Polar lights USS Enterprise NCC-1701
Star Trek The Motion Picture Refit
1/350th Scale



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In a manner of speaking and not without a fight...
It All Goes In There...Honest!.
Ok then troops and troopettes,
onward with bringing all the doo-dads together in one package.
Now the last bits to be prepped for the assembly as such are
the turbo lift tubes that run deck to roof so,
these I drilled right the way through as just holding
a LED against the ends of the solid item didn't quite seem
to light it right so afore mentioned hole drilled,
a few bits of 1mm masking tape and a few dabs of paint later,
it was a done thing.





That wee thing or pair of things if you will,
dealt with it was to the hangar deck mine beady eye was turned.

Simply put, airbrushed with matt enamel dark sea grey,
one coat of acrylic gloss and once dry,
decals applied.

Stock decals left to cure then two coats of acrylic satin varnish later,
two travel pods and the one spare workbee glued in
an epoxy style into place and there you have it.

The whole deal was then assembled.
At this time something, as it usually does occurred to me and that was all
the windows while nice, needed something...
turning to the PNT photo etched sheet I had the answer and that answer is...
people behind the windows.

OK I grant you folks would probably have summat better to do with
their time aboard a starship than be a travel pod spotter
but who am I to judge.

Ahem!

Anyways, the figures are in silhouette fashion,
that is to say just an outline but very good
none the less so I decided to press gang a few into place,
one example is like so...

Which from the other side of said window looks like so...
it's the three panel window in the roof by the way to save
you squinting too much...

Nothing staggering but I just thought i'd throw it in.

Moving along it was onto covering the entire exterior
with foil tape and fix the roof lighting clear bits into place.



The area under the fantail part has been left clear of foil for
a reason I will come to in another update.
Now the trailing fiber optic from the sides of the hangar/cargo area
and the workbees had to be connected to an LED somehow,
the result was a small length of plastic tube over the
ends of the fiber and the LEDs in a short length of alloy tube
and secured with some epoxy putty.

Simply put, fibroid in plastic tube shoved in alloy tube
to align with LED and taped up,
simple but effective.

Once sort of sorted, then came the attaching
of the LEDs and the inevitable wiring up.

Now all then white bits may look messy but simply put,
they are paper bits cut and hot glued in on both sides of a
wire joint to insulate, another simple but effective thing.

All wiring up done then the whole lot was foiled over to completely seal it.
Idea here is that the shuttle bay will have it's own on/off switch
with a removable DLM resin replacement hangar doors.
Since I couldn't guarantee that there would be no light leaks around
said door then this seems the best option for lighting to me.
Others may differ but there ya go!





Well at each stage of the final foiling malarkey,
the lighting was tested but no shorting out happened I am very happy to say
so onto the lighting test done with a
handy testing mains adaptor that just happened to have
the right milliamp rating for the number of LEDs.

The results are below...

















Well not so shabby I think I can honestly say
so that's one up for our side I reckon.
Only thing to note here as pointed out by one of the fellas on
Hobbytalk and quite correct he be,
Thankies Thorsten!,
is that the fiber optic lights down the walls of the cargo area cannot be seen,
the light is discernable but the actual pin spots of light
are not if the PNT photo etch parts are used.

Such is life and now I know for certain so take note people,
the words of the fella are duly proven!

Well lots to consider while things are happening here,
much fiddling about and a few bits of surgery due to modifications and the
like to happen to the secondary hull when I start putting the gal together
proper but we be a ways off from that yet.

Go easy untill next time me merry muckas!!



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