Polar lights Enterprise 1701 Refit 1/350th Scale



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It's an Illuminating Experience.
Greetings folks and after a fair ole gap, we back to it....
Now then, last time a fair few moons ago we had assembled the sides and roof of the hangar/cargobay and had a little tinker with the workbee and travelpod bits. Well it came to pass I finally stepped back into the breach and decided that since this was a first time building the refit with the hangar thingy, I may as well do a the number on it lighting wise.

So with that in mind, the first task was how to go about putting the lighting on the workbees and travelpod. First up, seeing as how the workbees and cargotrain had a light on the front, the best way to work it was by fiberoptic. Now one thing here, you can get fiberoptic in both glass and plastic strands and to be honest, it can be pricey. All of the stuff I used was 'harvested' from a cheap fiberoptic spray table lamp and it works just as well for the purposes of modeling at least from what i've found so far. But cheapskate happenings aside now, lets get to it.

First with a grinding wheel and drill, 'twas time to knock a lump or two off the resin replacement DLM bought in bits...



That duly sorted. Now the workbees had 5 strands of fiber laid down the middle trench with the ends about 2mm short of the front of the body. The trench was then filled with clear epoxy resin and left to cure. I did 4 in total. 1 for the cargotrain, 1 as is and 2 with some wee additional bits to make up the extending grab arm doohickies. The fiber optic and large holes in the travelpod were likewise filled and sanded flush.

With the cargo trains, the DLM parts were asembled and a trench dug along the length then small holes drilled at an angle to accept the fiberpotic for the lights down the side as seen in the movies. One cargotrain was made to be seen from the front, one from the rear. All the light carrying stuff duly wedged in and sorted. A 3mm LED was mounted directly on the back of the travel pod.

A wee bit of additional plasticard detail and the deed for the cargotrain building was a done thing.

3mm LEDs attached to the bits, the legs of the LEDs will be the supports when installed. Just a smidgen of masking in the right places and a goodly blast of matt white duly applied.

Decaling and paintwork a plenty later and we have...









And yes, I just had to fire up the lighting...









Now THAT I am happy with!

Well that done, now to the small lit spots on the cargo area catwalks. Holes were predrilled so mucho fiberoptic stranding duly selected and shoved through. Now holding the little blighters in place is not really a problem, here you see the ends of the strands...

Now by holding a heat source, say a soldering iron tip or lighter flame close to but not touching the strand end untill it sort of 'mushrooms' over, you get this...

Instant 'fall back through the hole' stoppers. So dragged through and the outside just given a dab of epoxy glue to make sure they don't run away anywhere and left to cure.

So once done, then the cargo trains and travel pod installed.



Rightyho then, that done so just the hangar deck to sort and the turbolift shafts to paint then the bulk of this deal can be put together and then deal with the rest of the lighting in the hangar/cargo bay area. All good fun but that be it for now me hearties!

Untill the next time which will be a lot sooner than this update has taken to get here I promise, you go easy gang!



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