For the last two days I have been working on the final touches to begin assembling the Enterprise sub-assemblies. Things are going well, so far. Yesterday I wired up the engineering hull with lights. I used three originally, well four if you count the one on the upper half of the hull. The far back one is glued to the clear rod that makes the shuttle bay window and the dome over the bay. The fourth light is in the neck. Once again I was thrilled to see that my planning paid off by allowing me places to run wires to keep them relatively out of sight from the windows. After dry fitting the parts with the lights on I discovered that I needed one more night up by the deflector dish. I added this under the light for the upper half. Now all the windows glow with about the same light. I also realized I forgot the plugs for the nacelle lighting, so had to go back in and add those. Again, the wire routing was a big help.
Original wiring on the lower engineering hull.
With lights!
The shuttle bay window and dome.
The upper hull with the added light.
Without power
Everything connected and working fine.
With the wires for the nacelles now.
Today I began by gluing the two halves of the upper engineering section together. I was planning on gluing the saucer section together as well, but needed to add color to two small lights on the bridge. I used the Krystal Klear with some food coloring (as instructed on the bottle) to try and make a kind of gel to convert the white light to red. Well, that did not work so well. The fiber optics I am using there just barely were pink. So back to the drawing board on that one. I ended up adding two 3mm red LEDs glued strait to the ship. I then painted them over with black paint. I will need to do several coats to be sure the red light does not leak and change the white light that comes out for the bridge. The little red lights look great though.
Krystal Klear with red food coloring.
Curing on the inside of the bridge.
The LEDs before painting.
LEDs with a coat of paint. (The power is off, there are still a few light leaks.)
That looks better! (Before painting the LEDs.)
I then went back to the engineering hull, gluing the top and the bottom together. I had to do some finagling to get everything just right. There are some gaps, but that should be easy to fix with a little putty. After that cured I glued in the deflector dish housing and viola! The engineering sub-assembly is assembled!
Beginning to assemble the engineering hull.
Top and bottom joined.
Completed hull!
After that I started on the nacelles. I hot glued the bussard spinners into the housings for the clear parts that I got from a third party. Once that cooled, I was able to run the wires down the pylon to later connect up with the micro plugs (something I will do later). I then glued the bussard housing to the already glued nacelle. Following that I did the same for the other nacelle. Both spinners still work, so that is a relief. I put one of the bussard covers that has a single coat of a frosting spray on just to get a sense of what it will look like. A few more coast of frosting and things should he good. I have not added the end caps, and the saucer is still in pieces while I wait for the paint to dry.
I spent this evening wiring up the saucer section. The top half has the blinker board and of course the two beacon lights nestled in their aluminum pipe fittings. The wiring for that was pretty simple. I attached the entire thing to one of those tiny plugs so I can keep the two halves separate until I am ready to seal the hull.
The upper saucer wired up.
The lower half has the white lights for the windows and the red impulse lights. I had a good time soldering them all together, running the wires around to try and avoid the windows, as well as to keep things flat. Though this may look like a mess of wires, it is in fact one of the best wiring jobs I have ever done on the inside of a starship. thinking through the wire rig more completely (and having learned from past attempts at this kind of wiring) helped.
The lower saucer wired up.
Powered up. The beacons do blink, I just caught the picture with them on.
The lower saucer with lights. The dome in the center lights up really well.
The upper dome lit. I will glue in the bridge piece sometime later.
I originally had three 5mm white LEDs on the saucer, but it looked too dim. After some consideration I opted to add three more 3mm white LEDs to brighten up the saucer a bit more. The only issue I ran into is that two of them are a slightly different color, but I think it is close enough for it not to show to badly.
Five LEDs instead of three.
The little 2mm plugs are amazing. making this will be so much easier just because of those plugs. I think that the 4 LEDs I have planned for the engineering section should work fine as it is a smaller space with less distance between the lights and the windows. The only section I am a bit worried about is the neck. We shall see. I hope to have the engineering hull done in a few days. Then it is just wiring up the nacelles, sanding and painting.
I forgot to mention a few weeks back that the Vanship model I ordered in June finally arrived. This was the third time in fact I had ordered the model. I actually thought it was lost, but it finally arrived. It is about the same scale as the ones I started working on way back when I started this blog. This will be a later project, mostly due to the detail level of the painting. I need to get a lot more practice in with the airbrush before I tackle something like this.
Well, we are close to the sub-assembly phase. I did not post last week due to the fact I really had nothing to post. I wired up the full circuit for the first time last Saturday and discovered an issue. Due to the way the blinker circuit works, unless all the LEDs draw about the same voltage, one may be real dim, or not even blink. Well even with all the different green and red LEDs I have I could not get a good blinking combination. Couple that with a dwindling wire supply and I was left with more supplies to procure.
a box of wire and the tiny plugs
A close up on these 2mm plugs. So tiny!
I ordered LEDs from Mauser, both red and green, with the exact same voltage and amps, so they both work without a hitch. I also ordered wire, in a number of lovely colors, and tiny 2 pin plugs. This will allow me to assemble the Enterprise in sub-assemblies which will be easier to putty and sand instead of putting it all together and hoping I do not mess up one of the more delicate seams. As I have done that on a number of occasions I thought I would try these connectors instead. I expect I will have 5 sub-assemblies, the saucer, the engineering hull, both nacelles and the base. I did set up the entire circuit on the bread board. At the moment everything seems to work. I did have to replace the chip in one of the bussard spinners, and it seemed to have a short for a bit. I will work with it to make sure it will work once it is glued into the ship. You can see the circuit in the video below. Two of the constant LEDs are in fact red, but the whites are so bright it drowns them out in this arrangement.
I was hoping to get started on some assembly today, but had a problem to solve first, the beacons on the side of the saucer. I had to figure out how to make small domes that would blink green or red without too much bleed from the white lights that will illuminate the entire space inside the ship. After using some plastic pots I had from another kit that were too tall, I settled on aluminum pipe that just fits the LEDs. I sanded down some sprue from clear parts on another model kit to fit in the holes I had drilled previously. I also drilled holes in the aluminum to allow for the sprue to fit through. with some fiddling I was able to get beacon light domes for both sides. I also installed fiber optic cable pointing down from the beacon light pots. This is for the beacons on the bottom of the saucer. They are white on the original ship, but I am just going to fudge that detail.
Clear sprue sanded down to fit.
The LED pot with fiber optics for the bottom beacon.
LED pot with dome on top.
I also installed the LEDs for the impulse engines. There is not a lot of space so I am using 3mm LEDs that sit right in the square openings. The tips of the LEDs needed to be sanded flat. After I am done painting I will use the Krystal Clear to fill in the whole, so hopefully the whole square will glow red.
LEDs mounted for the impulse engines.
I also glued in the clear dome on the bottom of the saucer. This was an after market piece that just needed glued in place. It looks good, even glows with just the lights in my shop.
Bottom dome
Finally, I also installed the clear piece that will be the dome over the shuttle bay. This is the same clear sprue sanded to fit. I have already made a hole in the upper hull to allow this to stick through.
Dome above the shuttle bay. Again, clear sprue sanded to fit.
The next step, which I might make time for during the week, is building the sub assemblies. I will not make my original deadline of the 50th anniversary of Star Trek airing, which is this Thursday, but maybe I will have the sub-assemblies done. Still, I will plug away at this and hopefully I can have a finished ship before the year is out.
