Thanks much for sharing your amazing CCC-1701 working hobby model status! Incredible. I am very envious, and appreciative. Pls continue to discretely provide updates.

Dave V.

:hurray::hurray::hurray: Amazing level of detail. I used to do a lot of model cars and did lots of air brush work.. Have also dabbled a good bit with LEDs and electrical gizmos to assist with my astrophotography but this is in another universe detail wise. Can't wait to see the final result.

https://www.thevettebarn.com/forums/...1&d=1546569653

if this is the base you need, yes, i could make that.

personally, i'd paint it gold, so something like poplar would work well. or some clear maple.

if those dimensions are good, all i need to know is how thick you'd like, and how big a cavity you want in the base.

Simply amazing the best I ever did was a glued up mess of a car followed by firecrackers. :rofl:

Quick update. I finally got my pearl white paint for the base coat. Looks great. I can’t seem to photograph it but it’s a nice shimmering white. Over that will go four more pearl colors I got from a taxidermist shop for doing fish. Lacquer based, really fine pigment.

I’m giving my airbrush a workout. Need to practice.

The pearl white will show through about 20% of the surface area. But the coolest part is the colors are transparent so you get pearl on top of pearl.

I’ve also decided to move the circuit board to the dish instead of the base. Should be much easier to assemble that way. I still need to run five switches and power up from the base. But now I can test everything much easier. Need to test every single circuit before sealing it up.

Ran into an issue with the shuttle bay fit. Big gap at the fan tail. Trouble is, the deck of the bay is all finished so no filling and sanding there. I have some ideas to fix but what a PITA.

I swear, 90% of the process is fixing shit. More pics later.

That is the mark of a true craftsman, sir. Perfection is in the details.:BADRACR1:

update
 

Sorry for late update. I’ve done a bunch of work, broke some stuff, waited on paint, fixed stuff...

I’m going to attach some pics

Here is a couple shots of the pearl white dish and impulse engine.

I relocated the circuit board to the dish. The trick was finding room that doesn’t block lighting. The board is on the bottom and a speaker is on the top (and another in the body) phaser and photon sound effects.


Next up the jig I built to support the model for testing and assembly. Each sub assembly gets painted and declared before gluing it together. I’m not sure how to handle filling and sanding gaps. I’m betting lots of paint repair.

Next up, here’s how the masking works. You transfer vinyl masks to a substrate, then transfer and burnish it on to the part, then remove substrate. You then remove areas, paint first color, replace those areas, remove other areas, paint - then put an entirely different mask on and do it again and again.

I’ll get a shot of some painted parts. Progress will get very slow now.

I did epoxy the shuttle bay in after shortening the body by an 1/8” to make it line up. This caused the top piece to not fit. Sigh.

Wires are breaking from handling so I’ve spent hours checking and fixing.

More to come!

I hope this one will be equipped with functional shields. :D

9 hours of masking and shooting first two colors - blue and gold. Just on the bottom saucer. Next color is Red. Very happy with the iridescence. It took me about three days to get the colors toned down. They should be subtle.

Here are some process photos.

And a short video of the effect. It’s more dramatic in real life.


Phone won’t embed.

Forum software doesn't know how to handle "youtu (dot) be".

I don’t see YouTu.be

It's an "unlisted" video

This thing is going to kill me.

Lots of photos to update. Just not enough time. I cooked one of the ICs on the board. Sent it back to maker for fix.

Masking set just doesn’t have enough adhesive bite. The damn airbrush literally blows the friskets off. I need to sand down the neck and start over.

Also dropped an engine nacelle and banged it up. This is after busting the clear grill out to fix some electronics, then drilling holes in the opposite side to use sticks to glue it back in (it needed to be pressed against a slot from the inside), then filling the holes, sanding, repainting, dropping, filling sanding, repainting.

One thing I can say. This thing is solid as a rock using the correct glues plus 3M structural adhesive. The last one was quite fragile. Not this one.

She going to be battle damage from Khan? Looks like phaser scoring on the hull:)

Nope. Just endless filling and sanding. I’ll upload some new photos tomorrow. I’ll need to re-scribe some of the panel lines. Every time I think I’m ready for the pearl base coat, I find some shit that needs filled.

I’ve painted, sanded and repainted the neck three times.

I’m going for the pristine, right out of dry dock look.

Love the scale. big enough to work on detail without going blind, but not the size of a Volkswagen

It’s pretty damn big!

Here are some photos from the last couple of weeks.

Cracking open the engine nacelle to fix two LEDs that decided to stop working. Had to punch out the clear blue piece that was beautifully glued in place, fix with long tweezers, drill holes in opposite side to use skewer sticks to press it back into place from the inside out. Then fill and sand and repaint the holes. :willy:

A shot of some guts. There are 46 different circuits. This allows the model to light up in the sequence from the movie when they first start it. It has a couple clearers in it for phaser shots (with synchronized LEDs) and for photon torpedoes - each torpedo light separate so they fire left, then right.