![\"\"](\"http:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Officers-Lounge.jpg\")
<\/a>Notice the colors of the uniforms, walls, and chairs. From a long distance we have to be able to give these impressions.<\/p><\/div>\n
used in Undiscovered Country to host the diplomatic dinner with the Klingon Chancellor).\u00a0 There is a 3rd<\/sup>-party piece available for the Officer\u2019s Mess, but I\u2019m building a non-A version about the time frame of Wrath of Khan, so I stuck with the stock O-Lounge part.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Left – the part before paint; Right – after soaking in an acetone bath. Good if I was going for an “Alien” Gieger look, but not so hot for Star Trek.<\/p><\/div>\n Initially I primed up the O-Lounge with a grey that turned out both too dark and too thick, it smothered the detail I wanted.\u00a0 I should have known better than to go directly to this paint, as I\u2019d got it from a craft store and had never used it on a model before.<\/p>\n My second big error:\u00a0 when trying to strip the paint off, I soaked the part in acetone.\u00a0 Very poor choice, as acetone will slowly melt polystyrene.\u00a0 The bath pretty much wrecked the part (and in my search for a replacement that\u2019s where I discovered that Don\u2019s Light and Magic offers the O-Mess part).\u00a0 Thankfully, I was able to secure a replacement of the original part through the kindness of someone on the SciFiModelAction boards.<\/p>\n Liquid mask up front, masking tape behind<\/p><\/div>\n First, the Officer\u2019s Lounge has two big screens in its rear, and both of these I intend to have back-lit to appear like big TV screens.\u00a0 To keep these safe, I used a liquid mask over them before priming, and put some masking tape on their back.\u00a0 This way I just have white plastic that light can pass through easily.<\/p>\n Masked the areas where the part will glue onto the saucer, and primed it with black for light-blocking,<\/p>\n Primed and trees clipped<\/p><\/div>\n Chairs and screens ready, tree trunks glued on<\/p><\/div>\n then Tamiya light grey to match the walls in the film.\u00a0 Next, since I\u2019m going to install real-looking plants, I cut off the plastic trees that are scattered around the floor.\u00a0 I have some 1\/35th<\/sup> scale trees that I use for WW2 armor dioramas, and I clipped a branch or two from one to use as the trunks of the \u201creal\u201d trees that I was going to install here.\u00a0 I glued them all in place with super glue, since they weren\u2019t the same as the polystyrene.<\/p>\n The chairs, couches, and tables were next, because I can\u2019t paint them easily after the foliage goes in.\u00a0 I used an orangish color that I mixed to match the appearance in ST:TMP.\u00a0 See the sort of \u201challway\u201d in the back, that goes up to the center screen?\u00a0 That\u2019s the set where the scene was filmed.<\/p>\n Crew and Decals for the Lounge<\/p><\/div>\n I then took a set of 1\/350 people from a Tamiya navy crew set, painted them up in uniform colors based on both TMP and WOK, and cut the HDA Modelworx decals out to put into place.\u00a0 Setting the decals was a simple matter of cutting them to fit, and gluing the figures just took a little CA super glue.\u00a0 To get McCoy sitting properly in his chair took a little carving from behind the knees and waist to get it to bend right, but eventually it stuck properly.<\/p>\n Crew and decals in place<\/p><\/div>\n Once everyone was in the right place, I could glue the foliage to the trees.\u00a0 Using the same deep green foliage from the 1\/35th<\/sup> scale trees worked perfectly, giving a really nice look to the lounge.\u00a0 A little sprinkle of light green fluff gave some contrast the foliage and added some depth to the effect.\u00a0 Spray with satin finish to protect everything and add a little extra \u201cstay put\u201d factor, and it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n The O-Lounge completed – even has Kirk, Bones, and Spock in the back section (this doesn’t look great when you’re right up in its face, but from one meter away it’s exactly what it needs to be).<\/p><\/div>\n The rear endcap for the secondary hull, the Fantail is one of the easiest of the subassemblies to make.\u00a0 Four pieces make this one up \u2013 the fantail itself, the two side panels, and the overhead red lighting.\u00a0 The faintail is a white plastic, while the other three are clear.<\/p>\n Side panels of the fantail masked.<\/p><\/div>\n After trimming and sanding, the fantail gets light-blocked.\u00a0 When doing this, make sure to do your light-blocking on the outside<\/em> of the piece, not the interior \u2013 the fantail has a limited amount of contact area with the secondary hull, and you don\u2019t want to get paint on that.\u00a0 It\u2019ll interfere with your ability to glue it in place, so make sure to mask the rear properly before spraying\/airbrushing.\u00a0 After the black dried, some white Vallejo finished the painting.<\/p>\n The overhead part got zapped up with some crystal red clear paint (I used an airbrush to get a uniform coverage).\u00a0 This ended up making the part a little too big for the socket it was to fit in, so I filed out the space where it belonged to ensure a good seating.\u00a0 Some canopy glue on its back and that was done.<\/p>\n Light-blocking the fantail sides<\/p><\/div>\n The two side panels are a little funny.\u00a0 When you look at the studio model, they are darker than the fantail itself, and they have not only those three blue horizontals, but a few small red spots on their lower halves.\u00a0 I put some liquid mask into the horizontals, and blacked the pieces on their front (I pressed them into some blue-tac putty to hold them in place while spraying, and this also masked the rears to keep them from collecting extra paint).\u00a0 Once the light-block was dry, I zapped them with some Tamiya light grey to provide contrast with the fantail.<\/p>\n Interior of the fantail with putty closing the light leaks<\/p><\/div>\n After the paint dried, I used a .5mm drill to put a few holes in the paint on the lower side, and to put one spot above the horizontals on each.\u00a0 A little crystal blue in the horizontals (and the spot above them), followed by a drop of crystal red in the spots beneath them, and they were ready.\u00a0 Glued in place with canopy glue, then checked for light leaks \u2013 which there were several around the sides.\u00a0 I filled in the sides with plastic putty, and that took the leaks out of the picture.\u00a0 Finally, after masking the back I applied a coat of automotive clear gloss on the exterior to protect everything and get it ready for decals.<\/p>\n Fantail is ready for action – the side panels look a little rough close-up, but at the one-meter judgment scale, they look great.<\/p><\/div>\n This turned out to be deceptively complex, and just calling it \u201cthe neck\u201d seems like an understatement.\u00a0 It contains the torpedo launcher section, and is the first assembly of the model that actually has windows in it.\u00a0 As well, it has two travel pod docking rings, which have some photo-etch parts to go with them.<\/p>\n Notice the lights in the travel pod docking ports.<\/p><\/div>\n Looking at the film shots, the travel-pod docks have lights on either side of them, which I decided to use fiber-optics for.\u00a0 The holes are deep enough that a small drill bit will work fine, and a .25mm FO strand fits perfectly in there.\u00a0 The fibers I was using were a bit stiff, and required some heating to get to bend properly \u2013 and once you cement them in place they become quite brittle, so my best advice here is maybe not to do that at all.\u00a0 It was a royal pain in the ass, and I think I might skip that if I had to do it over again.\u00a0 However, they\u2019re done now, and I wouldn\u2019t be doing you justice if I didn\u2019t mention them.<\/p>\n Inserting fiber for the pod lighting<\/p><\/div>\n “Mushrooming” the ends of the FO<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n After threading the fibers through the drilled holes, I used a soldering iron to \u2018mushroom\u2019 the tips just a little, and then pulled them flush with the inside of the docks.<\/p>\n Travel pod PE parts – there are quite a few of these, make sure to get them oriented right (the little flat spot goes on bottom)<\/p><\/div>\n Next, I secured the photo-etch parts to the travel pod docking rings with some CA glue.\u00a0 In hindsight, these PE parts should go on after the completed assembly has been painted, and a final dusting of the white overcoat can be applied to cover up the metal.\u00a0 Having them in early resulted in the detail being obscured by several coats of hull color paint, and I ended up having to go back and wash the paint out of the docking rings with acetone before re-applying a thin coat to preserve the details.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Masking applied to the Raytheon zones<\/p><\/div>\n A big splotch of liquid mask then was applied to each side of the neck to provide a Raytheon lighting spot (in the film studio model, this area was lit up with a spotlight that wasn\u2019t actually on the model, but you couldn\u2019t tell that from the way they shot the scene).\u00a0 A tiny dot of mask was also applied to the ends of the fiber optics in the pod rings.\u00a0 Light-blocking time!\u00a0 Masking up the edges to avoid screwing up the parts that would be glued together, the exterior of each part got a coat of black.<\/p>\n Light blocked…<\/p><\/div>\n …and hull color applied. \u00a0Notice on both that there is masking tape covering where the glue seams will be.<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Once dry, I stripped off the masking film, sanded the edges where necessary (not really needed, but I wanted to be sure), and put on several coats of Vallejo white primer as a hull color.<\/p>\n Some of the interior printed on transparency sheet<\/p><\/div>\n After this the windows were going in, and even though they were circular ports through which not a lot can be seen, I printed out some interior hallways on transparency film to glue in place behind them.\u00a0 Cutting small sections of these out and gluing them behind the windows gives a little variation in the amount of light passing through the windows, and I suppose someone with better up-close eyesight than mine might be able to make out the detail.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Some of the larger windows needed “convincing”.<\/p><\/div>\n Some of the window parts for the neck are a bit large, and don\u2019t fit perfectly, so they had to be clamped while the canopy glue dried.\u00a0 In hindsight, I might have been better off to slice these up with a Dremel or something, and apply them in pieces, but I did them whole.\u00a0 I let them dry overnight to be sure.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Doesn’t hurt to cut some of these windows to make them easier to handle.<\/p><\/div>\n There are also two pieces which are molded to extend over the inside of the travel pod docks, and if you have put fiber in there, you\u2019ll have to cut these in two pieces (discarding the middle section of them).\u00a0 Not a big deal, they still attach fine after cutting.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Floodlight” ports on base of neck<\/p><\/div>\n Double-layered with clear styrene and glazed with matt clear frosts them for lighting from underneath.<\/p><\/div>\n There are two \u201cspotlight\u201d sections on the lower rear of the neck, squarish holes that are intended to splash light up on the neck.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t like the way the clear parts for these holes protruded, so instead of those I just took some small pieces of clear styrene and glued them to close the holes up.\u00a0 A bit of clear matte on these frosts them up and scatters light out from beneath them nicely.<\/p>\n Now it was time for the interior lighting.<\/p>\n Setting aside the two sides, I took an inventory of what lights would need to go into the neck section:<\/p>\n Lay out your lighting components to get ready to do some soldering.<\/p><\/div>\n 2 LEDs to feed the fiber optics (one for each side) \u2013 I went with a 3mm cool white for each<\/p>\n 2 LEDs to supply the Raytheon effects \u2013 I used 3mm cool white here too<\/p>\n 4 3-chip LED strips for the interior lighting in warm white<\/p>\n This is what LED strip-lighting looks like when tinned up properly.<\/p><\/div>\n Those strips need a little description \u2013 they are sold as 5-meter rolls, which is more than most people will use on a model like this (or three, probably), and they aren\u2019t wired up when you get them.\u00a0 They do have conveniently-marked cutting lines, but the rest is up to you.\u00a0 Having cut the four sections out, I also assembled wire leads that would be connected to them (using a hot iron and sandpaper to remove the lacquer insulation from the ends I wanted to use).\u00a0 Tinning the strips basically means putting the tip of your iron on each of the<\/p>\n Once your wires are in place, they should resist a gentle tug.<\/p><\/div>\n copper receiving circles to heat them up and then touching solder to them to leave a drop on its surface.\u00a0 The 36-gauge magnet wire I use here won\u2019t tin well, so once it has been stripped of its insulation it\u2019s basically ready to use.\u00a0 Put the LED strip into a set of \u201chelping hands\u201d and hold the magnet wire in your off-hand.\u00a0 Heat the solder up on the strip while holding the magnet wire against the drop.\u00a0 As soon as the drop goes molten, wiggle the wire into the blob and remove the heat immediately.\u00a0 A little blowing on it will solidify the metal right away, and a gentle tug on the magnet wire will confirm that it is locked onto the strip.\u00a0 Repeat for the other connector.\u00a0 Once both are connected, test your wiring with a battery or other source of current to make sure the soldering worked.\u00a0 If they don\u2019t, you\u2019ll have to repeat the job.<\/p>\n Dirty, dirty solder<\/p><\/div>\n Clean solder looks shiny and “silvery”<\/p><\/div>\n Any time you use your soldering iron, clean it before using it again.\u00a0 Having dirty solder will potentially screw up its ability to make an electrical connection, and it will be much harder to work with.\u00a0 Clean solder on your iron will look silvery, while a dirty iron will have a lot of black slag on it.\u00a0 Just use a wet sponge or soaked rag to wipe off the hot iron and keep it clean in between every use.<\/p>\n Placing the LED strips and FO feeder light – note the colored leads for pos\/neg ends.<\/p><\/div>\n For each of the 3mm LEDs, a 470-Ohm resistor gets soldered on (make sure it goes on the negative side, which is the shorter of the two legs), and wire leads go on as well (color code your leads so they are always the same \u2013 usual convention in all electrical work is to use black for your negative, and colors for positives).\u00a0 Test your connection to make sure it works.<\/p>\n LED strips have tape backings, and you can peel them off and stick them in place.\u00a0 Although this is convenient, I don\u2019t trust it for a long-term connection\u2026I want this model to still look great in ten or twenty years, and I know tape adhesives dry out in that sort of timeframe.\u00a0 Once the tape strips were anchored, I dabbed some CA on each one every centimeter or so.<\/p>\n The 3mm LEDs for the fiber went on next, also using CA to get them to stay put.<\/p>\n By the way, if you get tired of holding pieces in place while you wait for CA to set, you can pick up some \u2018zip kicker\u2019 in a spritz-bottle that forces CA to set instantly.\u00a0 It\u2019s a bit stinky, but it works great.\u00a0 Once the LEDs for the fiber were locked down, I gently bent the fiber to meet the bulbs of the LEDs (some heat was required to soften the fibers, and this was really difficult to do \u2013 too much heat and the fiber melts, too little and it stays brittle and just shatters where it passes through its hole) and glued them on with CA.<\/p>\n Next, the Raytheon LEDs got a resistor put on, then lead wires.\u00a0 Pop them in place behind the spots on the neck and secure with CA.<\/p>\n Wrap the wires where you can to avoid clutter, and always label your wires when they’re tested good. You’ll thank me for that some time.<\/p><\/div>\n Now we\u2019ve got a bunch of loose wires hanging out, and that makes for later mistakes and accidents, so to make things a little more manageable we can twine a few together.\u00a0 The fiber optics will be on the same circuit as the interior lighting, so that\u2019s a good set of candidates right there.\u00a0 Take the negative leads from the LED strips, and wind them around the black (negative) wire from the 3mm LED for the fiber.\u00a0 Do the winding so that the last few centimeters of the magnet wire wrap around the tinned end of the negative lead.\u00a0 You can then re-tin that lead to lock the magnet wires in place there.\u00a0 Repeat with the positive leads from the strips around the white or colored (positive) lead of the 3mm fiber LED.\u00a0 Now you\u2019ll have only two sets of leads from each side \u2013 one for the interior lighting\/fiber, and one for the Raytheon\/floodlights.<\/p>\n Using masking tape, or some other form you are comfortable with, label your wires now.<\/p>\n Go ahead and test again using a battery or source of current to make sure everything still works.\u00a0 You don\u2019t want to glue everything together and find out later that somewhere you have a bad connection.<\/p>\n Since I\u2019m paranoid about glue, I decided to apply hot-glue all over the place too, to make sure it all got triple-secured.<\/p>\n Crew inside the windows looking out.<\/p><\/div>\n So now all the wires and LEDs are in place, and I can fix the window dressing in place.\u00a0 Using the transparencies I\u2019d cut out earlier, I scissored a section and glued it behind some of the windows with canopy glue.\u00a0 I also took two of the Tamiya naval crew figures and cut sections of them to go behind a couple of windows.\u00a0 Don\u2019t think they\u2019ll really be all that visible, but their shadows will, and that\u2019ll make things look like there are people walking around in there.<\/p>\n More crew observing the travel pod dock.<\/p><\/div>\n Time to work up the torpedo launcher.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t black, but a very dark grey, and the insides of each tube are glossy (during the 10-minute fly-by tour in ST:TMP you can pause it on one of the frames to get a really good close-up look at them).\u00a0 I put some liquid mask in the \u2018mouth\u2019 of each tube, and some masking tape across the back, then just sprayed it with black followed by a dark grey.\u00a0 You will probably have to do multiple coats (I did), because although the first coat might look good to the naked eye, it will still be light-permeable and won\u2019t look very good.<\/p>\n Once the painting on the torp launcher is good, you have a choice \u2013 lit or no.\u00a0 If you aren\u2019t going to light it, light-block the back of it to prevent leakage and it\u2019s ready to go.\u00a0 If you are going to light this section\u2026<\/p>\n First, widen the portion of the neck sections to enable the wiring to pass more easily.<\/p>\n Torpedoes fired in “The Motion Picture”<\/p><\/div>\n Next, you get to decide how the launcher will behave while firing.\u00a0 In ST:TMP, a background light of red within both tubes fades in when the torps are armed and ready, and the torpedoes themselves are bright blue.\u00a0 In WOK, there is no back-lighting and the torps are red.\u00a0 Take this into account when determining which lights you choose.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Wrath of Khan” torpedo launch<\/p><\/div>\n I went with a combination \u2013 I want the red back-lighting like TMP, and I want my torpedoes to be red like WOK.<\/p>\n First, I drilled a center-hole in the back of the torp launcher piece, and glued a red SMD with CA into it.\u00a0 This will be the source of my backlighting.<\/p>\n Each torpedo tube is molded with a hole behind it, so that\u2019s convenient.\u00a0 Into each one I first put a red SMD, gluing it in place with CA.\u00a0 Behind that, I then stuck a white SMD and glued it with CA.\u00a0 After the CA was dry, I plopped some canopy glue in as well.<\/p>\n While you\u2019re waiting for this to dry, paint the inside of the \u201cmouth\u201d that holds the torp launcher on each side of the neck.\u00a0 Just use matt black here.<\/p>\n Get some painting done while you wait.<\/p><\/div>\n What I\u2019m going to do with these is program an Arduino board (I\u2019ll highlight that in a future installment of this build log) to fade-in the backlight, then do a fire-one \/ fire-two sequence using rapid fades of the two red and white SMDs to look like the firing sequence in the films.\u00a0 I also have sound clips of torpedo firing which I\u2019ll include on a cheap-ass Chinese MP3 player that will also be controlled by the Arduino board, and will play from whichever speakers I hook the thing up to.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a final piece of the neck that goes into the rear of it when it\u2019s complete, which I assume is some kind of venting port for the torpedo launchers.\u00a0 It\u2019s just black in the films, so I painted it matt black on the showing parts.\u00a0 No lights, very simple.<\/p>\n Time to glue all the parts together!<\/p>\n Making sure to be very careful of the wiring\u2026<\/p>\n I stuck the torp launcher carefully into one side of the neck (it takes some firm but gentle pressure to get it to seat properly) and glued it there with canopy glue.\u00a0 Wait for the glue to dry.<\/p>\n Again being careful of the wires\u2026<\/p>\n Next thing is to put some canopy glue into the other side of the neck where the torp launcher will sit.\u00a0 Get your polystyrene cement out, and glue the small vent into the side that already has the torp launcher seated in it.\u00a0 Before this is done drying (because you\u2019ll need to adjust it a little), line the neck side with glue on the edges where the neck will come together and in the post holes and posts, then press the whole thing together firmly.<\/p>\n Check the fit of the torp launcher and the rear vent, and adjust them as needed to make sure they are lined up correctly.\u00a0 The neck should fit together pretty well, I didn\u2019t have too many seam problems, but to hold it while it dries is a bit of a pain.\u00a0 Use some clamps to hold the pieces together (I wrap mine in a soft cloth and put them in a vise, and clamp in places where the vice is too big to grip).\u00a0 Let it sit and cure for a day, and check in on it every fifteen minutes or so for the first hour, correcting the fit if necessary.<\/p>\n Styrene reinforcement strip – just cut to fit where you can slide it in, and make sure it has a good bit of glue on it.<\/p><\/div>\n Lay them in, front and back, and press them down. This will strengthen the bond holding the halves together.<\/p><\/div>\n Once the whole thing was cured, I cut out some strips of styrene to reinforce the neck\u2019s connection, sliding them into the structure and bridging the two pieces.\u00a0 I also used silicon black seal on the back of the torpedo launcher to guarantee zero light transmission between the neck and the torp launcher.<\/p>\n The few seams I had, didn\u2019t take a lot of fixing \u2013 a little wipe with some plastic putty, a little sanding, and a short blast with some white Vallejo (masking all my windows) and it was clean.<\/p>\n Once this was done, I painted some of the larger highlights with an airbrush (the duck-egg blue on the ribbed top section, the silver \u201cmouth\u201d around the torp launcher, the light grey \u201cthroat\u201d, and the light grey space directly beneath the launcher).<\/p>\n Finally, once I was satisfied with the paint job and the glue was completely cured, I put a coat of automotive gloss clear on the entire assembly (masking off the top and bottom where it\u2019ll need to glue onto the other parts of the ship) so it\u2019d be clean and ready for decals.<\/p>\n With that, it\u2019s ready to roll!\u00a0 Into a bag it goes, and in my next installment I\u2019ll discuss the Arduino board for the torps as well as probably getting into the secondary hull.<\/p>\n Whooo-hooo!<\/p>\n She’s ready for prime time! Next stop, the secondary hull.<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n USS Enterprise \u2013 Build Log Part\u00a012<\/a><\/p>\n USS Enterprise \u2013 Build Log Part\u00a014<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Build Log:\u00a0 Part 13 Well, it\u2019s been a while, but I\u2019ve got a few things done in the time since I last updated here.\u00a0 I had almost begun on the secondary hull, but found a few things that needed handling … Continue reading <\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>The Fantail<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>The \u201cNeck\u201d<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>