Anyone Up for a Star trek Group build?

Here's a couple pics.  Not much, but I'm liking how the shuttlebay is turning out.

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff5/Prince_of_Styrene_II/USS%20Taegu/saucer_sand.jpg

I filled the saucer's rim with Aves & sanded down. You can see some Aves on the far side to be sanded.

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff5/Prince_of_Styrene_II/USS%20Taegu/shuttlebay1.jpg

Taking a cue from the Intrepid class, I decided to add an off-center shuttlebay & EVA door along with a landing pad platform, which still needs to be glued on. The outer wall & grooved door is two layers of sheet. The top still needs to have the Aves sanded down. 

Taegu is coming along well! I'll ask the dumb question,what is Aves? Is that Apoxie Sculpt?

The Enterprise E kit is a 1/1400 scale kit. I was really hoping to build in 1/537 (1/530, 1/550) scale to go along with Farragut, Firestone, and eventually Kodiak.

Speaking of Kodiak, I finally gave up on individual plates for the secondary hull. Instead, I'm wrapping sections top centerline to bottom centerline, covering two to four frames, depending on the severity of curve and part shape. The secondary is about half "skinned". I'll sand smooth all the joints, and putty where necessary, and then scribe in the plate boundries, and "inlet" any of the detail that goes deeper than the thickness of the hull material. The forms for the engine nacelles will be Estes rocket body tubes (0.9xxxxx" dia.). I'll wrap them in styrene same as the hull. I'll try to get a progress photo up tonight.

sumpter250 wrote:

Taegu is coming along well! I'll ask the dumb question,what is Aves? Is that Apoxie Sculpt?

Thank you!

Yes, Aves is the company that makes Apoxie Sculpt.  I was just too lazy to type two words!

The Enterprise E kit is a 1/1400 scale kit. I was really hoping to build in 1/537 (1/530, 1/550) scale to go along with Farragut, Firestone, and eventually Kodiak.

Well, look on the bright side, soon you'll be able to recreate the Kodiak in 1/1000!!

Well, look on the bright side, soon you'll be able to recreate the Kodiak in 1/1000!!

Or.....scratchbuild it in 1/530............whoa, did I just say that!

 In this first photo, the partially skinned secondary hull, and the beginnings of the warp nacelles. The nacelles started with 0.9xxxx" Estes rocket body tubes. I've started layering on the styrene, and will "bulk up" the ends before shaping them, and adding detail.  

in this photo, I keep the project "assembled" as I go, it helps maintain proportion, and keeps me focused on the end product. I will try to include this positioning of parts, right up to the end. the supports used to hold thing in place will eventually become the "jig" for the final assembly, so that everything stays in the right relationship to the other parts.

Progress at last! Here's the secondary hull, and warp nacelles with a skin of styrene.

The small craft is a 1:555 scale two man heavy fighter bomber, and is the original. I've built it in 1:72, and in 1:48

this is the 1:48 version

Next up is to fill in the gaps and voids with Apoxie sculpt. What would be the best "solvent" fro use with the Apoxie sculpt. I've used Squadron green, and white, with Testors liquid plastic cement as a solvent, but I haven't used the Apoxie sculpt before. 

A little progress:

Here's the secondary hull and warp nacelles. The description in Jackill's, states "the extended secondary hull, is attached directly to the primary hull".  there is a small "pylon" that seems to be indicated in the drawings, that is what has been modeled.

Here, again everything placed together:

and finally, here are the two pylons with megaphasers, that are the end supports for the "wing" and upper photon torpedo tubes(seen in the above photo in the "Reliant" mode), and the forward, and aft deflector housings. The actual deflector, are cut from the bowls of "Wendy's" plastic spoons! (the chili, and baked potato were good, the inspiration even better)

Some progress; the secondary hull has panel lines scribed in, the warp nacelles are just a few details away from being complete. Fairly soon now I'll be able to attach the primary hull, and begin detailing there. I'm not looking forward to "first primer", where I finally "see" all the defects, and blemishes.......but......they won't get fixed unless I can see them soooo....

shot from above the starboard quarter. 

Aft nav deflector, built up from a plastic spoon. 

upper secondary hull details. 

low angle starboard quarter. 

Starboard side. 

I spent the better part of Sunday doing the full scale drawing of the three tube(forward, and aft) photon torbedo bay, which will mount under the forward part of the secondary hull. The warp nacelles used almost forty strips of .030" X .030" styrene strips....Evergreen Styrene will be "green" for a bit longer now! What use I've made of the Apoxie Sculpt, has come out well! I still have some learning to do with that medium. I'll ask the dumb question for the day- is there a specific Aztec pattern for each class of vessel?.....or can I just "fake it"? There's not a lot of photo reference for the Kodiak Class Battleships.

I'm looking at a possible "Command Cruiser" for my next kitbash Star Fleet vessel. There's a couple of others that are interesting, and I have a few kits in stock. 

This shot is the secondary hull, with warp nacelles attached; 

Bottom view of secondary hull and nacelles; 

The hole in the center of the photon torp bay, is for the 1/8" steel rod that supports the model on the display base. You can also see the 18 "windows" of the botanical section; 

This is the top view, looking forward, of the secondary hull, and warp nacelles; 

The two holes aft of the pylon in this shot, are for the screws that will attach the prinary hull's lower section, to the secondary hull. There is a third screw hole between the horizontal, and vertical pylon cross braces. This is the last shot of the secondary hull, by itself. I will be permanently attaching the primary hull, and begin detailing it.

Primary hull lower half, with styrene "reinforcements" and the three mounting screws; 

This closeup shot shows the screws in place with the reinforcements;  

Far better than yours ever was???? If that's true, it's only because I've learned from my past mistakes. We're all, only as good as our current achievement. We'll all be better, "next time". 

When I first built the Battle Cruiser, "Firestone", I wanted to build the Kodiak. I am very happy that I got to do that, in this manner, in this forum.

The primary hull assembly is just about done, and there's putty that has to be applied to the "joints/gaps/mistakes". The drawing isn't too clear about the structure where the megaphaser pylons, that support the upper photon torp pod, attach to the primary hull. I'm going to have to exercise some "creative artistic liscence" in finishing this area. The next pictures that I post will be the finished/pre-paint.

I have one major decision left, that is paint. Do I go with the "standard, kit recommended, paint scheme?  Or, do I get creative, and do an aztec pattern. Do I shoot all gloss, decal, and then shoot a flat coat? Or, do I shoot all flat, overglaze, decal, and flat. I have run into problems shooting an overglaze before, but, all gloss tends to build up a heavier coat of paint. I'll have to play with some scrap material and the paints I will use to see which will be the better way to go.

I saved the shipschematics.net JPEG image of the Kodiak drawings, to disk, imported it into Autocad at "full size", and printed out the profile drawing and pieced it together. The reward for this was seeing that the model did indeed scale up well. The discrepancies that do exist are mostly due to the accuracy of measuring the small drawing in the Jackill's book.....and a couple of forehead slapping "duh's", caught too late to correct. Transferring the panel lines from the drawing, to the compound curves of the model, was the hardest, and most easily botched. It didn't help that the surface of the model ended up not exactly what it was intended to be. Still, the scratchbuild part of this was a first time undertaking, and turned out well enough, considering. I am pleased with results.

This weekend I have a train show, and next week is my annual "disappear off the face of the earth" week. There won't be any progress on Kodiak until after all that. 

This is a port side shot of Kodiak, with a "close to full size" copy of the Jackill's drawing for reference.

And here, another portside shot. The vessel in the background is a Jenghiz class Destroyer. I actually started that back when I built Firestone, and decided to include it in this build and paint it at the same time as Kodiak. 

I'm at the paint stage now, construction is complete( except for any "fixes" needed when I have the model all one color ). I'm still trying to figure out what the (blast of the ship's whistle) the colors/rules/convention/etc. makes up the "Aztec pattern". I'll keep looking, but the countdown to paint is set, and running. It'll be "Standard Box Kit Scheme", if I can't find answers soon

Fantastic!  I can't wait to see her in full paint!

I've been working a bit on the Taegu tonight.  I'm cutting up the highlighter caps so I can insert some bussard collectors.  I'll post some pics soon.

 I shot some flat white as a primer, this afternoon, and I'm very pleased with how little I've seen in the way of surface defects!!! Once the primer is dry, I can take a closer look, but I may have found and fixed most of them already!!. . . . .Yes, I can say "Surprise!"

I'm looking at a Podesti class cruiser for my next project. I have the deflector housing, and the hangar bay piece left over from the Firestone build, and a pair of nacelles from the Kodiak build. All I need to do from scratch, is the secondary hull, and the hull pylon. After Kodiak, that should be fairly easy. 

Here's a quick shot of Kodiak with a little paint, accompanied by USS Farragut NCC1702, and an as yet unnamed Jenghiz class destroyer