Mutara Nebula DeBoers Enterprise and Reliant Build

[jwood314]

The solution to the text cutting off is to past it as plain text, that corrects the problems.  No issues since I have been doing that.

Never mind, it cut off my post from the crooked apostrophe.

Cheers,

[jwood314]

Update #6
More tons of effort, and it sure doesnt look like it   Good news first, I received in the Lou Ds masking set for the E and the R.  They look amazing!!!  I cant wait to paint, but a whole lot of stuff has to happen first, lol.  I have been working with Stan on the effects board for the Reliant, more to come on that.  Been talking to Matt at Laser Fire Creations, and hopefully will get a set of more accurate nacelle engine clear parts for the nacelles, these are being CNCd from a block of acrylic, so they are AMAZING!!  I cant wait to share some pics of them. 

So, not bad news but wow, painfully slow.  There is a pic below of the 8 square windows on the saucer section that was almost 2 hours of filing away, and still not square enough for me.  I am getting better with my files, and depending on where on the file you file, you can get more or less square.  A defect of the manufacturing process.  I would pay good money to get a set of small files that are actually square and flat.

Lots of work on reinforcing the main saucer for, on the E, where it connects to the secondary hull.  I need to make a metal plate that will be epoxied into the saucer and that the screws will tighten down on.  I hope that makes sense.  I want to maximize the area that the screws apply pressure when I connect the saucer and secondary hull together.  Lots of work on the R hull where the nacelles connect to the hull and where the mounting pole will enter into the hull.  These model might weigh 20 pounds when complete, but spread that over 16 square inches or so, no issue with joint failure.  The hard part is determining where to drill the hull, hard to figure out the center point of the model when it isnt done.

The windows are 98$ done.  I have ordered the resin I will use to fill the holes, and that is the next big step on these models, so cant do much on the main hulls until that material arrives, which is poor planning on my part.

Taking 2 days of leave, and heading up to Dallas to build the assembly jigs for the models.  You might think this is a little early, but I need the assembly jig so I can aim the spot light LED effects that go from the nacelles on to the main and secondary hulls.

Starting to rough in the torpedo housing for the R.  WOW, lots of work, and still a lot to go.  Everything sort of lines up, but going to be painful to get it looking perfect.

One cool thing, working my way, chronologically, through all of the James Bond movies.  Has been quite a while since I have seen them.  They help pass the time as I sand and file away. 

This is my first large scale resin model effort.  Huge props to those who have finished these, and huge props to those who put their work online and allow for us to learn from!

Random photo of the new LEGO UCS Falcon, amazing kit.

Cheers,
James

[AlW]

Good progress, James.  Just curious to know what you provided Laser Fire Creations to make more accurate engine nacelles.  Did you do a 3D rendering for them or something else?  Thanks!

[MSgtUSAFRet]

James, looking good!

It's great that you are planning so far ahead for this project. But just a quick question: Why are you taking leave for Dallas?! Is there a fabrication specialist there? Just curious.

Love the reinforcements you have going. Can't wait to see your other solutions!

Looking sharp, Mr. Sulu!

Steve

[jwood314]

Update #7

I received in the 1:350 shuttles, still do not know if I am going to use them.  I am going to do a test build out of the shuttle bay with some of the Z scale minis I got on ebay and see how it looks.  The Travel pod actually works pretty well, I plan on attaching one on the side of the secondary hull at some point.  Recreate when Kirk first lands on the new Enterprise. 

Working on the RCS thrusters on the top of the E and R, only the E is pictured.  The resin I am using is called Art Resin, bought it on Amazon.  It has some built in UV protection and wow, it is really clear, gives me hope that the RCS thrusters are going to turn out well.  The only issue, it needs 12 hours or so to set, and 72 to completely harden.  So can not touch the saucer tops until tomorrow.

Cheers,
James

Al,
Good progress, James.  Just curious to know what you provided Laser Fire Creations to make more accurate engine nacelles.  Did you do a 3D rendering for them or something else?  Thanks!

Matt actually has the DeBoers Enterprise, and has not build it.  I am sort of helping him make some progress on his.  He also cut the other side of the nacelle with his CNCmachine.  The guy is an artist with his CNC machine. 

Steve,
It's great that you are planning so far ahead for this project. But just a quick question: Why are you taking leave for Dallas?! Is there a fabrication specialist there? Just curious.

There is a specialist there, my Dad. LOL, due to PCS weight requirements, and in general never having a garage, all of my wood working tools are up there.  Band saw, jointer, planer, table saw, router table, shop smith etc.  Gives me a good reason to hang out with my Dad, which we both really enjoy, making sawdust is always a great thing!  I have attached some pics of a gaming table he and I built, the top has two sides, and is removable.  You set your game up underneath, so you can leave it set up.  One of my other hobbies is gaming.  The pics show the table built, I have not completed the finish on it, too much stuff on top of it atm.  That is what always happens though, if there is a horizontal surface, something must be placed on top of it!  I spent two weeks with him building this in between Afghanistan and Qatar. 

[jwood314]

Here is a pic of the opposite side of the nacelle.  The channels he cut were about 1/16 inch deep, which really adds some pop.

[DaveMondo]

Fantastic work so far. Looking forward to watching this move forward.

Dave

[jwood314]

Update #8

Lots of work getting done on the light boxes and other LEDs that need installation.  I am not installing them yet.  Since the models are getting driven long distances and the windows are not in yet, just building the light boxes that are going everywhere.  Will install them after the windows go in. 

One item I noticed is that the lasers will need to laze through a light box, will figure that out when I get there.  Also, you can not buy a high power laser, I guess they are regulated to keep idiots from shining them at planes, which I guess is a good thing.  So, I am buying parts and see if I can not build my own.

Stan has the custom load of software done on the effects boards.  Should see those at some point.  The effects allow for 2 LEDs per torpedo tube on the Reliant, both front and rear.  Basically, all 4 will now have the white and red LED effect, which I think is the best out there.  Also, both models should have a laser effect.

I have the RCS thrusters poured for the Enterprise, still need to do the Reliant, however, need to file out the holes for the bottom half of the saucer.  I have done some work on the secondary hull for the Enterprise.  Instead of using the crystal clear Art Resin, which is amazing stuff, but takes basically 2 days to cure, I am going to use the Lang dental material for the RCS thrusters on the secondary hull.

I have the RCS thrusters on the nacelles drilled/formed out, but still not sure on which filler material I am going to use.  The Art Resin is too viscous, and I do not think I can pack the Lang dental material in there.  So, I might be stuck having to go get a third  filler material just for the RCS thrusters, which makes me have a  again.

You can also see the reinforcement on the saucer sections for the E and the R.  The Reliant hull is WAAAAAYYYY more rigid now with the added resin in the back portion.  I left an area un painted to allow for additional material to be installed.  When I put the mount in, I plan on fiber glassing/resining over the mount to give it tremendous strength, would hate for the mount to break that would be a REALLY bad day.

You can also see that I have taped together assemblies and done some rough part putting together to get ready to build the assembly jigs later this week.

I need to find a better picture compressor 

Back to work!

Cheers,
James


Dave,

Thanks for the kind words!  Moving forward about as fast as I can go.

[MSgtUSAFRet]

James!

There is a specialist there, my Dad. LOL, due to PCS weight requirements, and in general never having a garage, all of my wood working tools are up there.  Band saw, jointer, planer, table saw, router table, shop smith etc.  Gives me a good reason to hang out with my Dad, which we both really enjoy, making sawdust is always a great thing!  I have attached some pics of a gaming table he and I built, the top has two sides, and is removable.  You set your game up underneath, so you can leave it set up.  One of my other hobbies is gaming.  The pics show the table built, I have not completed the finish on it, too much stuff on top of it atm.  That is what always happens though, if there is a horizontal surface, something must be placed on top of it!  I spent two weeks with him building this in between Afghanistan and Qatar.

DUDE! That gaming table is WOW! AWESOME!! I mean, not to overstate or anything - if this is indicative of your woodworking skills this build will truly be a work of art! Besides, if you ever retire/get out of Active Duty, you can always start your own business doing furniture! Beautiful!

Okay, I'll calm down now.


The build is looking good, though.

About the picture compression - just wondering, if you are taking them with a DSRL, are you taking them as .raw or .jpg? Also, the size of the pic (how many pixels per pic) may be set too high for posting here without compression.

Also, and I am cautious after the photobucket money grab scandal, third party media hosting sites (like Imgur or Flickr) may allow you to paste links here and not worry about compression issues.

Just a thought. I would hate to miss out on seeing your work in all it's glory!

Steady as she goes.

Steve

[jwood314]

Update #9

Not a lot of progress, even with a lot of hours tonight.  I did my first re-work.  I was pulling the molds off of the RCS thrusters on the Es saucer, and noticed that I did not square out two of the holes.  Soooo, got to remove all of the resin, square out the holes, and I need to recast that thruster, will have to wait until after the jig construction.

I spent most of the evening working on the planetary sensor on the bottom of the Es saucer.  I need to figure out how to put some sort of putty, probably Apoxi sculpt in between the sensor and hull, pull the sensor down tight and allow to cure.  This should get rid of the mold lines.  Also, looking at the lighting plan, I am not sure on what surface I will need to mount the spot light LEDs for the bottom saucer.  I plan on also doing the same exact thing on the Reliant.  I do not recall seeing this in the STIIWoK, but, it is so COOL that it must be on the model.  I will figure out how to get the red LEDs in there also. 

The sensor will be removable and attached via magnet, so, this will make mounting the LEDs on the sensor itself more problematic, but doable.  The LEDs at the rear of the sensor will be mounted in the sensor regardless.  This will make painting this section WAAAAAAAYYYY easier to get super crisp lines.  Having such a large model presents some challenges, but offers up different solutions from what I could do on the Polar Lights kit.

I could not find my 50,000 MCD LED lights, darn PCS, so had to order some more.  I am using these ultra bright LEDs as the spotlight source on the bottom of the saucer.

Having a blast!

Cheers,
James


Steve,

Thanks for the compliments, I had a blast building that with my Dad.  We used the Wood Whisperer design and ordered the wood from a place called Bell Forest Products.  Most of the table is made out of Wenge, with Gaboon Ebony, Holly, Snakewood, Cocobolo, Birds Eye Maple, Indian Rosewood, arrgg and a few others as the inlay board.  It took me several months to find a Holly board long enough to do the outline for the inlay in a single piece on the long edges.  Building furniture for profit is a lot like building models for a profit, can be done, if you like being poor.  A great hobby that pays for itself though!

I do not want to host any pictures on a third party server.  I do all of my hosting direct on Boyds site, but have to be under 200K.  HOWEVER, my new work flow is to put the pics in Power Point, compress and print out as a JPEG, this is working faster than the old method, so will continue on, and it gives much better results!

[jwood314]

Update #10

Spent the last few days travelling back and forth from Dallas.  Was able to get all of the jigs 90% built for the models.  I need to finish up some sanding and adding the last of the bottom braces on.  The braces will increase the stability of the jigs, as the parts get heavier.  See the models in a rough state is super motivating.  I should get started on filling in the windows tomorrow.  Might get that completed this weekend, not sure.  After that, I can start installing electronics into the hulls.  I am still stuck on assembly order.  I need to start cutting to get the Es impulse engine on and see how that hole matches up with the screws needed to seat the saucer to the secondary hull.  I think I will paint the completed saucer as a single assembly and the engines/secondary hull as an assembly.  Not sure on that yet.

I got the deflector control circuit in today from Starling Tech.  Looking great, cannot wait to get the code written on my Arduino to get it to work properly.  Stan has been amazing at supporting this build.

Also, I got in my DC power supply, been wanting one for quite a while.  Going to order a 4 channel oscilloscope, which is really needed when I start writing the code for the debug side.  The debugger and external LEDs only get you so far.  I have wanted an Oscope ever since I left my last hardware design gig,

I also received the machined acrylic nacelle warp grills.  They are FANTASTIC and look VERY close to the studio models, so these fix one of the issues with the Deboers kits.

The jigs are better than what I expected.  The Es secondary hull is set, but the engines are very adjustable, and I can adjust the front saucer support.  On the R, the main hull is set, and I can adjust the engines quite well.

Oh, one last thing, the table is 8 foot long that the two models are sitting on, they are quite large.

Lots of good things happening, and the progress is cranking along.

Cheers,
James

[jwood314]

Update #11

Just finished the Super Bowl, was exciting, sucked that the Cowboys could not win it though.  The pictures are not terribly exciting visually, but to me, they are AWESOME!  I am working on getting all of the windows poured into the various hull pieces.  I can only do 1 section a night, not including re-works.  Although, night two has gone much better on getting the resin into the holes.  I used my Dremel with a pyramid looking bit to hollow out the area behind the port hole.  I added a cross section in the pics to show you what I am talking about.  This is working REALLY well in getting the little bubbles out.  Another bonus is that there is much more room in these holes than on the Polar Lights 1/350 version.  So, another 8 nights or so of this.  While the windows are going in, going to work on getting my custom made nacelle grills installed on the E.  Can not wait to show some pics of this, and how much more accurate they are compared to the base model.

Cheers,
James

[MSgtUSAFRet]

Looking great so far, James!

That is a big ship!

Steady as she goes!

Steve

[jwood314]

Update #12

Has been a while since the last update, but all I have been doing is installing the windows throughout the ship.  I have the Reliant done and the Saucer for the E, still working on the secondary hull.  I went ahead and drilled out the work I had done, I believe I can get them better.  As part of the windowing, I did some experimenting.  On one set of windows I sanded both sides, inside and out, to 600 grit, and on another set, I only sanded the exterior to 600 grit.  I really could not tell a difference, so I do not think the extra work of sanding the inside will get done.  Another problem I have is diffusing the light equally across the little port holes.  I came up with a couple different diffusion ideas, I am going to go with a double layer.  The pictures show a curve, which worked the best, however, I do not want to leave anything under a load.  I would be basically taping a spring inside a box that I could not get to when it came undone, and under load, the tape, even the tape I use, will eventually fail so double straight pieces.  I also played around with different voltages.  My new DC power supply came in super handy for this and worked AWESOME to allow me to see what voltage I should use.  I want to send the lowest amount of current to the LEDs as possible and still have a good looking light.  Lower current should mean much longer life.  Last picture shows some primer and the mask on the portholes.  The masking and primer cleaned up and straightened out the windows super awesome.  Worked better than I had hoped for.  I made sure to elongate each window up or down to ensure that a straight line of windows is doable.  I think this works as well as it does because there is no direct light on these windows.  I have started doing body work on the models, sanding and cleaning.  I do not want to start installing electronic stuff into the hulls until the large work is done on the bodies.  Would probably just tear up everything I installed otherwise.  My next post is about cleaning up those nits.  I did not let the primer cure overnight, so it was a little soft that is ok.  Also, the masks left some residue on the model, which is a little concerning.  More work with the masks is needed.  Also, my skill at picking masks off a painted model, and not scratching anything have degraded.  However, the 5 color masking requirements will solve that issue, rather quickly.

Cheers,
James


Steve,

Thanks for the good vibes!

[jwood314]

Update #12.1

I am seeking some advice.  When the Reliant was pulled from the mold, there was a lot of little air bubbles trapped throughout and I am trying to figure out the best way to repair them.  I am working with Liquidtex Modeling Paste, new for me.  Seems ok.  I have also used an Evercoat Metal Glaze UJltra a bondo like material, which sands amazingly well.  I use Apoxie sculpt and something called perfect plastic putty.  The Liquidtex goes in decently and sands well, but WOW, an incredibly painful process.  What have other people done?  Am I better off just sanding the area flat and putting the detail back in?  I do not know, curious as to what some other folks have done on resin kits.  Any thoughts greatly appreciated!

Cheers,
James