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Moebius 1-4105 Battlestar Galactica


Jasonb13

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Hi all,

Well, I've finally got my bench cleared and I'm ready to get started on this. Of course, with a certain birthday coming up, it might be a little while before I actually build anything!

Anyhow, I'm doing the Galactica, I'm sure you'll all seen pics of the box :

Box.jpg

It's around 12-13 inches long when built, a fair bit of plastic but most of it fairly large, with nice details :

Sprues.jpg

I'm actually building this as a gift for a friend of mine, so I decided to go all out and get all the AM stuff, as I want it to look as good as possible for him. So I got the PE sets :

PE.jpg

And all the decals. And I do mean all, the decals will probably be the biggest part of this build, with hundreds of individual 'between ribs' details to apply :

Decals.jpg

I'm a brush painter, but for this build I'll probably just use Halfords rattle-can grey for the base colour, and I'll then try the 'shoe-polish' technique for the first time, which'll hopefully dirty her up. Then all the decals on top of that! More to follow...

J.

Edited by Jasonb13
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this is deffinately worth watching

right upto the point i think its going to be better than my entry then i will abuse my new found POWAH and delete the thread lol

i reckon youv got about 3 more posts till that happens haha

Edited by mrvr6
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Thanks mrvr6, but I think you're pretty safe. My skills most definitely do not match my ambitions. Which also answers your question smiffy, I won't be lighting her, that's many steps too far for me!

Are you saying you've been working on the decals for 3 months picard? If so, I really am worried about how much I've bitten off! I keep telling myself that actually putting on the decals won't be too tough, but the sheer amount of them...

J.

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Thanks mrvr6, but I think you're pretty safe. My skills most definitely do not match my ambitions. Which also answers your question smiffy, I won't be lighting her, that's many steps too far for me!

Are you saying you've been working on the decals for 3 months picard? If so, I really am worried about how much I've bitten off! I keep telling myself that actually putting on the decals won't be too tough, but the sheer amount of them...

J.

Not full time my friend? 15 or 20 mins at a time.

The best way to get them on the kit is to cut the ribbing and apply them iduvidually, after some trial error I also mix a small amount of PVA into my water which works very well indeed, if that helps?

Mine is on a base coat of Halfords Aluminum with a dark wash, the decals look teriffic.

Cheers

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Thanks Picard, any tips are very helpful! I was thinking cutting each rib decal, while very slow, would give much better results.

A quick question for you. Once you've done the decals, are you going to do any varnishes / washes over them? I'm gonna do the Halfords Grey Primer, then a shoe-polish stain for a wash, then a gloss coat, and then the decals, but I don't know if I should put anything over the decals or not?

J.

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Thanks Picard, any tips are very helpful! I was thinking cutting each rib decal, while very slow, would give much better results.

A quick question for you. Once you've done the decals, are you going to do any varnishes / washes over them? I'm gonna do the Halfords Grey Primer, then a shoe-polish stain for a wash, then a gloss coat, and then the decals, but I don't know if I should put anything over the decals or not?

J.

Yes indeedy, once the marathon decaling is done I will give her a coat of Halfords Lacquer, which gives a fab finish, then weather various areas with washes,with another clear coat over that.

Acreation give a good guide to varnish's on their instruction sheet I believe? I just wish I had l put the lights in mine after all this effort?

Very good luck with the famous shoe polish method by the way (to bold for me) looking forward to the build. (P.S. I do not work for Halfords by the way, just brilliant paints.)

Of down to T5 now for my hols, happy christmas everyone,

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Thanks again for that info Picard. My worry about putting more gloss coats over the decals is that I don't know if I want it to have a gloss, shiny finish! I'll see, but I might make it a little more matt for the last coat.

And, just to try to keep Jonathan happy, I have at least started on it! Next steps are filling the large seam lines inside the bays, and then putting the PE in there. Probably won't get that done today, and then I'll be busy enough over the next week, but will hopefully get to it soon...

J.

MainHull1.jpg

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Hi,

Be careful of the "Head"/body joint. If you just glue it on it angles upwards and the whole thing looks like a bannana. Add a plasticard shim a couple of mm wide to the upper part of the front of the body and sand it till it blends in about 2 cm down. Looks much better.

Looking forward to their Pegasus next year. Hope it's the same scale!

Stuart

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Thanks again for that info Picard. My worry about putting more gloss coats over the decals is that I don't know if I want it to have a gloss, shiny finish! I'll see, but I might make it a little more matt for the last coat.

And, just to try to keep Jonathan happy, I have at least started on it! Next steps are filling the large seam lines inside the bays, and then putting the PE in there. Probably won't get that done today, and then I'll be busy enough over the next week, but will hopefully get to it soon...

J.

MainHull1.jpg

Hi Jasonb, I have never found that problem with a gloss issue with laquer as all it does is given a very strong seal to the colour beneth the top coat if you will? With enamals paints in the past I have combined gloss, semi and flat coats to find a great finish's as well.

Opp's sorry, I could have let you know, don't worry about the seam with the PE thanks to the chaps at ParaGrafix

No surgery required on mine by the way, a bit of sanding hear and there resulting in no gaps or banna issues at all,guess I was lucky?

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Hi,

Be careful of the "Head"/body joint. If you just glue it on it angles upwards and the whole thing looks like a bannana. Add a plasticard shim a couple of mm wide to the upper part of the front of the body and sand it till it blends in about 2 cm down. Looks much better.

Looking forward to their Pegasus next year. Hope it's the same scale!

Stuart

Pegasus??? From Moebius??? Did I hear you say???

Last I heard was "the computer says no"

That would make my year,(Well, part of it anyway?)

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Well, it's been a while, but I finally got back to work on this yesterday. I got all the PE into the bays ( and that was awkward, as all the PE seemed to be approx. 1-2mm too long / wide and needed a lot of persuasion! ) and then got started on the engine pods. They were easy to put together ( though I haven't done the clear parts yet ).

Next was the 'head', which I've just dry fitted for the moment. From what I can see, I am going to have some 'banana' issues, so will have to follow your advice Stuart.

Below is a pic showing the hull, engines ( which are glued together, but dry-fitted to the hull ) and head ( which is completely dry-fitted ). Next steps will be to get that head sitting properly on the hull, before I even think about gluing the head pieces together. All the sub-assemblies ( hull, engines, head, flight pods ) will be kept separate until the whole lot has been painted and decaled, as it'll be a lot easier to do the shoe-polish, and decals, with them separate!

J.

DryFitting.jpg

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Thanks! Though it's not as smooth as it looks in that photo, trust me!

The instructions mention painting the clear engine parts before gluing them in place, but don't mention what to paint them! Any thoughts?

J.

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Thanks! Though it's not as smooth as it looks in that photo, trust me!

The instructions mention painting the clear engine parts before gluing them in place, but don't mention what to paint them! Any thoughts?

J.

Hi Jasonb, because I'm not lighting mine, I'm still undecided, most screencaps and pics I have suggest a white blast with a blueish hint at the edges?

One of the best references for BSG, Star Trek etc, is the, bruce-domain.blogspot.com. A must for this project and others.

Cheers

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Yet another update!

Following the tip from Stuart, and seeing that I did indeed have a Battlestar Banana, I gave fixing it a go. I'm normally a OOB builder and would never consider any kind of scratch building, but something had to be done as the Head of the Galactica was definitely pointing upwards a bit!

I got a small sample kit of Evergreen Strip Styrene free with a model a few months ago, so I opened it up and did what I could. I added some styrene to the top of the 'neck' of the Main Hull, and added smaller pieces lower down on the 'neck' of the Head. I still need to sand / smooth it a bit, but only a bit, as this area will barely be seen, especialy after it's painted / shoe polished and put together!

So here's the top of the neck of the Main Hull, with the three pieces of white styrene easily visible :

Neck1.jpg

And then lower down on the neck of the Head, I've put two thinner pieces of styrene. I put these on the Head as there wasn't really enough plastic to 'grip' them on the neck of the Main Hull. These will fit under the ones on the Main Hull neck :

Neck2.jpg

And what all of this means is that when I dry fit the Head to the Main Hull, it's a lot straighter now, and not pointing up as much. It's by no means perfect, but it's actually a lot better than I'd thought I'd be able to do it. That's it for this evening, I'm gonna take a break and let all the glue dry over night before I continue tomorrow, probably starting on the flight pods. That might not be easy though, as I need to paint the inside of the pods before putting the landing strip decal on ( which needs to be done before closing the pod halves together ), but as I'm 'painting' this with Halford's Primer, I have to wait for decent weather.

J.

Edited by Jasonb13
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More progress, and yet another picture!

Got started on the flight pods today, which went together easily enough once you remove the large moulding pins. I haven't glued the top and bottom halves together as I need to paint the inside before putting on the landing strip decals ( and the PE Girders that run the length of each flight pod ). I also put the PE 'windows' of the Museum flight pod ( the Starboard one ) and she's officially named now too! I also cut the locating pin of each gun and glued it in place, as that'll give the PE guns something to sit on.

Of course, I couldn't resist putting it all together to see how she looks, and me likely, if I do say so myself :

TakingShape.jpg

She's pretty much ready for the paint shop ( well, it sounds more impressive than 'table out the back garden' ) now. To help with painting / weathering and decalling, the four engines, the flight pods and the head are all only dry fitted and I'll be doing each part separately. I'm hoping that'll also break the decalling into more manageable chunks. As expected, the actual build has been easy enough, it's the painting, decalling and weathering that'll make ( or break! ) this kit.

Just have to wait for decent weather now!

J.

Edited by Jasonb13
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