So, a couple months ago I bought this kit from a local mate modeler. It was a bit steep ($47) but trust me, it may be considered a "cheap" value for such model in Brasil. The only other one available in the marketing at this time the guy is asking almost $150. I know that I can always find something on eBay or even here at AST classified section but it ends to reaching almost the same price after to compute the expensive international shipping and plus custom taxes.
For whose don't know (ha!) the USS Reliant is a Federation Earth starship which first appearance was in the movie Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan in 1982. The model kit was released only 13 years later in 1995 and discontinued some time later. Although it is not made anymore it cannot be considered exactly a "rare" model since it can be found with no much efforts. Here in Brasil it's another whole story though. Because this is an import and just a few of them came to the stores by the time it may be a bit hard to find one intact. I believe I was lucky with this one.
Anyway, here it is the smashed box of the kit:
The parts after to be washed:
Main saucer:
Here the yellowish decals full of mold (fortunately I already scanned and redrew it completely in Corel):
Hands on!
I am going to light this kit (my first venture in this area) so there will be a lot of LEDs, a couple power supplies and an Arduino board. I have had this wish of make lighted ships in the past but since I am not great with electronics it always was a difficulty for me. But with a programable digital Arduino board everything gets too much more easier (at least for me) because it is just a matter of hook the LEDs and write a few lines of code to make them glow.
Below a video with a working prototype of the navigation lights:
Basically I will use two independent circuits. The first one will be just a bunch of high bright white LEDs to light the interior of the ship and it will be hooked directly to a power supply with a single on-off switch. The second circuit will be the Arduino shown above that will control the flashing navigation lights, the fading in warp drives and impulse drive core.
My first challenge will be how to light the warp drive grilles of the nacelles since I am not going to buy the expensive clear set from DLM. Instead I decided to adapt an idea from a lighted Enterprise tutorial I saw several years ago (I can't remember the name of the guy). In the tutorial the dude simulated the hull spot lights by using the natural transparency of the white plastic. It is simple and ingenuous!
Since I DON'T want this the very first step is to paint the inner side of these parts in flat black. However, I can use it to make the nacelles grilles glow by ensuring that these areas won't be painted when I spray the black. So I masked it inside using black electric insulating tape:
I made a small paper mold to help me with the rounded tip:
I used the insulating tape instead the regular yellow Tamiya tape because it is hard to see the other side against the light, so I wouldn't know if I was masking it correctly. The black tape helps to see what you are doing in this case. Anyway, the masking doesn't need to be perfectly sharp because the edges will actually look faded the other side. The effect is really nice.
Here a quick test showing how the masked area look now against the light:
After to be painted in black and the tape removed, it should look like exactly the opposite: all the nacelle opaque while the grille will show semi-transparent.
I am not absolutely sure how it will look after done, but I am confident that an array of 6 or 7 high bright blue LEDs will give a nice glowing effect in the dark. Will see...
Then I painted the inner nacelles with flat black:
Here them after to remove the masks:
And finally a test against light:
Not bad at all. I am just not entirely secure yet that the black paint will be enough to block the light and also that the blue LEDs will supply enough luminescence to give the proper effect. But I am confident!
Next step was start drilling the windows in the main saucer. Not a lot of them. I counted and it seems that it is more or less 160. I used my Black & Decker RTX driller with a 1.5mm bit.
Finally I stayed at the post office today and there was two small packages in my PO Box. Yay, it's the LEDs that I ordered in eBay: one bag with 100 white LEDs and another bag with 100 blue LEDs...
And here a picture with one blue LED to check the tonality. Although it looks like purple in the picture actually it is really blue:
I am just a bit concerned that it was sold as being "high bright" LEDs but it doesn't seem to be "so brighten". I believe that I will have to use the double of LEDs I supposed (total of 12 or 14) per nacelle. My next step will be to solder them together, light it up and see how they will look behind the nacelles.
A couple days ago I made a small test with the blue LEDs. I soldered them together with a resistor in each one making an array of 6 LEDs and the result was so horrible that I didn't even take a picture. Really bad. First it had a weak light but later I figured out that it was my fault because I hooked them in the 6V power supply instead the 12V. Anyway, the LEDs had a too much pointy light so instead to achieve a big blue glow I got six lighted spots. Also all the LEDs with the resistors soldered into the nacelle looked too clumsy to deal with.
Then I decided - and I don't know why I didn't do that since the beginning - to buy a LED tape. I walked in the only local store that sells that (I live in a small town) and they had the courage to ask me almost $7 for 1 meter of the tape plus $12 for a 12V 1.5A power supply. No way. I returned to home and ordered it online: paid $7 for FIVE meters (shipping included) and $3 for a 2A power supply. I got too much more for too much less. The downside is that I had to await until it arrive. So it arrived today!
Here it is the roll with 5 meters of blue LED tape:
An interesting detail is that the tape I bought is covered of some kind of silicone what means that it can be used outdoors while the one they had in the rip off store was like a paper tape. OK, it doesn't make difference for me, just mentioning.
So I cut a piece to make a small test:
And here a lighting test:
In the dark:
The LEDs bright very strong and I loved the color. Also the raytheon effect worked as I wanted. Funny that here the LEDs do not show up the spots as in the pictures. I just get a big blue glow. Tomorrow I will wrap the tape into wax paper to see if they become still more diffuse.
OK, I don't have too much good news. I f*cked it up and now I have to move a few steps back. I had gotten the pylons steadily stuck in nacelle places with epoxy glue and then joined the halves to start the tedious work of putty and sand:
Along the process (a few weeks working daily on the nacelles) I figured out that:
1) There was light leaking through the nacelle hulls when the warp coil was powered
2) The putty-sand work was getting very crappy
The first problem was caused by a bad inside preparation. The second problem was because I used CA to join the halves and at certain point I may have slightly twisted the nacelle (by putting effort to sand) and the join cracked. CA fault. I tried to fill the crack with more CA and re-sand but I just noticed that it wouldn't work. Also some corrections ended becoming coarse and horrible finished.
It really frustrated me and for a moment I wanted to give up of the project. Then in the following moment I thought that it could be better maybe to move along but give up of light it. Then after a little while I decided to give it one more chance and start nacelles over.
Then I picked one of the nacelles, grabbed it firmly with both hands and gave a hell of a twist. So with a bit of extra effort I separate the halves again. Not always was bad: the pylon remained firmly in place. Then I scraped the joints with the hobby knife and a coarse sandpaper, unstick the LED tape and ended with this:
OK, now the idea is to insulate the LED tape with some kind of box to minimize the most I can the light leak and then rejoin the two haves but this time with epoxy glue (Araldite). I don't know if this second attempt will turn out better than the first one but I never will know if I don't try. Wish me luck!
OK, it's time to fix the starboard nacelle after the small little disasters. As reported in my last post I had to split it again to fix the light leak. My first attempt was to put the LED strip directly against the nacelle grille but it caused the LEDs to get the undesired "spot" effect. It would be an easy solution but wouldn't look good. After a quick test I noticed that I could achieve the desired effect by just putting it back a few millimeters, so I started building a "box" do insulate the strip into it. Here it is the resource to make the box, an unused credit card:
After to be stripped it turned into it:
And here the coarse box with the LED strip already in place:
And here a bit further view:
It helped a lot to insulate the light but there was still a bit of leakage, then I decided to use some clay to fix the problem. Here it what I used: a two-part epoxy called "Durepoxi":
People use it for coarse fixes like leaking pipes, broken stuff, etc. Not my way of fix things though. For me this clay is only to be used for modeling. Anyway...
Here my "beautiful" work:
At least it worked and the light got completely trapped into the box!
After to have the leaking light issue sorted out, it was time to join the two nacelle halves again. This time I used epoxy glue (Araldite) to the job:
And here the two nacelle after the putty applied and sanded down. Hopefully ready for painting!
I didn't have to remake the port nacelle so I leave it alone.
Now it's time to prepare the inner side of the saucer. First I painted some parts in black and then I covered it with chrome tape to either reflect the light inside as well to stop it to go through the plastic. I left two big drop shaped areas uncovered to achieve the raytheon effect:
I had this tape since around 10 years ago when I bought my Enterprise Refit 1/350 and that I ended selling it without to even pick it out of the box. Fortunately I saved the tape for this project!
Let's do some painting!
I started fixing a crap I did the other day. When I was airbrushing a small black detail I left some white spare parts spread over my workbench and guess what: yes, they all got splattered with tiny drops of black. Then I taped them onto a cardboard box, bring to the backyard and give them a couple layers of white with the rattle can. Problem solved.
And the grand finale was to mask and paint the intermediate blue of the outer side of the saucer. The masking wasn't as painful as I supposed it would and the result was quite satisfactory for my standards:
For the impulse circle I used the Tamiya tape for curves. It is tricky because it doesn't like to stay in place for so long when applied over a painted area, however it can be used if you do things quickly. Then I made all the masking and let it to the end. Then I prepared the paint, quickly masked the circle and immediately painted. A few minutes after the tape was already lifting from the plastic, but it remained time enough to allow me to do a good job.
More painting! Masked and painted some of the parts that goes in "duck egg blue". Actually it looks more like a "light water green" to me (I used the Model Master enamel) and it is really looking like the real deal in the pictures. Anyway, here it goes, first the top saucer:
And the bottom saucer:
And finally some extra parts:
Seems that things are going a bit faster now!
So, I removed the masks to check the result. Very nice and subtle as I supposed. Liked it. Some of you may strange the bottom saucer painted in duck egg blue since a few modelers prefer it in intermediate blue. In the instructions sheet they say to use "duck egg blue". I made some research before to lay the paint down on mine and have found both versions I noticed that the "duck egg blue" is the less preferred so I decided to go with it...
Here the "bridge ring" and the less noticeable box behind the bridge (don't know what is that) and the four little squares more in the background, everything in the same duck egg blue:
Finally I brought the two nacelles to the backyard and "rattle canned" them in white. Here they are resting hung at the edge of my workbench:
After they dry I will check what else fix they still need -- for SURE there is still something to do... these nacelles are being a real nightmare!
A detail that I forgot to show: how the raytheon effect should appear, so here it goes!
This is my first light project so I am still a bit shy... I just have these two big raytheon effects and suppressed the small ones (behind the bridge and aside the nacelles).
SAUCER DETAILING: COLORS
When I made some detailing in the saucer I followed the instructions sheet but I didn't get happy with the result. The reason is because the duck egg blue appeared too faint over the white and also for some reason I don't know the paint I bought (Model Master) looked too much more like green than blue. So I decided to repaint the details of the top saucer using intermediate blue and medium gray. Notice the ring around the bridge and also the squared details behind it:
Too much better!
Since I was inspired for painting I decided to make the thin red lines around the two grey big areas at the rear of the top saucer. Normally those lines are decals to be applied but I painted them instead:
SOME ELECTRONICS
Time do to some electronics, actually just pass a few wires and solder some pieces in place. I didn't make any plan before to start (it was a big mistake!) so the wiring ended becoming messing and confused. If I ever make any other lighted ship in the future I surely will spend some time planning things first. Anyway here it is:
THE REAR SIDE
One of the problems I run with was that the original red clear parts that cover the impulse engine windows at the rear side of the saucer (where there are the shuttle bays and the impulse engines) came missing one. I tried to cut a small piece of clear plastic out of a pet bottle but it didn't work well so I solved the problem by just filling it with epoxi glue (Araldite).
And here the back side wired and a light test run:
I like how the impulse engines look!