What’s funny to me is I hate details. This thing requires a lot of details. It’s not really a kit either. It’s based on a kit but needs lots of customization to work. There are a total of 48 different circuits. Half the challenge is getting all that wire to fit in a model that wasn’t designed for it.

Here it is on the mount for painting (need to get that base going) and a view of the bottom saucer with the neck attached.

I'd have a major case of OCD right now if I was building it...

Looks good!

Woof. This thing is kicking my ass. But progress is being made.

I had a crazy quilt of wires coming out of the beast - many of them the same circuits - so I minimized the number of wires to 19.

I masked and masked and painted and painted and hammered the sides. masks are not reusable.

Sanded it off and made my own masks. Painted it again.

I'm going blind.

And a couple saucer pix. I notice there is a bit of over-spray on the bottom dish. I'll have to fix that....

There are still a lot of details that need painted and an absolute shit ton of decals. I'm using a solvent called Microset to basically melt the decals to the surface. Then shooting Future floor wax over it. (it's just a water thin polyurethane - works perfect and dries crystal clear and "wet" looking.

That will seal the decals. Then I'll hit it with a flat clear spray to take the gloss off. (the flat gives it better scale - shiny looks like a big toy. Matte looks big.)

Damn, son. :shots:

:ohnoes: my base better kick ass :DAB:

Just try to cut back on some of the blade burn evident on his temporary stands. :leaving:

Very impressive so far. Clever approach to the decals (Future floor wax and clear matte spray paint) which, sure enough gives it a “big” look. I was (am) a past and present Star Trek fan...atic and appreciate what you are doing on several levels - but, you are officially in over my head - so I’ll vicariously admire through your pics. Thanks for sharin’

Is bad asses man!! :seasix:

I’m officially in over my head too. How to hook everything up electronically is still a mystery in terms of build process. It looks like I’ll need to have each assembly fully painted and decals applied, then bring it together to run the wires, solder in a very tight space but before sealing up the saucer (where the brain is). Once it’s sealed up, there is no going back. If something goes wrong, it’s 100s of hours lost. Nerve racking.

Small update. I was looking inside the secondary hull to figure out how to run the rest of the wires than come from inside the saucer and down through the neck where they attach to the various systems.

Looking inside, there was a path but it had several corners and not much room. There are a shit load of wires that need to come through there (the ones you see all are for systems inside the hull. They each need hooked up to the circuit board controller in the saucer.) plus, wires for switches and power.

So I carved out some plastic from a reinforcement bar and pushed a conduit in there with the help from a heat gun.

Doing tiny little touch ups and fixing cosmetic issues. Like some of the windows were hard to unmask. They pulled paint up making the windows look ragged. I used a tiny brush to round them off. Also cleaning up the shuttle landing lights. Here is a nice subdued shot of the bay with red landing lights on. It gets much brighter when all the systems are on. It gets a lot of light from the hull interior lighting.

I like how you can see the ceiling lights and blue warp cores.

Also a shot of the inside with lights on.

Coming along. Wow. Technologically superior to the original hanging in the Smithsonian. Did ya ever think?

The hydra

I’ve been spending hours doing tiny decals on the Saucer and painting the pattered in the engines. Holy shit the engines are going to take 20 hours just to paint but that’s the next step. I have to work in small areas.

Get them painted and decaled, then connect wires and glue in place tie structural adhesive.

I also did a lot of detailing on the bridge and upper saucers. With tiny decals that really give it a sense of scale.

Getting into some serious detailing. Aztec painting the engines. Insanity.

Engines

I have spent weeks just painting these engines. Probably 4-5 hours to go. I can’t move to the next step until they are painted and decaled. The next step will be gluing them to the pylons and hooking up the wires.

Once that is done, I can start wiring everything. Although I may need to do more decaling first. The challenge there is it’s easy to damage the decals while handling it for wiring. But it’s a bigger challenge putting on decals after it’s assembled.

I literally spent eight hours today masking and painting these things and I’m still not done.

Got some decals on today and more masking too hot to shoot lacquer today.

Hoo boy. Finally done with painting the engines. I ended up shooting white pearl over them to tone down the colors. Now I need to do a lot of decals. A LOT of decals. Some are the size of a pin head. Once most of the decals are on the engines get wired and glued. Then the rest of the wiring and connecting the saucer. Then even more decals and painting more details.