I painted the nav lights last, I have a set of small punches that I punched holes in some tamiya tape and put it over the lights and painted them while the model was gloss coated for decals so any tape residue could be easily cleaned up.

hope this helps, Rocky

Thanks Rocky, that's a good idea- I hadn't thought about using a punch to get a good round hole in the tape. 

You're a good guy despite your dubious alleigence to the Cardassian-Klingon Allience. 

All hail the Terran Empire!!!  

Took some time away from plastic to take photos of the old Heritage Models ST:TOS gaming miniatures.

Up close, the scupts are kind of crude, as was my painting of them!  I cringe!  Didn't have (and didn't think I needed!) a magnifier back then.

The odd shape of Mr. Spock's head bothered me.  The others are Kirk, McCoy, and Scotty.  Don't know why I painted the Starfleet insignia in sliver instead of gold.

The bridge crew came in two parts, and I don't remember now who they packed with whom; but one of the sets came with the name-plate.  These are supposed to be Rand, Sulu and Uhura.  Strange, they didn't produce a Chekov.

A few of the sets came with an annoying seated figure, which didn't seem to be much good for anything.  This is a set of generic, unspecified Federation types.  I gave the sitting guy gray hair to make him look like some aging admiral.

Klingons.  The female must be Kang's wife.

Romulans.  The female must be the Romulan commander.

Tellerites.

Andorians.  They really cheaped out on these.  Looks like there's only one pose.  Most of the packs featured at least two poses.  I bent arms and hands to try to make them look a little different.

Gorns.

Talosians.

I thought the Talosians' poses were strangely familiar, and then I found this.

 It was the disco era when these were produced.  ST:TMP hadn't even been released yet.

Memory Alpha has a little more information on these.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Heritage_Models

Ha! Those are cool. Thanks for bringing them out and sharing. Lotsa nostalgia going on there.

Happy Friday everyone!

Let's have a productive modeling weekend and lotsa pictures to post on Monday.

Captain's orders...

CMK02: Thanks for posting those!!! I have a few Heritage fantasy figures but I think they were out of business before I got into gaming.

They are pretty crude, not surprising considering the time period but you did a great job painting them!

And disco Talosians, don't even want to think about it!!!

Lol..the Terran empire had a good thing going for it till Kirk got into alternate Spocks head at the end of "mirror mirror"

Got some work done over the weekend (i.e. puttying and sanding), not too exciting. I'll post some stuff later when it looks like progress.

Sorry it took me so long to decide. I had a bit of the flu last week.

I'm going to go with the Polar Lights 1/1000 Romulan BOP.

If I have time I'll also build the AMT Tholian Web Enterprise.

Been on the road working the past few weeks, so haven't had a chance to do much, but able to get a bit done before I head out again.

I'm not too worried about correcting all the inaccuracies in the AMT Enterprise kit, but the bridge and B/C decks are so glaring that I decided to replace them. I was a bit disappointed in the Federation Models' replacement parts. I'm making them work though. I'll post some pictures of how I did it later. 

One question. The replacement parts are not styrene. Not sure what they are made of but it reminds me of the white testors putty. Any recommendations on the best thing to use to glue the new parts into place?

Hey Mach 71 that sounds cool.

OWOF: Interesting, your replacement parts aren't plastic or resin then? I'd figure super-glue should work, it cements about anything. I like Gator Grip more myself but either should work.

It might be resin, I'm not sure. I've never used custom replacement parts before.

I was going to post some pictures, but this thing is a little weird. 

checkmateking02

OWOF: is it possible they are 3-D printed? I don't know what that would be made of.

 

i don't think so. They seem a little stout for what I've heard of 3D printers. It sands like hardened putty. Is resin like that?

I've worked with resin from time to time, and it doesn't sound from your description that resin is what your dealing with--but who knows what kinds of chemical conglomerations are around?

Sorry not to be of more help.

No problem, I'm figuring it out fine. I have the saucer all prepped to attach it, but want to cut out the windows first. I'll be on the road again for a week though and won't get a chance do anything. 

Any help on how to post pictures?

Oh, I didn't even think about them being printed parts.  In any case super glue should hold about anything. You can use epoxy too though it takes longer to dry. 

Here's a photo of some resin parts I took last night. Does it look anything like these?

There is a set of instructions around here somewhere on how to post photos. It's in one of the help sections though I don't remember where. I'm not good at explaining things but I'll take a whack at it. This is how I do it from PhotoBucket and my PC.  If you're using something else like ImageShack or an Apple I have no idea...

First you need an online photo hosting site. Open it and the FSM forum in separate windows. Open the posting box on the FSM site and then go to your photo hosting site. On PhotoBucket you'll see boxes under your photos, one says 'Direct'. Right-click and 'copy' the line of text in the box. Then come back over to the FSM site and you'll see an icon like a little mountain with a moon over it. Click on it and an 'Edit Image' box pops up. Right-click on the box labeled 'Source' and hit 'Paste'. Click 'Ok' and the photo should post. 

I actually opened the box today!

The shape looks very nice. Much nicer than the old AMT kit.

Hopefully the decals will go on well, with no shattering as R2 decals

can do.

It's a small kit, I would like to add some lights to it. 

I really like the stand mounting at the rear of the ship.

Mach,

I built that for the last Star Trek build. Be careful of the decals. Mine were very fragile and I had to order new ones. It took forever to get them. 

modelcrazy

Mach,

I built that for the last Star Trek build. Be careful of the decals. Mine were very fragile and I had to order new ones. It took forever to get them. 

Modelcrazy,

I remember watching your build and remember the grief you had with the decal. After the K7 Space Station I was going to do the AMT TOS Bird of Prey keeping your build in mind.

I remember that now modelcrazy. 

I'll go back and review your build before I start.

I'm always worried with R2 decals. It's always been a weak point.

Do you think it would help giving them a coat of decal liquid?

I think Micro sol sells it.

Certantly couldn't hurt.

Agh, I found it...

It brings a tear to my eye.

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/29/t/164494.aspx?page=9 

Irregardless of the tragedy, modelcrazy still brought his Bird of Prey across the finish line fantastically...

Bravo, beautiful work, sir.

AAAGGGGH the horror!!! That was a nightmare! The problems I had trying to get new decals were so frustrating.

Please Mach, do try to save and use the ones that came with the kit.

That is awful!  A photon torpedo wouldn't have damaged them any more.

I think I'll be coating the Enterpise decals with Micro's decal preserver as a matter of course. 

Here's my Norway class kit. Not a lot of parts and I plan to use aftermarket decals for a custom name.

The Norway is part of the 'Class of '96' starships that made their debut to the Trek universe in the 1996 movie Star Trek: First Conact. The other classes, the Akira, Saber and Steamrunner, all appeared in episodes of Deep Space Nine and Voyager but not the Norway. All these ships only existed as CG models and the story goes that the Norway had its data model corrupted sometime after First Contact so never appeared in the TV shows except in techincal plan schematics and licensed publications.

There was a previous resin model of the Norway offered by Nova Hobbies but details on its actual look were speculative since there were few references available at the time.

This version seems to be the more definitive design and Eagle Moss also uses it for their new Norway display model.

Very nice, kearsarge.  It's a ship that I hadn't noticed before.

Ouch that sucks about those decals! Overcoating them certainly couldn't hurt. On the other hand someone probably sells aftermarket ones. I know it's more money but you might check Federation models Mach 71 for replacement ones- they'd probably be both thicker and better printed. 

Kearsarge: Very cool, one of those ships I see in blue-prints on the internet but don't even remember from the movie. Guess I need to watch it again. Very cool ship though, neat to see something a little different. 

Gamera

...one of those ships I see in blue-prints on the internet but don't even remember from the movie. Guess I need to watch it again. Very cool ship though, neat to see something a little different. 

The ship gets a very short seen in the movie's begining, firing off a single phaser burst while bracket above and bellow by a Saber and Akira class attacking the Borg cube ship:

https://67.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lln3uxwN4d1qzrtqe.gif

I think most who are aware of this design is from licensed publication like The Deep Space Nine Technical Manual or from the ex-astris-scientia.org fan site. Many don't like the flat iron look to it but I like the spade shaped hull and wing like nacelles.

Here's what appears to be a blown up and cleaned up image of the ship from the above scene where you can see it's unique coloring:

Gamera

I know it's more money but you might check Federation models Mach 71 for replacement ones

I remember now, thanks for the flashback.
I lost the original box decals.
The crappy decals you saw for the Bird of Prey WERE from Federation Models, then I couldn't get them to replace them, refund them or even get anybody to talk to me....for weeks. Then when they did contact me, well after the kit was complete, all they could do was blame the guy who makes them. I will never waste my money on Federation Models again. I had to go the guy who makes them (JOBT I believe, but don’t quote me) and even then that took weeks to get a response after I sent a check.

Just don’t lose or damage the OOB decals is all I have to say. My sale table Bird of Prey ended up costing me more than twice the original cost of the kit.

The horror...the horror!!