Update from the shipyard

I know it has been a while since my last update. I did not get much done over Memorial Day weekend, and the ended what for me was a five day weekend by getting sick, so no modeling. I did get a significant amount of work done last weekend, I just have not blogged it yet. So, away we go.

First, the proper size brass pipes, and my contour putty, came in the mail. This means that the brass pipe holding the ship up from the base fits perfectly in the holes that are already present in the base and the ship! With that I mulled over what I wanted to do with the base. Normally i would by a project box at Radio Shack to become the base, but we no longer have a Radio Shack, and those seem somewhat bland for this ship. The model comes with a dome base, as I was not planning on setting the microchip circuits in the base, the dome in fact would work well. Then, as I am working on a star ship after all, I figured I would make the dome look like a planet. I hemmed and hawed over whether to just paint it to look like some alien planet, or to texture it to look like a large asteroid, or small moon. Texturing would allow me to better hide the switch and the power jack, plus it would be fun! So texturing it was.

I used an epoxy putty to do the texturing. This stuff comes in a tube with a white center and blue on the outside. You rip off a hunk and kneed it until the color is homogeneous. You then have about 15 min before the stuff hardens rock solid. I started with the crater that surrounds the switch and then started adding in sections little by little. I used some of my sculpting tools to make the small craters, as well as adding in two more craters. After the epoxy was hard, but not set, I used some sharp tools to scrape away inside the larger craters to create the look of impacts. I used several images from online to work with. I ran out of the putty so this is a work in progress at the moment. I need to get a few more tubes to finish up. The epoxy has the added benefit of adding weight to the base. It probably weighs twice as much now.

The base as it looks now.

After I moved to the ship itself. I have been stalling on cutting the windows until I knew how I was going to make them. I have a pretty good idea as to how, and it is in the mail now. So, I went about cutting the windows. For all of them I started with a small drill bit (I do not know the size) in my pin vice. For round windows I drilled out the center of the port. For rectangular ones I drilled usually two holes on the long sides. I then used a combination of my needle files and a new x-acto #11 blade to open up the rectangular windows. Some of them are a little rough, but on the finished model they will look fine. I also drilled out areas for the beacon lights, the impulse engines, the bridge dome, and the dome under the saucer. I attached the aftermarket piece for the under saucer dome as well. Finally I used the contour putty to fill in three divots that were in the underside of the saucer. I will sand these down, along with the raised lines as they are inaccurate.

the pin vice

Needle files

#11 x-acto blade

couture putty on the lower saucer (yeah, I know it is blurry).

Bridge windows

And one piece of the hull showing the different windows.

I think I have sorted out some of the painting techniques, but I need to practice with my new airbrush, which I have yet to turn on. I hope to spend part of this weekend learning how to use it. I will then experiment with painting techniques on those two kit-bashed federation ships I mentioned a few posts back.