That really good...i didn't know water slide can look like that ....totally amazed .... wouldn't it be hard to do on curved surfaces..and that the whole ship!!
.... man must been hard for the nacelles!!
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
That really good...
Rank 6 - Dedicated Member
Yeah, compound curves are tough. Luckily most of the decals were in smaller sections so this wasn't a huge problem. In future I'd probably trim the nacelle decals into sections. Even cutting around the outline of the 'steps' wasn't really adequate and they were still a pain.
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A major issue with the stock kit is the misalignment of the various sections of the 'alligator head'. If built unmodified, the lower jaw would sit a fraction of a millimetre too high, while the dorsal surface of the head would be about 0.5 cm higher than the body, and pointing at a slight upward angle.
Correcting this was pretty nerve wracking as it was difficult to work out where and how much material to remove and the potential to really screw it up was quite high. I colour coded the areas that were altered in the picture below.
Orange: removing the alignment pins on the lower jaw to allow it to sit flush with the lower hull.
Green: removing the top millimetre from the central section of the head. Also removed all alignment pins for upper and lower sections.
Blue: removing about half a centimetre from the 'shelf' on the upper hull.
Red: removed some of the detail on the back of the upper head to allow it to sit lower
Purple: constructed a shim to fill the gap cause by levelling the head.
This was mostly done last year, you can see some of the parts have a coat of primer and some styrene chip detail that I decided to add.
Close up on the shim, made from thin strip styrene that I laminated together. Scribed some mostly straight panel lines, should blend right in with another coat of primer.
Rebuilt armour plate for the nose section. Held on with blutack temporarily but will remove for painting and reattach at the end. Looks heaps better compared to the original kit detail. Also plenty of styrene chip detail in evidence here.
Reconstructed some detail on the engines. The CG model has recessed detail here while the kit was smooth. This was relatively straightforward to do and will stop it looking too plain. There's some fine scribed detail on some of the parts too that doesn't really show up well.
Starboard landing bay. Spent an evening super glueing little bits of aluminium foil into the upper sections to block light from the LEDs. Managed to avoid glueing my fingers together.Real pain though, probably should just have used some thick black paint (which I've since bought for other parts anyway).
I folded up one of the photoetch landing bay inserts too, to see how it fits. Should look good all painted up, and the etch will stop anyone seeing the slightly rough internal surface, not that you could see much through the opening anyway.
Next step is to paint the bay interiors and apply the runway decals provided with the kit.
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
Awesome, so glad they spent some money and finished the series off. Yes the ending sucked but it was better that just being cancelled!
Awesome model!!!!!!!!!
Rank 9 - Board Staff
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
Are the flight pods going to slide out like in the series?
I'm really just here for the free food and open bar.
Rank 3 - Basic Member
Awesome that you're going through the efforts to build it man, I got lazy and just pre-ordered the completed, painted version.
Rank 6 - Dedicated Member
Of the same model kit?Originally Posted by SkyWarp91
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!!)
Rank 6 - Dedicated Member
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.
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.
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
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.
"I am not a gun. I'm hitting people with a hammer. On Mars."
The Iron Giant / David Wildgoose
Rank 6 - Dedicated Member
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.
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