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Starship Maintenance trench wall hanging


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Whilst looking at some of my Star Wars books, Haynes Publishing Imperial Death Star and Star Wars Chronicles: The Prequels, in the second book it has a size chart of the capital ships that shows an Imperial-class Star Destroyer at 1600 metres in length with an approximate height of 430 metres. Now when you compare the drawings in the Haynes book in their size comparison chart, the height of the Equatorial trench is roughly the same height as the Star Destroyer so I'd guestimate the height of the trench at 450 metres and some 800 metres deep given that the Death Star 1 had a diameter of 120km. The Death Star 2 had a diameter of 160km. In the Haynes book, it mentions that the latitudinal trench was wide enough to accommodate three single-pilot Star fighters in attack formation.

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As @-Ian- said above, I'm just winging this. Someone built or CGI'd an original and this is an interpretation of that, using whatever I have.

At least this way the rivet counters can't say It's wrong because I'm just claiming it as part of a generic Star Destroyer.

At the end of the day it will just be a way to display any Spaceships I may build. So long as they are 1/350th scale and Star Wars (ish).

The greeblies in the above pictures got primed today. Grey with a speckling of white. Detail painting is in the near future.

Lots of 1 mm and 0.50 mm plastic card (or styrene if you prefer) is on order for delivery later this week.*

This will be used to skin the ship above and below the trench. I'm probably going to skin the trench in 0.50 mm card. 

Today at the car boot sale I found a stall selling off Star Wars ships etc in perspex boxes for a quid. Probably ex magazine models?

I bought a Theta Class Imperial Shuttle. It's small, and may not be quite the right scale. Who knows? It sits well with my Vaurbian Freighter anyway.

So, I'm happy with progress so far. Hopefully I'll get more time in the manshed this week. Thanks for dropping by, Pete

 

* My nearest local model shop is in Newark. Around forty odd minutes away, so rather uneconomical. Even if he did have enough card in stock.

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You certainly aren't wasting any time on this extravaganza - wow!  You've already made lots of nice progress.  This will make for an interesting wall display too.  I can't think of another model project that I've seen displayed like this 🤔  It's a good idea.  My projects wind up being stacked in the corners collecting dust, until my annual ceremonial toss them in bin event!  Maybe this will be a good way to keep the project visible and out of the bin!

 

Cheers

Nick 

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17 hours ago, Stickframe said:

 My projects wind up being stacked in the corners collecting dust, until my annual ceremonial toss them in bin event!

Surely not the fate of the F1 workshop? That would be so cruel to see.

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Time for another quick update. I've been saving foam sheets from packaging, time to put them to use.

The plastic card skin of the ship will need some support. Cover me, I'm going in....

U85CcPG.jpg

Foam wedges for lunch anyone? It made an awful mess but the Stanley knife cut loads of these. 4mm high by 8.5mm across the base.

All stuck in place with Gorilla wood glue. Lovely stuff. I had to Hoover the Garage & workbench to get rid of all the little foam bits!

(So I cleaned out and de-spiderwebbed the mancave while I was at it). 

 

gN6pSSu.jpg

And, from another angle. The wooden block in the trench is there to keep things parallel.

 

R2MWzLW.jpg

The skin will need support to avoid 'quliting', (I hesitate to use the word drooping, in case of a low level 'Viz' attack from @CedB or @Martian

 So more foam was chopped up to form horizontal supports. Again, Gorilla glue was used.

The next job up will be to skin the trench in 0.50mm plastic card. I'm not quite sure what glue I'll use to stick the card to the foam wedges.

I may need to experiment to see if the Gorilla stuff works.

Thanks for looking in, comments etc always welcome, Pete.

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Regular Gorilla glue will stick just about anything together. The only thing you have to watch out for is that it expands as it cures. So a good solid clamping is a necessity.

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2 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

The skin will need support to avoid 'quliting', (I hesitate to use the word drooping, in case of a low level 'Viz' attack from @CedB or @Martian

 

Too late , fnar, fnar snurf, snurf! Sorry, I can't do it with the same style as Ced.

 

Martian 👽

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On 25/06/2021 at 18:44, Pete in Lincs said:

I don't know the dimensions for a start. I did think to build the entrance and use a photo behind it, but maybe not.

If you ever get tired of the dray job Pete there's a place for you here in Ireland in the construction industry.

 

 

 

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I called in at Access Models in Newark today for some black plastic card in 1mm flavour for the ends.

And the new Gorilla glue turned up. Ordered from the bay Sunday, delivered this morning. Pretty good eh?

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On 13/07/2021 at 23:35, TheBaron said:

If you ever get tired of the dray job Pete there's a place for you here in Ireland in the construction industry.

 

 

 

What!?!? 
 

The Irish are building a Death Star??? 😱

 

What the hell for? and who’s funding it? 

 

The &”#^%ing EU are behind this I bet! 😡

 

 

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10 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

The Irish are building a Death Star??

It's to get around the EEC VAT rules. It will orbit Dublin at a height of five & three quarter miles. 

They're already growing the cabbages for the Colcannon in the on board canteen.

 

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/colcannon

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31 minutes ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

The Irish are building a Death Star??? 😱

 

We are! In fact the display stand for it is already complete....

dublin_1365_06D.jpg?m=1435499645

 

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On 14/07/2021 at 14:23, TheBaron said:

We are! In fact the display stand for it is already complete....

dublin_1365_06D.jpg?m=1435499645

 

I think yer gonna need a bigger stand...

Although that looks just about right for 1/350th scale.

 

Oh, hey Pete, looks nice. (/obligatory offhand compliment)

Edited by Tzulscha
(lousy punctuation buttons...grumble, grumble..)
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17 hours ago, Tzulscha said:

(/obligatory offhand compliment)

I'm glad you did that. otherwise we'll have to send the boys around....

 

BTW, Death Star Canteen. Put that into the tube and you'll get a very funny stop motion Lego film voiced by Eddie Izzard.

I'd put it on here but it contains rude words.

 

Todays update is slightly boring but all part of the build...

 

lUskZo1.jpg

The trench has been lined with plastic card, stuck on with the Gorilla glue. It takes a couple of hours to dry, hence the clamps.

 

JXmcohN.jpg

I've been cutting the skin panels for the upper surface. Five to go here and five on the lower surface too. 1mm plastic card.

I'm going to leave cutting the centre panel until the others are fitted. Careful measuring (hah!) should avoid gaps.

There will, of course, be card support tabs between the sheets. I think you can just about see that I've scribed them with panel lines, 6cm x 7cm. 

And that is about it for this time. I'm back at work so only have the weekends to model again, which will of course slow things down a bit.

Thanks, as always,  for looking in, Pete

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

I'm glad you did that. otherwise we'll have to send the boys around....

 

JXmcohN.jpg

 

"The boys" eh?

Would that be Vinny and Guido or Doug and Dinsdale?

 

This is starting to look like the pod racing grandstand on Bunta E'en

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On 18/07/2021 at 14:27, Pete in Lincs said:

I'm back at work so only have the weekends to model again, which will of course slow things down a bit.

Take care of yourself out working in this heat Pete. :thumbsup2:

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It's been a busy weekend but I managed to get a couple of hours on this today.

Not much to report, I've done more skinning work. On the part below the trench this time.

I've done four pieces, two at each end. This leaves a gap in the middle which will be the next stage.

The Gorilla glue will take 24 hours to dry properly. So I've left weights on the card to aid the bonding.

I also did a bit of detail painting and shading on the greeblies for the trench.

Sorry it's not more exciting. Cheers, Pete

 

 

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Pete,

 

Regarding the installation of these panels, would you consider recessing a few?  That is, dropping the cladding material between the ribs now and then?  Maybe an opportunity for adding some additional hardware? in addition to providing some relief to the surface.

 

Looking forward to seeing where this takes you - 

 

Cheers

Nick 

 

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Nick, It's an idea, though it's a bit late now, I've almost done. I'll have a look at doing it to this last panel though.

What I have thought of is adding bits of hardware/greeblies to the skin.

Plus I'll scribe some panels within the panels using templates to add detail.

Hopefully I'm up to using the airbrush to add interesting colour variations on the panels. I don't want it all in boring grey. 

Thanks for the suggestion.

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