Thanks Gamera! Although I just saw Nicholas' Acclamator that he is working on, he has at least twice as much stuffed into his! I like that he is working on one too, it gives me something to follow and some ideas. 

https://nicholassagan.wordpress.com/2016/04/18/commission-12256-acclamator-pt6/

WOW!  I thought Robiwon's big Galactica was a lot of fiber optic cable!!! That's insane, in a good way of course. 

I was actually thinking some sort of Lovecraftian tentacle monster had invaded your work bench! 

Yes, I got some work done. Over 140 holes drilled in the trenches for the fiber optics. That was tiring, monotonous and time consuming. I also went ahead and threaded the fiber optics into the top of the hull an glued them in place. I used .5 mm fiber optic  mostly because my pin vise did not have any smaller bits (which I will need to purchase at a later date). Even at that the bit is still a little to big for the optics. Now it looks like a bowl of rice noodles, lol.

I am going to start on the lighting rig this week and hopefully make some sense of that rats nest.

Well, not much to show for this weekend. I have about half of the trenches drilled for the fiber optics and I have some of the fiberoptics in place. Nothing really worthy of pics yet. Will post some when I start doing some lighting tests.

Thanks Gamera! It is with great trepidation when I start drilling an cutting things out that you are not supposed to. 

You're making great progress. 

And don't it just make you sit there and think 'what the #@%@ am I doing!?!!' when you drill a great big gaping hole into an expensive resin kit... 

Hello everyone,

    Well I got some work done. I was able to drill through the engine mounts into the ship

Then I drilled from the top into the base and then cored the area out.

I am contemplating if I should make a trench into the open area in case I need to run any optics or wires. Now I have glued the inserts into the trenches.

Now I am drilling the holes for the fiber optics in the trenches. This process will take awhile, I am working with a pin vise which will be tiring and time consuming.

Sounds cool, looking forward to the photos. 

After great contemplation and wonderful advice from my fellow modelers I have drilled and ground the channels for wiring the engines. I had a nice four day weekend, unfortunately most of the time was spent painting the house. So, not much done on the Acclamator and no current pics to show. I plan on getting back at it during the week and will hopefully have something to show during this upcoming  weekend.

For the wiring I can see no other way than to carve out some channels. Its the only way it will look right, and IMO its totally worth it for what you have in mind.

Better get yourself some extra sanding drums for your dremel. :)

Thanks for the clarification, yeap that's the impression that I got from the websites I looked it. More a troop transport and support vessel. 

The work you're doing on the engines look good. No idea on how to do the wiring. I thought maybe you could add the wires to the outside as part of the piping on the ship's hull but she looks pretty sleek and smooth.  

Gamera, quite a few people think that. I don't think they were really ever met to be a "ship of the line". Not saying that they could not hold there own, but, they are more of a command and support ship for the ground troops.

I have a little bit of an update. I did the same thing to the smaller engines that I did with the larger ones.

Now I have to figure out how to get the wiring to the engines for the leds. The bottom of the hull is pretty solid so a lot of resin to get through.

I was thinking about drilling through the disc brakes and the grinding out a large-ish hole to set the wiring.

Any ideas?

Ah, ok thanks! I looked it up, I remember them - I was thinking of them as a sorta prototype Star Destroyer. 

Hi Gamera, they don't really have to much screen time. They were in attack of the clones, the ships that delivered the Clones from Kamin to Geonosis and they are seen at the end of the movie lifting off from Coruscant showing the deployment of the clone troops. They are also seen in some of the clone wars cartoons.

Not really familar with that ship but from what I see very cool looking. Nice work there hollowing out the engines, looking forward to more progress. 

Thnaks Stephen, i normally pop on there every few weeks so will kep an eye out. Your off to a good start.

All right, so here we go.

I did say I was planning on lighting this kit right? So starting with the engines,

They are well cast and have very good detail. However, they  are solid and will require some engineering to light. I started buy cutting off the exhaust end using my handy razor saw.

Then I got to work cleaning out the grill. I did this by first drilling some holes to make it easier. Then I used my hobby knife to clean out each pie piece.

Then I drilled and cored out the rest of the engine.

So when I am ready I will be able to glue the grill back in place and insert a led in the other end. I will do the same process for the smaller engines.

Hi Bish, nice to have you along. I got this kit at the SSM store. They pop up there from time to time.

Count me in, that looks a nice kit. Where did you get it from.