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Bablyon 5 Starfury from Revell


Kallisti

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Still plugging away trying to make this thing progress but I'm finding it hard work for some reason :(

Painted the guns now and they look pretty nifty

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Been having trouble getting the top and bottom wings to fit so that the back panel lines up properly. This sort of rings a bell from the one I built years ago. The back panel doesn't fit very well at all and with the altertered constrcution order I've had to employ to fit the lighting in, getting a good finish on that is going to be hard work!

You can see in the background the leading edges have been painted a darker grey and unseen the vanes that attach to the engines have been painted and the indented panels highlighted. My target now is to complete for Monday week, which is the IPMS Farnborough meeting, so I'd best get cracking!

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Hi Kallisti,

Great thread, been following this one with interest, as I have two part built, and one under going a restoration from years ago.

Any thoughts on how you will fit your resin cannons, I resulted to surgery to the mounting points under the canopy to get a good looking screen shot angle, and then lots of general jiggery pockery type stuff to get the upper cannons to fit?

Great job on the lighting by the way, and would like to bet you have no filler left?

Cheers

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This shows how badly fitting the rear plate is

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However you can finally see the build coming together. The smaller exhaust ports have all been added, the top wing joined which allowed the last wires to be connected for the lighting and the cockpit has been added which was a bit tricky - you can see the filler along the edges.

Since these were taken, the upper guns have been added which required a certain amount of jiggery-pokery and the removal of the original fixing tabs.

The vanes have been added to the rear exhaust ports and will be tidied up this evening. Next will be the lower guns and some weathering... yes I know the idea of weathering in outer space does sound strange, but there is dust and gas in space and the original had weathering as can be see in this link (not posting it here as its a copyright image)

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Thanks Smiffy... and the work continues...

First was filling the gaps on the back plate and some sanding. I'm leaving that until the filler cures so will re-commence tomorrow. Next I started looking seriously at attaching the lower cannons. I was able to find a set of photos on Starship Modeller that are of the original CGI model and one in particular was very instructive:

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Notice the pair of pipes/conduits and how the lower section blends in. Here is an enlargement

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So now we begin some work... first lets get rid of the plastic that is in that area to give me a clear run at the whole thing. This produces a hole in the side so I've stuffed it with some filler which will get properly shaped when its dry

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and then here is some scratch built bits that will form the conduits and that funny shape at the back

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What have I just done to myself!!! Sigh, and so it goes on.. (and on... and on...)

Edited by Kallisti
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So we start on the weathering...

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Dust streaks on the panel lines, exhaust vanes dirtied up.

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All guns fixed, but more work needed on the lower ones. You can see the conduits have been bent to shape over a candle and will get fitted and painted later.

Lots of sanding and filling to make the back plate fit nicely

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I'm pleased to say that since I've got on with it the mojo has returned. Amazing how when you see progress it makes you want to progress further, but when things are sticky, it just puts you off! So I reckon there is a good chance this will be completed for Farnborough next Monday!

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Thanks :)

Getting closer and closer!

First off tonight I built the battery box that houses 8 AA batteries which will give me a portable 12v supply

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No fancy switches right at the moment - I've got a couple of small switches in the electronics box from the Meccano hobby, but I can't be bothered fixing up something when this will suffice for now.

Back then to the build where more sanding was done on the back plate and a fresh coat of paint applied which looked good so happy with that now. next moved onto the lower guns and added some extra fairings to the back of the guns where they blend into the body

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The conduits I had scratch built earlier had to be rebuilt as they were wrong - the two tubes should have been of different sizes, larger outer one, smaller inner one. So they should be ready to fit tomorrow. Then it should be good for some paint and on Friday I can Klear, Saturday apply decals and Sunday the final matt coat! Fingers crossed!

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So tonight's progress: painting, gluing and Klearing! Yes, we are starting on the Klear (sniff mmmm that great smell of um... ammonia)

First off the fairings attached last night were sanded to blend in with the body, then some paint was applied over these and the various spots where filler had done in to smooth the guns into place, and then...

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We have conduits!

Yesteday when I started test fitting I realised I'd made a mistake and made the back conduit the same diameter as the front and on comparing it to the images I posted earlier int eh week, I took the inner one out and replaced it with a narrower rod. Thankfully before I moved out of Central London I made one last trip to that wonderful 4D model supply shop and stocked up on plastic strip and rod so I had some 1.5mm diameter rod available. This go glued up last night and so today it was ready for some XF-16 flat aluminium and fixing in.

Here is another view which also shows Commander Sheridan in the cockpit

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Now this is what the same area looks like in the Starfury I built back in the 90s, which was OOB, and I even followed the mistake in the original instrcutions that had the upper and lower guns transposed

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BIG improvement eh?

So finally this evening the bottle of Klear came out and I put down a layer on the upper and lower wing surfaces which will take the decals. The paint still needs some touch ups but I'm leaving thing now to dry overnight so that tomorrow I can see if I need another Klear coat or if its okay for decaling.

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Some friends of mine built these upon first release and they all had something of a battle with this kit. 'Labour of love' was an expression used more than once. Will look forward to seeing the final model with the lights showing. Will be worth waiting for. It's also a surprisingly large model - larger than I'd certainly expected.

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Last nights progress: Sorry no photos as that would spoil the final reveal :)

So last night I took the plunge and started on the decals. I was dreading this as from reputation and from earlier experience the decals were not good, thick carrier film, huge borders, some sort of yellowish stain on the carrier and rather thick and inflexible. However, I did the best I could first by trimming as close to the decal as possible and liberal use of Micros Set and Sol. The results were a very pleasant surprise!

The Tiger decals on the upper surface were the ones I was most fearful of and indeed they were the most difficult go bed down properly, but a couple of incisions with a sharp scalpel blade gave it the flexibility to conform to the complex surface plus I trimmed the two forward shapes off which wrap around the instrument pits and added them afterwards. This helped enormously. The decals softened a little with the Micro Sol, but not as much as others, however it was enough to get them to sit over the raised panel lines.

All in all it wasn't as difficult as I expected and I am rather chuffed!

Finally last night I added the canopy. This was a bit tricky as I discovered while adding the instrument panel that sticks out in front that the resin cockpit it distinctly asymmetrical by several mm, however you don't see it normally unless you REALLY look hard :) Thank goodness! The canopy isn't a very good fit to the front of the body even though during construction I've test fitted and sanded portions to improve the fit. To make sure there were as few gaps as possible, I used Mr Dissolved putty as the fixing medium - using a cocktail stick I laid down a narrow strip of putty all around the edge where canopy would sit so that when the canopy was placed and pushed, the dissolved putty could squidge into the gaps and make a good seal. That left a large gap at the top of the canopy which again I dripped small amounts of dissolved putty into the gap to close it down then this morning added s couple of drops of Mr Surfacer around the canopy edge to smooth the join and then later when its all dried I'll do some very careful sanding to blend it all in.

Now that the decals are dried I'll be adding the final Klear coat today then adding some more weathering over the decals then tomorrow will be the Matt coat. Wow I can't beleive this is so close to finishing :)

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...and so we close the circle and return to the beginning...

We have arrived at the Hour of Scampering by way of the Hour of Longing. We also know this time as... ITS FINISHED!

Some views:

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Yeah so those are okay but what about in the dark?

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I'll post the best 4 in the gallery tomorrow...

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Thanks to everyone who commented

@Graham77 Yes I've started my research for the Aliens dropship (trans: sat and watched Aliens DVD this afternoon on PC and caught a few screen caps of important details) and just bought the 1:72 resin APC from Comet Miniatures to create the "dust off" scenario I am thinking would look good...

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Thanks to everyone who commented

@Graham77 Yes I've started my research for the Aliens dropship (trans: sat and watched Aliens DVD this afternoon on PC and caught a few screen caps of important details) and just bought the 1:72 resin APC from Comet Miniatures to create the "dust off" scenario I am thinking would look good...

I made the dropship years ago, I seem to think the two biggest issues were the lack of and actual bay above the ramp and the wings were in butted up to the fuselage and kept falling off. However seeing what you've done here they won't be a problem.

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