46" DeBoers Enterprise x 3 - WIP

Nice garden!

I looked at some other pics on your photobucket... TERRIFIC hanger deck

Thanks Gerry!

There are many more pics of the build on my website as well!

Mark

For the Enterprise update this month, I have been able to finish up most of the work on the strongback and the deflector dish detailing. I still need to scrape off some of the paint on the outside ring of the dish to allow for the lighting effects, but for the most part the painting is finished. I will now start decals on the engineering hull. There are only a few to worry about. I should have an update for this by next month. For this month I have started doing the prep - work for the saucer sections. The first thing I needed to do is to make sure all of the viewports are nice and even, then cut out all of the thruster pieces and replace them with clear re-cast pieces so the lighting effect will look half way decent. I will also be adding the bottom saucer domes. I've cut out all of the holes for the lighting effect and will replace them with some clear pieces. I will be adding the bridge pieces to all of the saucer top halves at this point as well as adding the warp crystal domes on the back end of the saucer. All of this is in preparation for the Aztec pattern to be added on the top and bottom halves of the saucers. The latest pics are now availible in the "Updates for May 2012" page.

 See you next update!

Mark.

 I've added 15 new pics for the  Enterprise Update.

For the Enterprises it has been quite a month of work. The first tough part was to add the new re-cast thruster pieces to the tops and bottoms of the saucers. Some were exact fits while others needed a bit of sanding and puttying, but all this effort will produce a very nice lighting effect later on. I've had to cut out some wiring holes in the saucer section to allow the wiring to go from the saucer to the Dorsal. I've also had to remove a section of one of the framing braces to allow room for the crew rec-deck assembly for later on. I have also opened up the rear of the upper saucer to allow for both the epoxying of the warp crystal/impulse engine piece as well as the lighting effects for that area. I've made the hole large enough so I can epoxy these pieces into place well enough so they won't move at all. To epoexy them into place and take care of the putty work at the same time, I line the entire rim of the Warp crystal piece with the putty, then press it into place, then I immediatly epoxy the piece into place with 5 minute epoxy. When this is set I take an exacto blade and remove the excess putty from the outside. This alows for sanding to be kept to a minimum. Next I mask off the Warp crystal dome as well as the impulse engines so that I can opaque the entire hull top and bottom. I let the Flat black set for at least a day then spray the entire top and bottom with Light Neutral Gray. I've been finding it better to start with the darker colors first, then mask off the smallest details and work my way up to the lightest colors. By next month I should have most of the first masking done and hopefully the second one for most of the saucer pieces. Hope you enjoy this update and I'll see you all next month.!

Mark

Hi Everyone! Sorry this update took so long to get uploaded. December was a very rough month for my secular work so very little was done on  Enterprise x 3. I have 22 new pics in the Updates for January page

For Enterprise updates:

I needed to get all of the viewport glass in place as well as the wiring and lighting for some of the spot lights and the warp engines in place before I could put the Hanger and Botany deck pieces in place. So I added the clear  pieces into the hull first. This included the Botany Deck Viewports.

 I was then able to add the exterior lighting on the other two engineering hulls and get all of the spot lights aimed to their proper locations. There are 7 Spots on each of the hulls. To insert them and secure them in place as well as aim them took about 2 - 3 hours each. No easy task because of the limited amount of room to work in with each of these models. In the November update I was able to get the first model done, but I learned from that one what NOT to do on the other 2. With the polar Lights Enterprise you can work on one half of the hull at a time, then assemble the 2 halves together. With the DeBoers, the hull is already one piece so you have to try to get your hands into that limited space. So it is very time consuming.

I was also able to finally put the saucers back on so all of the ships are basically assembled. I also added all of the upper and lower saucer spot lights and they are all in place. I was able to get one of the saucer Interior lighting in place this month. I'm using some 4" fluorescent tubes that run off of ballasts and require 12v. to operate.  I just have 2 more saucers to put the lighting into, but I do have a good pic of the lighting tests with these fluorescent mini lights on. There are also a couple pics with the warp engines on. By the next update I should have all of the lighting done in the saucers as well as the torpedo launcher effect and other lighting effects such as the impulse engine effect.  I am looking forward to sealing up this ships and getting ready for the next phase of 2 of these build.

That's all for this months update. We'll see you next month.

Mark

Greetings!

For this month's update I've spent much of the time adding all of the clear plastic for all of the windows and viewports, plus I'm adding the interior lighting for the Officer's lounge which, by the way is turning out fabulous. There are some great pictures of this lighting in the UPDATES FOR FEBRUARY page. Check them out.

In other areas I have had to scratch build and paint all of the interiors for the open hatch version of the Enterprise that will be in the Drydock. I wanted these hatches to be able to open and close, unlike the ones I made for the PLE version which always stayed open. I was originally going to make all of the hardware out of copper plating and tubing, but the problem I ran into was how to  connect the hardware to the hatch doors without it looking like it was cemented together. I decided to scrap that idea and use styrene parts instead of copper so there would be less mess. It worked out better this way. I have 14 new pics in this month's updates.

For the next update I will be adding some updates for the plans for my new Drydock Builds. I've started blueprints for this build so that I can get the proper scale of this build to match up with the DeBoers Scale Enterprise. I'm estimating the length of this new version to be about 56". This larger scale will be good for adding even more details for this build. That and the fact that I was able to see the original Filming Miniature in person and I will be able to work off of that model to make some corrections and changes so that these models will be even more accurate to ST:TMP filming miniature.

That's it for now. Check out the pics, let me know what you think and I'll see you next month.

Mark