KBoP Part 10

Previously on Klingon Bird of Prey...

Here's a bit of progress since last week. I put the landing gear bay back in with a lighting module. You can't really see it in this picture, so I'll discuss it in a future post. The lighting uses LEDs and fiber optic to make a console next to the door have blinking lights.

What you see at right is the band around the engine recess, which is like that going around the outer part of the hull. I settled on making it from Evergreeen styrene shapes.

Here is the lower glowing engine part, made from the bottom of the clear kit part, plexiglas, and styrene strips. I keep some of that Plastruct cement with the orange label that works on any combination of styrene, ABS, and acrylic. It barely attacks acrylic compared to styrene, but it does the job.

Here's the underside of that part. To its right is a detail bit that I sawed off the clear kit part just to thin it down--the lower engine part gets lowered in this modification, and it nearly runs out of room on the back of the lower hull.

 Here is the detail bit reattached.

Here's a light test. The upper side of the lower engine part glows yellow. I did a bit of painting, too.

And the underside. That detail bit that I reattached now sticks out lower than the bottom of the lower hull. If you just glue the kit part in without modification, you don't have this problem. I think I mentioned before that this accurization is a compromise solution.

By the way, here's where the light is coming from. I got a string of Christmas lights at Walmart for $7. It uses this battery power supply to light up 36 tiny surface-mount warm white LEDs in parallel. The wire lacquer-coated instead of having the usual PVC insulation. The power supply also has three functions: steady on, blink, and phase. I'm going to use the phase function to make the engine glow pulsate. There isn't enough room in the hull for this battery box, so I'll put just the circuit board in and find some way to get it the 4.5 volts it wants from outside the ship.

Next time: more lighting...