Thom216 Posted January 5, 2020 Share Posted January 5, 2020 Been a bit since I built a sci-fi model, which I think was also a Star Trek model, the USS Saber. This one is going to be a kitbash between two /2500 scale Star Trek Discovery models, the Shenzhou and the Enterprise. 1/2500 is not my scale, so bashing them into another ship fitting 1/1000 is the goal here. I'll be using the Shenzhou as the basis for the ship, trading its nacelles in favor of the Enterprise's, which look more era-correct than the Shen's more futuristic ones. First off, I'm going to cut a pen in half... No, it's not a start to a bad magic trick but the beginning of a new deflector, using the Enterprise's in place of the Shenzhou's, agan because the Shen's just looks too futuristic. I cut then cut the base of the deflector dish away from the Enterprise part and glued it onto the new housing. With that done I cut out the molded detail on the Shenzhou and test fitted the new deflector housing into the gaping hole behind. The bottom shows a bit of fitting will be needed to close some gaps. I skipped from there to the nacelles. I snipped the tops off the Enterprise struts and glued them into their slots in the nacelles to close those up. They will be sanded smooth and then holes drilled for when they are pinned to the Shen's struts. 3. While that was going on, I glued the hull together, after gluing in the clear parts. The ventral bridge will remain in place, though I will be filling in and smoothing over the big windows, since they are too large for the smaller size of the ship. Then thin styrene was glued into the bow to cover that hole. While that was drying, I decided to move the struts outward from their original positions. I wanted the new nacelles to be a little outward of the rim of the saucer. They'll need to be adjusted, as they follow the upward curve of the lower hull too much. Left as is and the rear of the nacelles will be up to high, rather than riding even with the rest of the hull. And a test to see how the new nacelles will look compared to the rest of the ship. You can see I also cut and sanded down the insert in the bow, before cutting the hole for the new deflector housing. And the last bit of work today was to add some shims into the bottom, to fill some gaps alongside the deflector housing. They'll have to be sanded down some but will close those little gaps up. And that's where she is at the moment. I'll clean that up a little more and glue the new deflector housing in place, then set the struts in place. And also add the shuttle bay from the Enterprise to the back of the Shenzhou. Though it'll be widened to give the Sprite a larger shuttle deck. Til next time, model on! Thom 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaminCam Posted January 5, 2020 Share Posted January 5, 2020 This is cool Thom, any background to the Sprite? I feel like there's a lot of star trek I've missed since i watched NG in the mid 90s... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thom216 Posted January 7, 2020 Author Share Posted January 7, 2020 No real background. Her era is post-TOS but pre-TMP. She'd be serving in the fleet as the same as my USS Saber. Back to work! After some PPP and CA, the deflector area was smoothed out and the housing glued in place. I may glue some little greeblies in there for detail, but until then I switched back to the stern, salvaging the shuttle bay from the Enterprise. ++ A little too narrow methinks! A bit of widening is called for! As you can also tell from the pic, the stern detail of the Shen was drastically cut into, seeing as though even widened the shuttle bay would not just slip over it all so neatly as to make my life easy! Some plastic scrap was used to fill some gaps at the sides, and the original deck space was widened to accommodate the new dimensions. And then time for a test fit. Will need to be cleaned up some, but I'm doing that as I type. Also made a new bay door, using Scotch tape across the opening to trace it and then transfer it to some Evergreen 'car siding.' That should work! I've slathered the parts with some PPP before sanding to smooth the joining parts out and make the final join a lot easier. More updates to come! Model on! 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
USS_ESSESS Posted January 8, 2020 Share Posted January 8, 2020 Nice progress just one question: How does it compare to other 1/1000 models sizewise? As the base models are 1/2500 I guess it‘s pretty small?! cheers Konrad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thom216 Posted January 8, 2020 Author Share Posted January 8, 2020 4 hours ago, USS_ESSESS said: Nice progress just one question: How does it compare to other 1/1000 models sizewise? As the base models are 1/2500 I guess it‘s pretty small?! cheers Konrad Thanks! I got the shuttle bay glued on and the lower deck sanded to shape. I've since put some PPP around the join to smooth it out. As for size, she's going to be about 6 inches long and 4 wide. So, she'll be a lil sprite of a thing! Here she is beside the 1/1000 Defiant. Model on! 6 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thom216 Posted February 26, 2020 Author Share Posted February 26, 2020 Back again! Sprite suffered a little loss of mojo power during the warp core run-up tests, but she's charging up now. Had a slight re-redesign while the engineers figured that out, and the struts will be mounted in their original positions. Moving them outward placed them on a section of hull that swooped upwards, which then would have required even more plastic to be added in order to level them out. The difference wasn't that big enough anyway. Just have some holes to fill... You'll note I've also filled in the bridge windows and those will be left blank as in the TOS. Then it was onto the nacelles, which went together as easy as you'd think. One snafu was not paining the insides of the radiators silver, but that can be done after main paint. But, I'm left with some pretty big holes that might be visible under the clear red painted bussard domes. Easy solution are some discs glued into place over the chasms! And since I might be able to see some detail in there under the painted domes, I'm adding a little sparkle! The discs in that pic were too thick and were replaced with paper-thin sheet to allow the bussards domes to seat as they should. And that's all for now. Feels good to get some progress back in this again. Thom 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thom216 Posted July 8, 2021 Author Share Posted July 8, 2021 Just finished the Unarmed GB. Guess what's back on the table...😉 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete in Lincs Posted July 8, 2021 Share Posted July 8, 2021 Lots of likes from me as I seem to have missed this one last year. It looks very interesting. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thom216 Posted July 10, 2021 Author Share Posted July 10, 2021 Alright, first work done on the Sprite in a long while. I had already hit the undersides with Tamiya rattle can Silver Leaf, and then masked that. Then I got out the Model Master Light Ghost Gray FS36375 and hit all the unmasked areas. Once that dries, I'll mask again and spray an even lighter shade of gray, and then maybe give it an 'accent' color. Feels good to have her back in process again. Model on! Thom 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thom216 Posted July 16, 2021 Author Share Posted July 16, 2021 Came out of the paint station and I removed all the masks. It'll go back in again for a touch up and a little more color, but this is how she sits at the moment. Model on! Thom 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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