Re: Enterprise NX-01 Refit
Thanks my fellow addicts!
OK...More photos to share...
Lower secondary hull LEDs:
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IMG_6159 by trekriffic, on Flickr
Light test:
The LED in the very front is a 2mm blue LED to illuminate the back of the deflector housing. I cut a round piece of thin styrene sheet and covered it in Duck brand white reflective tape before gluing the LED in with CA. Getting the disc to fit required removal of a locator tab at the front of the hull which was easy with my dremel grinder bit. The LED shines forward thru a round disc of translucent foam padding glued to the back inside of the deflector housing with white (super) glue. This material came from the box my mother-in-law's new Panasonic phone came wrapped in. When I unpacked the phone and saw the bag the base unit came wrapped in I thought it would make for great diffusion material and it sure did.
The LED in back of it on the other side of the power jack is a 2mm white LED cut and desoldered from a Christmas tree light string I bought some years ago at Target. The two LEDs are connected in series thru a 330 ohm resistor and soldered directly to the coaxial power jack contacts:
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IMG_6155 by trekriffic, on Flickr
The upper saucer with wiring all soldered in and fiber optics in place and glued in with "super" glue (white glue as previously mentioned). The wire leads have all been dobbed with globs of 5-minute epoxy for strain relief. Some of the fiber strands were taped down with Scotch transparent tape after insertion:
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IMG_6156 by trekriffic, on Flickr
Upper secondary hull LED ready for soldering to the lower secondary hull power jack. This is a white LED that will shine upwards underneath the main warp core module to light the blue deflection crystal in the center of it. I'm using one of the small round transparent blue bussard dome lighting inserts from the 1/350 TOS Enterprise kit for this rather than the clear kit part. This LED also lights the fibers running to the lower pylon spotlights and a porthole in the side of the hull at the aft edge of the pylons. I also ran some fibers up into the neck to better illuminate the round ports and the oblong windows located at the front of the neck up close to the bottom of the saucer:
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IMG_6158 by trekriffic, on Flickr
Wiring harnesses for upper and lower saucer lights. These will be soldered to the coaxial power jack (positive red wires to the center of the jack and negative black wires to the outermost jack contact to match the polarity of the 12V DC wall adapter power coupling) and fed up thru the hole I made in the dorsal connecting tab before being soldered to the wire leads in the saucer halves. This was a change from my original plan of feeding the wires down from the saucer halves into the secondary hull, soldering the leads to the power jack, then gluing the secondary hull halves together. So what I'm doing now is the reverse of that:
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IMG_6160 by trekriffic, on Flickr
After a minor feat of modeling intrepidity and legerdemain (all the wires and fibers made for a tight fit) I managed to sodler all the leads and feed the saucer/nacelle lighting harnesses up and thru the connecting dorsal. I then applied Testors styrene cement to the rim of the lower secondary hull and the back of the deflector housing which fits into slots at the front of the hull. I then gave it a manly squeeze with my manhands but eventually got tired and clamped the sucker into my hobby vice to dry:
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IMG_6161 by trekriffic, on Flickr
I did a light test with the power plugged in and all went well. I can see some minor light leaks around the base of the deflector housing which I'll need to fill with putty before applying more paint. The plan is to shoot the hull exterior with black lacquer followed by silver. Then I'll mask off some panels all over the ship before shooting with a medium gray color. That's all I'm going to say about the exterior painting plans for now. The rest I'll leave for you all to ponder as you sip eggnog next to a warm fire this Chistmas Eve...because I know how you model addicts are and you love to ponder things like that...
Oh... oh... almost forgot to mention... the wife and I were doing some shopping at the mall today and she got me the 2014 Ships of the Line calendar.
I was so excited to see the NX-01 Refit (artwork by Doug Drexler) featured for one of the months. How cool is that?!!!
