

[...] What is the single styrene strip taped onto the green mat for? It is in many of the pictures. [...]

Cheers, yeah a lot of the mods are kind of nit-picky. I was perusing other peoples builds before starting my own and I probably wouldn't have noticed if others hadn't made a point of fixing them. More a case of not being able to unsee them once you know. It's still a great kit out of the box, though.

The strips taped to the mat are actually three strips of styrene (1 mm x 0.4 mm). I'm cutting off small bits and glueing them into the spaces between the ribs to give it a bit more detail, rather than use the aftermarket decals that I bought. Have a look at some of the previous photos and you can see the white squares everywhere. I taped the strips together (and to the mat) to make the cutting easier - I can now cut three bits of similar size instead of one without worrying about everything slipping.

It shows up a lot because the pics are mostly pretty recent. I only decided to do use the styrene chips a few weeks ago and sticking the little squares everywhere is annoying and fiddly so it takes a while. Nearly done though, only one engine pod left.

Some illustrations of the major issues I'm fixing:

Head fix. correcting the head angle and making the bottom and top flush with the hull.


Armour fix. Removed all the kit armour (red) and replaced to better match the CG model. Chiselled under the armour plates (green) to simulate armour plating on top of the ribs.

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Hangar bays are painted, decaled and matte coated. Pretty thick decals, took a lot of setting solution to get them seated down, and then I lost 2/3rds of a bottle when I knocked it over accidentally.



The photoetch inserts are painted up too, you can see one on the far landing bay above. Looking pretty good - a few minor rips in the decals (small triangle at one end of a decal and a complete break through the middle of the other) but no one will be able to see once it's all closed up. A shame really, they look great.

Next step will be to finalise the LED placement in the upper section of the bays, do a final check for light bleed then glue everything together.

[lancalot]

wow that attention to detail man...... great stuff...

[Iriorne]

LEDs and fibre optic turned up in the post today!

Unfortunately I didn't properly plan how much fibre optic I'd need and I think I'm quite short. At a 6 cm average length I'll only get 25 windows a side, rather than the ~40 I'd like, and that leaves nothing for the garages.

I've ordered a couple of cheapo LED fibre lamps from Hong Kong. Each lamp should have nearly 30 metres of fibre in it which will be plenty sufficient, but does mean more waiting. The fibre optics for the head section are a pretty self contained element so I can at least get on with everything else.

I also discovered the variable voltage DC transformer I was using to test my circuits with is faulty. Thought it was weird that 12V LEDs worked all the way down to "3V" without any loss in brightness. I suspect it was actually spitting out a lot more than 3V, so will have to dig out a multimeter and see what's going on. Surprised I didn't pop any of the new LEDs when testing them, they just didn't work which is how I realised there was a problem.

[Iriorne]

Playing the waiting game is slow. My fibre optic lamps turned up, along with my set of micro drill bits. I've drilled out all the holes for the fibre optic and done some test threading, but will hold off glueing anything until I finish with the engines and can get a better feel for how everything will fit inside.

I'll need to obtain a better DC transformer too. After testing it turns out that the 3-12V output on the one I had was more like 9-12V.

Windows in the 'neck' section. There's about 70 holes with 0.5 mm diameter on each side.


Scratch built the large lower antenna for the lower bow using some styrene rod, putty and the tip of a sewing pin (grid is 1 inch):


Used pin tips and pin sections to add secondary antennae to the lower hull:


Those pin tips are super fiddly and, even with pliers, are a real pain to grip onto while filing the ends flat.

Next step is to assemble the upper section of the head, fill and sand the seams and prime the lower hull and remaining head parts.

[Cat]

Awesome that you're going through the efforts to build it man, I got lazy and just pre-ordered the completed, painted version.

Of the same model kit?

How does it look? I've been eyeing them off, but unsure of if they were up to my skillset (square through circle...hmmm...someone fetch me a hammer!!)