Well all the Aztecs are on. Yikes it took 6 days. I found that a number 2 pencil is an excellent match for adding a bit of fill and or another Aztec or two. Touch up too. Perfect match.

The bottom was a lot harder that I had thought. Next I coat of clear tomorrow. I want to make sure they are completely dry. If not I might wait another day. I need to check for webbing and if found slice it with the Exacto and put a bit of Solvaset. But I gave it the once or and it looks pretty tight.

Back to the big Enterprise tomorrow!

BTW. I have the base nearly completed. This is a temporary base until the owner can replace it if need be. I still have to paint the pole. It is removable so it can be shipped and or placed in a different base.

Steve

Lets see. 10 more hours today and I got everything on except the the lower half of the engineering hull on and the saucer bottom. With any luck I’ll have that all done tomorrow around this time.

Clear on Saturday. Sunday the decals that came with the kit. More clear on Monday. A bit of touch up paint here and there and done. I think.

Steve

8 hours and this is what I have so far. Things sped up once I got past all that detail near the bridge and the 2 humps. I had to cut out and break up so many decals in to smaller ones or you will screw up. After awhile you start to see double and triple. So I had to stop when I got a few slightly off center and couldn’t go back and correct them.

All and all I’m pleased and this bird gets a weathering job to boot once all these crazy decals are on.

This isn’t a job for the faint hearted or short tempered. Several times decals broke on me and some rolled under. I had to remove them and put them back in the water and re capture to paper after getting the roll unders out again. And even then sometimes they do it again and I’d repeat the procedure.

The top of the saucer is nearly done and I should move on to the lower section next which doesn’t look as hard. I thought this would take a couple of days. More like 5.

Steve

The Acreations models Aztec Decals are a 98% exact match to Doug Drexler’s renders. The color is exact. They are very thin and yet you can bang them around pretty good and they don’t tear. Done right they look painted on. I can’t say enough good things about their decals. I’m very impressed.

For the flat surfaces water and a brush alone does a great job. For the corrugated and deep impressions Micro Sol does the job. Even after I applied the Micro Sol I could still push them around without damage.

For raised details in the hull they are suppose to apply over, I used water to start. Then a bit of Micro Sol and if that didn’t completely do the job and brush once only of the Solvaset. Once you use that stuff you can’t move it. Or the decal will break up. But after it dries it conforms the decal to the most detailed raised parts of the hull like magic.
I highly recommend there decals. Worth every penny.

Busy day for me running around town and getting materials. Got some nice mirrored acrylic sheets for the stand. I’ll get more done tomorrow.

Steve

There is a decal over that raised part. I did nothing more than use Micro Sol and Solvaset .

No clear on yet.

Now that the epoxy has dried over night I addressed the base. The owner Dave sent me a MR base. Nice. Mirrored Plexiglas top to it and a acrylic pole. There was no way to remove the pole without inflicting damage to the whole base. I needed a temporary solution.

So out to the garage and rummage through my stuff and found a nice base. It is unfinished wood but was perfect for my needs. I have lots of brass stock and found the right sized OD to the Pole Dave sent me. I drilled a hole dead center in the wooden base and fit the brass in using a square to make sure it was true. Glued that in with CA. Added some rubber feet.

The pole fits snuggly into the brass and can be removed with ease. You can turn the model on the stand too. The ship is mounted at a slight positive angle (no the nacelles aren’t drooping it’s your eyes! LOL!).

I plan to mount a piece of mirrored plex to the base later on and paint the edges black. Dave will at least have a decent base for now until he replaces it with some thing else down the road.

Now I can get to work adding the decals tomorrow and she’ll be finished.

More tomorrow,

Steve

Three days of this. But the parts just drive me nuts how they fit together not to mention the light leaks as a result.

But it’s all fixed now and I’m touching up the paint as we speak.

As you can see on the nacelles and other areas the seam lines don’t match when the two halves are properly put together. Not much one can do about that. I took the curse off the stepped areas with sanding and blended putty.

But all complaining aside in the end this is a nice solid model. Don’t let my griping stop you from building yours. Just do it and love it. To tell you the truth I can’t wait to start mine.

Thanks to Gary and Cultman TV I have the lighting and decals in the box with mine ready to go.

Steve

Yuck!

WTF? Panel lines don’t match.

Plugin leaks. Tape keeps dummy fingers from getting it on the windows.

Sanding and sanding and sanding and sanding…

All the green is seam filling and light leak plugging up.

It’s almost done with seaming!

Wait a minute found another one!

These lines didn’t match either but were close enough to fix. However the step here if walked on would have tripped you down the stairs. Better now.

No light leaks.

With the lights on she’s still pretty bright.

Today was fill light leak day and I almost got them all except for a few I’ll finish off tomorrow.

It’s a real pain going around with putty and fill little cracks and trying to keep it put of the fine detail. Luckily Squadron is forgiving and easy to carve. Some of the cracks like the ones in the hanger Aft bay area were really hard while others like the horribly warped seams on the nacelles were easy.

What wasn’t easy is where the seams meet (or didn’t) over the bussard collectors. There was a huge gap there and nothing I could do outside of sanding down the bussards would make them fit together. But they cleaned up well.

I still have to final sand and repaint of course but it’s going well. I have just about no leaks in the saucer rim. Maybe to I’ll get tomorrow.

More tomorrow,

Steve

As she sits now she is structurally built. She’s got more claps on her than Carter has pills to force this thing together cleanly.

I tired and tired to get her to just float together. Sanded things. Adjusted edges. You name it. Oh it got better but still parts just want to run screaming from each other in opposite directions. This is why in some cases I have found some garage kits to be better.

Like Scott Brodeens 31 inch Nautilus. I don’t think I have ever built such a good fitting kit.

The problem I think is that the big companies often pull parts when they are still warm. I found this a lot in this kit and others. Especially the clear parts for the nacelles. They looked like concaves.

Enough of that. The plastic weld and all these clamps ought to do it. I’m going to let it sit through tonight and through tomorrow and take the clamps off Thurs.

Hey I’ll do a few parts on the Big E!

Steve

Well it’s a whole model. There are still lots to do still but it’s getting there. Video tells the whole story.

I have to say that some of the engineering hull and pylons fit very poorly. The refit fit much better. I’ve had to force things close and tack it with CA then add plastic weld and clamps. Maybe it’s just this kit. Some of the parts were warped. Thanks the stars it wasn’t the saucer section!

Steve 

Moving onto the the nacelles today I had a lot of questions about the inboard and out board nacelle lighting. As it turns out (and I though this was the case) the blue areas are broken into sections with silver between them. Something you don’t see many modelers catch in there builds.

So I asked Doug today and he put the actually CGI model he made for the show in Lightwave and rendered off some super close ups of these panels. This created more work but a better more accurate model as well.

So I cut up some strips of blue painters tape and masked off the sections and sprayed the back sides flat black to block the light and on the outside I’ll have to do that by hand. I’ll be lucky to get this done today. But tomorrow I can put the nacelles together and light them up.

I also found out the registry light position was in the wrong spot on the model. so I filled it in and moved it to the correct location hoping a little of the fiber optic light will light up the registry.

Steve

These are new renders Doug did for me today never seen before. Enjoy. These are the real deal.

And here’s some more video: