Track assembly fixture

OK, here's the track assembly fixture. It's just a piece of scrapwood with popsicle sticks glued to it. It might be better to show it in action, but here's how it works. The space between the popsicle sticks is wide enough for the guide horns on 1/35 PzKfw III/IV track links. You cut two strips of tape (I used blue painters' tape) and lay them sticky side up on top of the popsicle sticks, fastened with thumb tacks at the ends. Then you put the track links in one at a time with the guide horns between the popsicle sticks. The tape holds them all together on the inner face. Now you can wrap the length of track around the wheels of your AFV and apply liquid cement.

DML 1/35 Sturmgeschütz III F/8

These are some shots of my recently completed DML 1:35 Sturmgeschütz III F/8. I hadn't done an armor kit since 2006, and did it to participate in a group build called The Sturmgeschütz Brigade Build on Armorama.  This is the Imperial Series kit, not the later Smart Kit, and has been sitting in my stash since the mid '90s. The Imperial Series were originally Gunze kits, I am informed. Never had a Gunze kit, so I can't confirm that. It's a better quality kit than 1970s Tamiya armor, but not up to today's standards. It does have individual link tracks, as opposed to those vinyl "rubber bands" or the intermediate option, which I really hate, "link-and-length." It also has some really nicely detailed parts (the roadwheels are especially fine), but there's a downside, too. Fortunately, most of the downside is easy to fix or hard to see.

The intake covers are molded solid. They couldn't take in much air that way! These were easy to replace with parts I made from scratch. Newer kits include photoetch replacements for these. The trailing arms for the roadwheels are molded onto the lower hull in a funky way: they extend under the hull. Solution: don't let anyone look underneath!

This was also my first use of the hairspray technique. (Short description: over the base coat, apply hairspray, which is water-soluble. When it's dry, paint over that with acrylic. Let this dry--not too long--then wet it and rub off loose paint.) It's a pretty handy way to show chipped paint, but it's easy to overdo it. It's also an easy way to knock off delicate parts! The whitewash is applied even to the rubber parts--I figure no crew cared to mask off the tires--but as rubber doesn't hold paint well, most of it has come off, except for the spare roadwheels on the back of the engine deck..

The individual link tracks were kind of a pain. I did the right-side run by hand, and it only took 91 links as opposed to the 93 of the real thing. It seemed track assembly would go easier with a mechanical aid, so I built a fixture and assembled the left-hand run on it. It only took 90 links, and sags even more. Why? Damfino!

The whitewash is Pollyscale flat white, applied both with brush and airbrush, and generally rubbed off with a toothbrush. In photographs, one often sees Winterketten (the extra-wide tracks) are often supplemented with some regular links. On my model, one of the winterketten links on each track has been modified to be a regular track link, as has the length of extra track mounted on the rear. I thought this would serve to explain the tracks. The painting of the tracks is pretty simple: I spray painted them Krylon camo brown, then misted with Krylon red primer. The tracks on the suspension then got drybrushed with acrylic gunmetal and washed with cheapo craft-store acrylic brown to muddy them up.

KBoP Part 12

Previously on Klingon Bird of Prey...

Here's a demonstration of the lighting effects I've installed so far in the Klingon Bird of Prey. It's engine and warp core lighting, and lighting to a panel next to the door at the top of the entry ramp.

The first part I did was the the LED and fiber optic lighting for the panel next to the door at the top of the entry ramp. (Actually, it required rework recently. My soldering is just awful, and it was working intermittently. Now it's fixed.) The green and yellow ones are flashing LEDs and they're in parallel. The red one is in series with them, so if either of them lights, it should light too. Problem right now is that the 9V battery powering so much lighting it can't quite keep up with the load, so there's only enough current to light the red LED when both the green and yellow LEDs are lit. There's a single strand of 0.25mm fiber optic coming out of the top of each LED to illuminate the panel next to the door at the top of the boarding ramp. Neither you nor I understand the significance of these flashing lights, but I assure you they are perfectly intelligible to Klingons.

Also lit in part with fiber optic is the warp core. I say "in part" because the hole the fiber optics pass through is a bit oversized and the red and blue LEDs are right above it. As with the other LEDs, I drilled holes into them and stuck fiber optic in with one-minute epoxy. I am given to understand that cyanoacrylate glue is destructive to fiber optic. Because my supply of fiber optic is low, I have not yet verified this, even though I love destructive testing. By the way, you can safely drill holes pretty deeply into LEDs since they are mostly clear acrylic lens. The actual diode that lights up is tiny and you can see from looking at the side that it's near the bottom.

You can see the blue and red illumination of the warp core is flickering. This is because the two blue LEDs and one red LED are in series, respectively, with two flickering yellow LEDs that I scavenged from LED candles I bought at the dollar store, three for a dollar. The yellow LEDs provide part of the glow for the upper and lower sections of the engine. I think the flickering is a cool effect and is prominent in onscreen appearances of the Klingon Bird of Prey.

Another reason for the flickering yellow LEDs is to supplement the main illumination for the engine provided by 12 warm white LEDs. My initial impression of the engine lighting effect watching Star Trek III was that it was a pulsing effect. I happened to find a pretty cool string of mini Christmas lights at Walmart, which has 36 surface mount warm white LEDs on lacquered wire, with a battery power supply that has three settings: steady on, blink, and phase. The phase setting slowly ramps up, then back down again, which is pretty much the effect I wanted, except that it goes all the way off, which I didn't want it to do. That's one reason I supplement it with the flickering yellow LEDs.

The string of warm white LEDs is wrapped around a couple pieces of popsicle stick. I understand they're called iced lollies elsewhere in the English-speaking world. The warm white LEDs and their effects board are supposed to be powered by three AA batteries. Instead the effects board will get 5V from a 78L05 voltage regulator, which is how it's breadboarded right now. I figured the LEDs and the effects board were probably engineered with at least enough factor of safety that they could handle 5V, and indeed they can, so a 78L05 voltage regulator is dropping the 9V down to 5V. This way, the lighting can all run from a single 9VDC power supply, which makes it simpler and prevents circuits from getting the wrong voltage. The 78L05 is big enough for the job since the effects module is only drawing about 60mA.

I've stripped the lacquer off the ends of the wires of the remaining warm white LEDs and stuck them into the breadboard in series with a resistor to test out the planned interior lighting and navigation lights. Actually, it won't require all the remaining LEDs, just about a dozen of them. These LEDs are all in parallel sharing one limiting resistor--I guess in violation of conventional wisdom, but I won't get into the issues here. I already installed 1.0mm fiber optic in the wings for the headlights--the KBoP Owners' Manual calls them something else, but they sure look like headlights to me.

There are a few bits of lighting to add to this. A red LED will light up the two vents under the front of the main hull, and the navigational deflector/torpedo launcher needs lighting, but all that will be constant lighting. So it's not too much more work, and I'll be able to close up the hull.

Next time: more progress, some of it according to plan...

Charlie's Model

Look at that happy face! This is my nephew Charles Yeager (no relation to the pilot who first broke the sound barrier). Charlie is proudly showing off a model he built: a Naboo fighter from Star Wars Episode I. It comes pre-decorated, but he points out that he also colored some details with a Sharpie marker. He's also got some other models, including a pair of B-25 Mitchell bombers.

Lego Lord of the Rings

Okay, it's not a model, unless you count Lego as a snap-together model. But my wife Ilene built this. Pretty neat.

KBoP, Part 11

Previously on Klingon Bird of Prey...

With the end of the Fall semester and the holidays, I was a bit distracted from this project. And I was kind of sick of it and started preparation for some other projects, like a 1/35 Sd.Kfz.6 halftrack and scratchbuilding a 1/1400 scale Golden Gate Bridge. But on New Year's Day I got back to work on the Klingon Bird of Prey. I did it because I thought I ought to, but once I was at it my heart leapt with joy. This is a fun project!

I've finished boxing in the landing gear bays and detailing and painting them, but they'll have lighting in them before the hull is closed up. I've also been starting the painting of the exterior. I'm not trying to replicate any particular filming miniature or onscreen KBoP, just making it look good to my eye with a layered brush job. The painting/weathering style is partly based on armor modeling, and partly on railroad modeling, since those are the two types of modeling with the most extreme weathering. I want to make this ship look like the Klingons would never have come up with the idea of a car wash.

Here is the engine lighting effect with the mini Christmas lights temporarily installed.
Here is the lighting effect of the panel next to the door at the top of the boarding ramp. It's lit with 0.25mm fiber optic, and a small board of LEDs I soldered up. Green and yellow are in parallel and flash, and a red LED is in series with them so it lights up if either of the others does. The flashing LEDs have nearly the same frequency and go in and out of phase, which gives the effect a little visual interest.

Next time: more lighting...

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.