Deanflyer Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Hi all, this is my next build. Mark, a good friend of mine, is really into his science fiction and has been good enough to lend me a lot of DVD box sets recently. When I asked him which was his favourite Enterprise from Star Trek, he replied that it was the D from the Next Generation series, so I'm building this for him as a thankyou. I'm going to chronicle the build so he can follow along, and so this thread will be written with a non-modeller in mind. Here's the kit - I got it from Modelzone in Portsmouth before they closed down, and it's been waiting for a reason to be built ever since: There aren't many parts, but then again it was intended as a snap together kit: The decal sheet however, is another matter. Each of these three sheets is about A4 size, and I reckon they'll cover about 95% of the finished article: Hardly needs the instructions: Except for the decals - without the map, I'd be lost! Being a fairly old kit, the sprue attachment points are huge, and there are a couple of ejector pin marks to sort out - the big circular depression on the base of the nacelle pylon: A smear of putty: ...and some careful sanding later, and it disappears under a coat of primer: The warp nacelles were a pain to clean up the seams, as the joint goes right across the corrugations. It took a lot of careful scraping and trimming to get them acceptable. The one in the foreground is done, the rear one shows the blobs of liquified plastic squeezed out from the joint still awaiting treatment: The engineering hull presented a challenge, as there should be a prominent recess all the way around the chines. One side of the hull was badly moulded, so I had to build up the mating face with plastic card to ensure the gap for the star drive was even on both sides: Next I turned my attention to how to display it. These kits don't come with a stand, as I assume that the makers thought they'd be bought by kids who'd spend all their time flying them around the living room to the accompaniment of whooshing noises. (Actually, I'm not sure what sound the Enterprise does make, but I bet Mark could imitate it - you should hear his TARDIS impression!) I bought a Tamiya stand off ebay, which I cleaned up and sprayed with grey primer: and modified it by carving out the mounting point to fit snugly against the underside of the engineering hull, and adding a piece of square section brass as the support: I broke out the square drill, and made a hole in the underside of the hull: ...and used epoxy resin to attach a larger diameter square section inside, at a suitably dynamic angle: This allows the Enterprise to be firmly attached to its stand, but still be detachable for safe transport or warp drive fantasies... A coat of matt black later, and here's the stand awaiting final assembly: I attached the main saucer to the top of the engineering hull at this stage, as test fitting showed that there were gaps to be filled here and sanding would be a lot easier without the warp nacelle pylons in my way. Here's the sanded and primed result: The edges of the saucer section gave problems too - there's a recess all the way around as on the engineering hull, and getting the gap consistent took a LOT of carving, sanding, scraping and filling. In this photo, the impulse engines still need tidying up a bit yet. One piece which needed to be painted before I closed up the engineering hull was the main deflector. As I'm not lighting this model from inside, I thought the best way to get the glowing effect in this area was to prime it, give it a coat of gloss black which acted as an undercoat for the Alclad Chrome paint on top of that as a reflector, and then a coat of Tamiya clear blue on top. I hand painted the brown areas according to my references. The idea is that once it's installed and blended in, I can use my airbrush to feather the hull grey colour over the electric blue, giving the impression of luminance. That's the idea, anyway, yet to see if it works or I'm just talking rubbish: Anyway, the engineering hull has now been closed up, and the final (hopefully) coat of white primer has been added. Here she sits, awaiting paint: And a mock up on the stand to make sure everything works. Looks ok to me: Next step, painting... Keep watching, Dean 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blastvader Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 That's looking great. And you're a braver man than I to be tackling those decals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robvulcan Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Looking great I remember making this when I was a kid. Came in a 3 pack with the original and refit enterprise and a clear disk to mount them all in by the saucer section. I love the Galaxy class ship beautiful thing. The paint on the deflector dish looks great You could use strips of reflective tape for the illuminated parts, Windows too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu_davros Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Great work, I'm looking forward to seeing this progress. I did the enterprise C a while ago and the decals do require some careful handling. Cheers, Stuart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deanflyer Posted August 15, 2014 Author Share Posted August 15, 2014 Hi folks, As the whole ship was now together, it was time for painting. My researches showed that the original filming model was a light blue colour, but it doesn't look it on screen. I mixed my own starship grey with a bit of blue in there just so it wasn't too far out from blending in with the decals. Unfortunately, this custom mix ran out as I'd almost finished the spray job, and there was no way I'd ever be able to mix the exact colour again! I decided that the colour was too dark anyway, so I mixed up a new batch of paint (enough to go round this time!) and repainted the whole thing. I think the colour is just about right, but it doesn't show up on screen very well: Once that was satisfactory, I had to do some masking for the detail painting. The D is festooned with things which are a different grey from the main hull, like impulse engines, phaser rings, shuttle bay doors and star drive blisters. It took me two hours to do the fiddly masking on all these areas, a task made more difficult by the fact that most of the raised structures to be painted had rounded ends. A compound curve on the phaser ring is hard enough to mask accurately without rounded ends too! I solved the problem by using my punch set to punch holes of an appropriate size out of masking tape which could then be opened with a scalpel and used to mask the ends. 22 of the little illegitimates... Two hours of masking and ten minutes of airbrush work produced this: Next step, masking comes off and preparing for decals. Keep watching, Dean 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deanflyer Posted August 15, 2014 Author Share Posted August 15, 2014 Well, the masking is off, and after a couple of minor touchups, the results aren't too bad: I've tried to get the glow of the main deflector by judicious airbrushing, and without lighting it, I think this is the best I'm going to get. Just got to do a lot of fiddly masking on the warp nacelles now... Keep watching, Dean 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arachnid Posted August 15, 2014 Share Posted August 15, 2014 "I broke out the square drill, and made a hole in the underside of the hull:" Dean,where do you get square drills from ? Terry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robvulcan Posted August 15, 2014 Share Posted August 15, 2014 That looks Fantastic Dean, Your right the Enterprise D was in a mix of green blues on the original 12ft model, There was also 2 and possibly later 3 smaller filming models for the later seasons of the TNG, The original 12ft Model however on screen was tweaked and looked a very pale grey/white like you have achieved here, But later on for the Film Star Trek Generations they completely repainted the 12ft model in a two tone dark grey scheme, Nice work on the deflector dish however I hope you don't mind me suggesting extending the blue on the upper lip of the dish as it extends further out, Its actually brown/orange and the blue comes from behind the central part and glows around the edges and the centre line of the central dish, Interesting looking thing for sure. There is a fabulous article here with all colour call outs for the real studio model. http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Galaxy_class_model Not sure if you have read it but its a very detailed long read. Very interesting though. Cheers Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deanflyer Posted August 15, 2014 Author Share Posted August 15, 2014 Funny you should mention that, Rob...I wasn't happy with it myself and went back and changed it: It's not accurate, as I was going for the impression of the blue glow effect, rather than have it as s solid colour. The filming model looked very strange in this area when unlit: I'm attempting to show it as it appeared on the screen, rather than as a replica of the filming miniature - what IS right doesn't necessarily LOOK right... Thanks for the link, I'll read it when I have time. Terry, have you never heard of square drills? They're a sort of rounded triangle shape. Look it up. Keep watching, Dean 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robvulcan Posted August 15, 2014 Share Posted August 15, 2014 Dean that looks perfect. It does look lighted too. Your right it does look very different and dead when not illuminated. I have always loved Star Trek ships have plenty on the stash to make. Cheers Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
infofrog Posted August 15, 2014 Share Posted August 15, 2014 thats cool rick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt.Squarehead Posted August 16, 2014 Share Posted August 16, 2014 Great paintwork on the deflector dish! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deanflyer Posted August 17, 2014 Author Share Posted August 17, 2014 Thanks folks. Right, after some pretty intricate masking around the warp nacelles, the glowing bits were given a coat of shiny silver before being oversprayed by the transparent red or blue colour as appropriate. the yellow bit between them was painted too, and as the masking came off, this was the result: Just a bit of touching up to do around a couple of edges, but overall it seems to have been successful. I'll give these a coat of gloss which can then be drying overnight ready for decals in the morning. Keep watching, Dean 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prowler0000 Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 Have to say, It's not my fave Enterprise (That would be the Refit from the 1st 6 films.), but i AM enjoying this build greatly! Nice result on the nacelles, They can be tricky.... Can you post a pic with a familiar object so i/we can get an idea of scale, please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deanflyer Posted August 18, 2014 Author Share Posted August 18, 2014 Can you post a pic with a familiar object so i/we can get an idea of scale, please? How about a 12" rule? Overall, it's about 9 1/2 inches long. Cheers, Dean 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deanflyer Posted August 19, 2014 Author Share Posted August 19, 2014 And so it begins... I sat down with the decal sheets and a saucer of water last night, and over two hours later 23 decals were in place. They were very stiff, and a couple of them shattered which meant they had to be painstakingly pieced back together. The ones on the neck were particularly difficult to reach. Also, the underside of the saucer has recesses into which the decals need to settle, which meant the main aztec design needed to be judiciously sliced in several places to allow this to happen: This morning, another hour's work saw the completion of the underside of the engineering hull - the rear section and the warp pylons are covered by a single large decal! That was fun... Lots of decal softening solution has needed to be ladled on these decals to make them conform to the compound curves all over the place. But, we're getting there: Keep watching, Dean 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robvulcan Posted August 19, 2014 Share Posted August 19, 2014 Looks gorgeous dean, The decals look great Its a shame to hear they are a pig as I have the Refit on the stash. However I don't care if its plain. But the aztec does look the business Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bengalensis Posted August 19, 2014 Share Posted August 19, 2014 Lovely work with the painting and the decals, it looks great with that pattern added, hours well worth spending. I have always searched for those square drills, no luck though. Are there triangular drills as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomjw Posted August 19, 2014 Share Posted August 19, 2014 The decalling looks superb, as does the rest of the build. Tom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deanflyer Posted August 19, 2014 Author Share Posted August 19, 2014 Lovely work with the painting and the decals, it looks great with that pattern added, hours well worth spending. I have always searched for those square drills, no luck though. Are there triangular drills as well? Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjckF0-VeGI The drilling starts at about 2.05 Thanks for the comments so far, folks. Cheers, Dean Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blastvader Posted August 19, 2014 Share Posted August 19, 2014 "I broke out the square drill, and made a hole in the underside of the hull:" Dean,where do you get square drills from ? Terry In B&Q. Next to the long stands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deanflyer Posted August 21, 2014 Author Share Posted August 21, 2014 In B&Q. Next to the long stands. Just down the aisle from the tartan paint and the bags of sparks for the grinders... Anyway, we're getting there. The decals are a real trial - thick and brittle, and with an alarming tendency to shatter. I've decalled the nacelles, and every single decal cracked when it was soaked in water. I think it's the backing paper curling up when it gets wet which is enough to crack the decal! One of the little beggars on the underside of the nacelle shattered into seven pieces and had to be painstakingly reassembled in situ: Hopefully it doesn't show. The rest of the nacelles were decalled: And then I got on with the topside of the saucer. This caused problems due to the carrier film on the outermost decals protruding beyond the rim of the saucer, and having to be trimmed back in situ. Got there in the end though: And the name goes on: Always an important moment. The decalling alone on this model has taken about seven hours so far. According to my maps, I have a total of 19 more decals to go on this thing, which, as they unfailingly crack, adds up to about fifty parts to position. Then the paint touch ups begin... Keep watching, Dean 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robvulcan Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 Hmmm I'm defiantly going to get some of that decal film solution from microscale when I do mine. Nothing more frustrating that cracking decals. You have done wonders with it considering. Looks beautiful Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt.Squarehead Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 I'm going to have to go for a here....I'm incredibly impressed with what you have achieved, especially given the difficulties with the decals! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samuran Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 Have to agree with everyone else, great job. You've turned a kit which normally looks pretty pants when completed, at least the completed versions I've seen don't come out that well, into a very good looking model. Pat on the back, in true Trev and Simon fashion, is in order! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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