Fantastic Plastic Battlestar Pegasus
1/3700th Scale

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Oh christ on a segway...

Wonky Bits...Again!!

We'll you're here so let's get on with it
but don't say ya weren't warned.

Right then, as mentioned in the last page, the deck
plates are supposed to be parallel and flat to each other.
This would require gluing them together with a detail plate in between.
These would be them detail plates...




And then I took a look at them from end on...and wished I hadn't.




And that extra resin in the casting runs all the way along it
causing that upward tilt.
How absolutely fracking lovely.

One band saw set up with an ad-hoc run the part through jig
and a smidgen of careful work later...


Well I wasn't going to try and sand 'em down I promise you.

Well the parts now sandwiched with mucho epoxy stay put gunk,
a few holes drilled and FO threaded through.

Again with the stay put gunk and the lower pod tops attached.


So done and done there, on to the top side landing bay pods.
Holes drilled through the arms to feed the FO through
and the existing strands duly shoved in said holes.

Now the open ends required a bit of extra work.
As you can see by the renders below, there is some side wall detail.




Now this kit is not exactly accurate,
by any stretch of the imagination,
but something needed here
so out with the thin plasticard strip,
two long strips laid down on to a length of cellotape, two more sliced up in to little chips of styrene
and then glued on like so...




These then peeled up off the tape, sliced up in to small lengths and glued in.






No perfection by any means but a bit better than just a blank wall.

So last bit of fiber optic frippery for the top bits,
The up lights for the ships name.
Two bunches of 6 strands each with the 90 degree bend
fed through holes and epoxy glued in.
Repeat for the other side and done.






Done and done for now, final FO fitting to light
the trench between the top and bottom bay pods.
11 strands spread out along the length,
90 degree heat bent and fed through holes in the end of a shallow trench.

Once in, a small dot of black epoxy to secure.




And that's about at the final get 'em together stage for these parts.

Just a small styrene bulkhead in one end of each top pod,
Then much threading of the light carrying gear and
mucho dabbing on of the epoxy stay put ya bugger gunk.


At long last.
Now then, the fiber optic for the blue and green lights to be,
up lights and the side trench lighting were fed through
the front and rear pod arms.
Bunched, glue and tube secured, then trimmed.
The FO for the deck lights was fed through the center arm to keep them separate.

And now i'll tell ya why...
The strands were sorted in to batches of 8 strands
with much showing of a white 3mm LED to the end and seeing what lit up
and keeping them grouped according to whether they were first,
second, third in the line and bloody so on.

That took a fair old while but I know it would.
The ends were bunched, glued, trimmed, glued again and puttied in to place.


Then a styrene tube set up to take some 3mm white LEDs was made up and it fitted just nicely.




Now all that nonsense on the center arm is to be connected up to this...




A chaser circuit, the details for which found on the internet
and then built by yours truly with a bit
of soldering iron silliness taking place.

This would usually run 10 LEDs in sequence but only need the
first 5 steps but branched that off so we end up with five pairs of LEDs.

So how did all this sodding about work out?
Excellent question and the answer in picture format is below.
Taken in normal indoor lighting by the way, hellhole lights are a bit bright
to see things well in photos.






Mucho trimming and sorting of fiber optic ends to get done and
a fair bit of clean up on the pods as a whole but getting there.

And as for the chaser lights?
Judge for thyself with the now standard crap-o-cam video below...


If said video it is not playing then by all means do the right click and 'Save Target As...' thing on the link below to download da movie.
11.35 MB file size, 2 mins 02 seconds movie right here people!

Well not too shabby methinks folks.
better after the much required cleanup, full assembly and paint pandemonium.

But that's for later...or at least the next couple of updates,
which will be along ASAP so my long suffering client can finally get his Battlestar Pegasus at long last.
Untill next update, you merry mob go easy out there!

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