1/1400 Saber-class NCC-81623 USS Da VInci, Part 2

I gave the model its first coat of primer. A relatively hard thing to fix is the loss of saucer edge detail near this RCS quad. I filled the gap with gel superglue and hit it with accelerant, then sanded and added more. I also puttied. After it's primered again, we'll see how much more work it needs so that the repair is unnoticeable.

Some areas don't need much help. Here you see only two little spots of putty on the saucer underside.

The edge of the engineering hull behind the saucer edge has a more serious defect, what appears to be a two-part mold problem. The area just needs the usual  filling, sanding, primering ad infinitum.

The largest bubbles and some more two-part molding defects were on the warp nacelles. Nothing too bad.

Pretty much the same thing as the other pic of the engineering hull, eh?









Next time: all primered up and smooth and ready for painting. But it's going to have to wait two weeks till after vacation.

1/1400 Saber-class NCC-81623 USS Da Vinci

Here's the beginning of a new project I hope will be brief. I acquired a Starcraft 1/1400 scale Saber. It's one of the new starship classes seen in Star Trek: First Contact. In the Starfleet Corps of Engineers books, most of the action takes place on one of these ships, USS Da Vinci NCC-81623, which this model will represent.

EDIT (28Feb2014): I've heard from another modeler who used Klean Strip on resin and it ate into the resin. Like the advice given on a lot of products, test on an inconspicuous area to make sure it's safe. This product also works really fast, so you should not have to leave it on long.

Since the kit was previously finished, the old paint had to go. The paint stripper really looks like vomit, but has a very different nasty smell.













Incidentally, it was possible to use this stripper only because this model is resin. Out of scientific curiosity, I put some onto painted styrene. Here's the result:

It strips the paint, then turns the plastic into taffy. Back to the Saber...

Here's how it came out after soaking in stripper and scrubbing with a toothbrush dipped in lacquer thinner. Cleans up real nice. It was also possible to pop the nacelles off. I let the joint soak in acetone, then used a pair of slip-joint pliers and a piece of inner tube to pry off the nacelles without marring the surface.

It was bugging me that there are some symmetry problems with this kit. This is an older Starcraft kit and not quite state of the art any more. It was assembled just fine; in fact, there were locating pins for the nacelles. In this picture you can see where I had to sand down a panel that stuck out too far. Easy fix.

The starboard nacelle's pylon overlaps some lifeboats, and the port nacelle's front face is too far forward. Mostly this is an easy fix also, requiring just a bit of sanding. The mating surface to the pylon on the underside of the saucer, however, is a bit proud of the surface and needs to be carefully sanded to avoid wiping out the lifeboat detail. In fact, I had to re-establish some of this detail by scraping with an x-acto blade and using a scribing tool.

Here it is fixed. You can also see a dark stain on the underside of the saucer. Looking at it closely, I realized it's composed of paint that filled in thousands of tiny bubbles, and it won't be visible once it's primered. Another symmetry problem that needs to be addressed is the dogtooth detail on the leading edge of the saucer. A little bit of sanding will rectify this.


Next time: Primering and filling and sanding, oh my!

Tetryon Parts Upgrade for Enterprise-D

If you followed the discussion on SSM forum about this, you know this has been a long time in the works. Pat Suwalski of Tetryon Parts shared his progress as he worked to accurize the back side of the neck (aka battlehead) of the AMT 1:1400 Enterprise D, now re-released in clear styrene. He pointed out what was wrong with it and showed how he was fixing it to match the real thing--the large filming miniature. One problem was that the impulse engine was in the wrong place. However, this is not just about his correcting other people's mistakes, something everyone wants to do, but correcting his own, which few people want to do.

Old upgrade part test-fit.

Finally, June 29 he offered the piece for sale. I ordered one immediately, in clear resin with matching decals (it's available in opaque resin as well, and decals are optional). I've got the clear kit, and plan to use the kit's aztec decals. The kit decals (art by Jim Small of EIMB) are made to fit the kit, so if you correct an inaccuracy, you'll need a corrected decal as well!

It arrived in the mail July 17. I got out the 1701D kit and assembled the sides of the neck (parts 5 & 6) to test fit the replacement part. (Note: the part replaces the back of part 3, which is the back of the neck and top of the battle head, or the mating surface to the saucer section.) Pat had been candid in his posts on SSM forum (here's the thread) about the fact that his part was thin and might warp. Well, it did. Mostly I think the part was squashed flat in the mail, since it was shipped in a padded envelope. The part has a boxlike structure on the inside of the impulse engine, and that was crushed, though it could be rebuilt easily with sheet styrene. The worst problem, though it was the most subtle, was a wavy distortion of the area where the neck blends to match the curve of the saucer, most pronounced above shuttlebay 2. I wasn't sure I could fix that as easily.

Old (top) and improved upgrade parts.

New upgrade part test-fit.

I emailed Pat immediately and he said he'd send a replacement part. Actually, I hadn't even asked for one, just asked about softening it in hot water to make it plastic enough to form back into shape. The new part arrived today (July 30), and comparing them side by side, you can see the new part has a deep curve to it and the old part is pretty flat. It's also twice as thick: according to my digital caliper, about .110-.120", as opposed to .550-.650" on the old one. The impulse engine box came through the mail okay, and I could see no wavy distortion in the part.I test fit the new part to the back of the neck, and found it was slightly flattened by its trip through the mail (it also came in a padded envelope), but to a much lesser degree, and that it conforms to the shape of the neck with a little finger pressure. I will put this part in hot water anyway, simply to soften it up so it won't want to spring back when bent. I more than suspect that Pat is working on this part or the packaging to eliminate even this little problem.

New upgrade part test-fit.

So much for this peek at Tetryon Parts Enterprise D Upgrade. Sorry if you were expecting to see a build this time, but I look forward to building the clear Enterprise D in the near future, lit of course, and putting this part to good use, and there will be a series of WIP posts then.

And I can definitely recommend Tetryon Parts after this experience.

PS: July 31, 2012. Now my part is perfect!

I dipped the part in boiling hot water for a minute, draped it over the other neck parts holding it in place with my fingers, then dipped the whole assembly into icewater. The clear resin is floppy like a sheet of rubber at 212 F. I'd recommend not getting the water that hot--maybe just the temperature of hot bathwater.

The flattening of the part wasn't too bad in the first place--it would have stayed in place with CA or epoxy--I just wanted to assemble it without putting any stress on it.

Tiny Enterprise Bridge Finished, or PGMS Cutaway Starship Photoetch Set, Part 7

Superdetailed bridge from AMT Cutaway Enterprise with coins for size reference. Yes, it's small.

Since last time...

Finished, as in I've had enough frustration and I've got other modeling projects I am impatient to get back to. That sounds disgruntled, but actually this was a pretty good learning experience. It was an impulsive mistake to paint the figures before bending them, and some of the paint came off. I had a little trouble bending the figures into the desired poses. In particular, the bend at the hips for a seated figure tended to come out too low. As a result, I have a better idea of how to get the bend to come out where I want it. Holding the figures with tweezers and dipping their feet in superglue worked pretty well, but I needed to be more patient about placing them. Amazingly, none of the ten figures were eaten by the carpet monster!

Painting the Enterprise Bridge, or PGMS Cutaway Starship Photo-etch Set, Part 5

Since last time, I decided I didn't like how the navigation/helm console in the kit part isn't undercut. (You may have noticed it's supported only in the center, so the ends hang out over the helmsman's and navigator's legs.) The captain's chair also needed to be undercut, as it sits on a swivel pedestal. It would have been easier to fix this right at the beginning, and it was very risky to do it now with all the added detail, but it seemed necessary. I hollowed out these parts using both a Dremel tool on its lowest speed with a #80 carbide bit, and various x-acto blades, then puttied it. The whole time I was looking at it through a jeweler's loupe that kept falling out of my eye socket. Luckily, the procedure didn't damage any of the added detail, and the shapes of the console and chair are somewhat more accurate now.

Also, the main viewer and all the port side viewscreens were open holes, so I superglued bits of sheet styrene in back of them.
Then it was time to paint! Yay! That's the fun part. Well, in this case, it's also the most frustrating part. Imagine you've just built the AMT Enterprise bridge set and now you're going to paint it, but to make things challenging, you have to paint it from across the room looking through binoculars, using a long-handled brush so big you could paint the captain's chair with one stroke. I used various colors I had in stock, including Polly Scale RLM 65 for the chairs (like most hobby paints, it's not faithful to the Luftwaffe color, but it's about perfect here).

There's still need for touch-up and a bit more detailing, then it's time to add figures. I have a fret of Gold Medal Models 1/700 scale sailors that you may have spotted lying next to the bridge in previous posts. Some of them will be bent into seated positions and others left standing, then they'll get their Starfleet uniforms painted on and get superglued in place.

Tiny Enterprise Bridge Gets Eentsy Weentsy Chairs, or PGMS Cutaway Starship Photo-etch Set, Part 4

All right, I've done it! Since last time, I made ten Burke chairs at approximately 1/700 scale (to go with the PE figures that will also be on the Cutaway Enterprise bridge, chosen to match the height of the turbolift door). And they're installed. Once they're carefully painted, Lts. Uhura and Sulu, Ens. Chekov, and Mr. Spock will all have places to sit. (Ever notice Scotty doesn't sit much when he's on the bridge? That guy has ants in his pants!) This pic makes me notice something, though. That captain's chair looks like a loveseat! ("Yeoman Rand! Report to the bridge, and bring some Saurian brandy!")

PGMS Cutaway Starship Photo-etch Set, Part 3

(Previously on PGMS Cutaway etc.)

Tonight's episode: Adding handrails

Note: I should mention that the handrails are not part of the ParaGraphix photoetch set.

One of the distinctive features of the Enterprise bridge is the handrail around the center well. I couldn't very well make this tiny bridge (under one inch in diameter!) without adding the handrail. The first step was to drill holes for the stanchions. I used a pin vise with a #75 drill bit, that being the smallest bit I still have for the pin vise. (Tiny bits break so easily. I really need to get a new #61-80 set.) Here are the holes. Not perfectly positioned, but all the while I was thinking about how to do this better. I could rig up a rotary vise and a fixture to hold the pin vise so all the holes are equidistant from the center and at the same angle.

The next job was to thread wire through the holes to form the stanchions. First I tried a piece of steel wire I found in the drawer, but it was very hard to cut and there wasn't enough anyway. I think the wire was the remains of a #76 drill bit. Then I switched to using fine strands of copper wire I stripped out of some old speaker wire. I fed them in through the bottom and tried to get each one to come out the same length before bending the excess length over and supergluing it to the bottom. This wasn't too hard; again, I could do it better by precisely controlling the length of wire protruding through the floor. One way I thought of was painting the desired length on the end of the wire to mark it. It was also necessary to make all the stanchions stand at the right angle--they are angled in a bit.

Last was the trickiest part. I had to cut four handrails to length, bend them into shape, put a droplet of superglue on top of each stanchion, and somehow pick up the piece of handrail and position it. I ended up losing 3 or 4 pieces of handrail, and immediately set to work each time fabricating a replacement, as there was no point in looking for anything that tiny. I used pointy tweezers to pick up the handrails and had to lick the tweezers or the parts would disappear almost as soon as they were picked up.

Finally, I got all the handrails in place. It took a bit of patience and definitely made me think of ways to get better results.

Next time I think I'll be making a bunch of tiny Burke chairs.

PGMS Cutaway Starship Photo-etch Set, Part 2

Okay, as promised I worked on the Cutaway Enterprise bridge within 48 hours of my last post. (Actually, I promised to try. And did it anyway. Take that, Yoda!) Here are some pics of where this project stands right now. To find out how it got to this point..

PGMS Cutaway Starship Photo-etch Set, Part 1

Guess what just came in the mail? The new photo-etch set from ParaGrafix Modeling Systems for the AMT cutaway Enterprise (AMT kit 8790)! I got it for free, not 'cause I'm some modeling whiz, but because I won a contest on the Starship Modeler forum. To be nice, I thought I'd show it off so you can consider if you want to get one. Here's what you get:

You get a nice crisp sheet of brass photoetched parts about 4.2" X 5.7", along with a clearly illustrated instruction sheet (printed both sides) with references to the AMT kit parts that the photoetched parts augment or replace. The set comprises parts for the buzzard collector rotors (suitable for motorization), grilles for the inner sides of the warp nacelles and for the upper sides of the warp pylons, the grilles for the sides of the secondary hull on either side of the navigational deflector housing, the bussard collector clamps (those little details, three of which ring the bussard collector dome on the front of each warp nacelle), the rear face of the impulse engine, and a detailing set for the bridge (part 26 in the AMT kit). The parts for the bridge include a replacement for the upper panels around the starboard side of the bridge and a replacement for the missing wall around the port side of the bridge. This includes everything from the turbolift to the main viewer, with consoles.

This is what part 26 looks like on the tree, right next to the port nacelle. You can see there's a whole side missing. Maybe you can't tell, but the captain's chair and the navigation/helm console is there, in the center well. Pretty basic.

I'll be working on just the bridge for an upcoming post. Hopefully, it will be up in the next 48 hours.