Klingon Vor'cha Cruiser WIP

Igard

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May 16, 2011
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This is one of my favourite ships from The Next Gen series. I figured after building a few ships for practice (Ferengi Marauder, Maquis Fighter), it's time for something that I'd really like to do!

I got this on ebay, in it's box, already opened, some parts had come apart from the sprues. No damage, nothing missing. I think it was a steal for £18. I'll not be using the original decals.

Here are all the parts, cleaned and removed from the sprue.

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Quite alot of windows to drill. The plastic is very thin, so not that hard to work with it.

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I've gone for a 'squared' shape for some of the windows. This ship appears to have various shapes and sizes of window.

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Re-did some of the windows that were earlier circular into more oblong shapes. I've used some screenshots for reference as well as what little I could find of the studio model.

It's noteworthy that on the studio model, the windows all appear to be circular. It seems as though they changed the lighting effect in post production. Since I'm going for 'screen accuracy' and not a studio model replica, this is the way to go.

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Quite alot of windows, not all pictured. Just spending a small amount of time every day or so, took me around 2 weeks. A couple of them aren't perfect, but mostly they line up quite nicely.

Thanks for reading and I'll continue to post updates as I work. :)
 
Nice so far. Keeping those windows lined up is a chore! But it looks like you did it!
 
Thank you guys.

Jamaica, it's rather nice for an AMT kit. Good detail. Not bad seams from what I can tell so far. It is quite thin plastic though and I'm hatching a cunning plan to prevent light leak.

I'm thinking of using aluminium tape. Though that does mean going round every window again, it would be the most sure way of blocking the light and spreading it around, reducing the number of LEDs I would need.

Also playing with the idea of using side emitting fibre optics behind some of those windows. I could light the entire neck with just 2 LEDs. If it works well enough that is.
 
I built one of those when it was first released. I'd assume you're going for the green tint to the finish, like the show? I did mine in a series of grays, like the TOS D-7 cruisers. In fact, it might have been the first time I used pastel colours instead of paints on a model.
How do you square off the windows on that scale? Just a regular drill and a square micro-file? Where can you get such a small file?
 
Thanks Necro and java.

@NecronautDrummer, There were 2 paint schemes as seen on screen. 1 scheme was the all green original from the TNG series and then they repainted it for the Deep Space 9 series. I'll upload a couple of pics below.

I used a couple of sizes drill bit, 0.35mm - 0.5mm with my Archimedean drill. I prefer it to my pin vice for this sort of work. Just drilled the hole then used the drill to 'file out' a square shape. I don't have a file small enough for this.

Colour schemes. The first one is from TNG and the rest are the more interesting DS9 updated paint :-





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Sweet!
Always love this design from the first time I've seen it.
Very nice job so far!
Only recently I've finished drilling all the windows for my Destroyer, and I solute You, buddy, with your similar work so well done :)
 
you know very well, Igard i have NO IDEA what the hell that ship is. you could paint it pink with babyblue stripes and tell me its screen accurate! But i love your WIPs so i'll be lookin foward!
 
Thanks for the comments guys.

@Necro, I've got some minor detailing done and am just about to start experimenting with the aluminium tape on the insides. I do like to post step-by-step what I'm doing, you won't miss a thing! ;D

@Punk, One of these days, you'll have to sit down and watch some Trek. TNG is getting remastered and released on bluray. Can you imagine these ships in full HD?

@SLW45, Qapla'!
 
Attached the side bulkheads to the lower half of the ship. The seams were really very good. I've heard nothing but bad things about AMT's seam lines, but this is good stuff.

I used plastic cement to hide them and a little bit of shaved sprue. Sorry about the bad lighting in this pic, you'll have to take my word for it, they look just fine.

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Might need to do more work on this one. Only noticed this when looking at the photo. Perhaps just the angles make it look odd.

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I can't decide if this is supposed to look like this. I might have to do some filing here to make all this flush.

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Sticking on some greebles. The studio model looks like there's some detail here, but I can't get anything accurate. I might not be finished with this.

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This part definately needed to go on as you can see. It was just a flat surface on the model.

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Here is my attempt at creating a light blocking, reflective interior for the model. I'm using aluminium tape. It's very easy to use. I just tear it with my fingers to the size I want, then stick it all around the insides.

I then pierce the tape through the windows with a mini drill bit and make sure all the tape is shaped the same as the window. I could use a thin needle to prevent wear of the drill bit, but I don't have one small enough.

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Here's a quick test. I've only taped the upper neck, so there's no light bleed there and the windows look fine. This plastic is very thin and I'm not sure if paint would've done the job!

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You took the best way with the tinfoil- paint would not work for my Enterprise! I ended up making some tiny funnels from some ear pieces from an otoscope. That with the tin foil worked great! I want to do a classic D-7 soon...
 

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