1/1400 Galaxy Quest N.S.E.A. Protector Spaceship - Pegasus Hobby

[trekriffic]

Bravo! Looking good!

[MSgtUSAFRet]

Bravo! Looking good!

Thanks, Steve!

[MSgtUSAFRet]

Hey Fellow builders!

I didn't realize that so much time had passed since the last real update. I have built a Gazebo and another fence around the other side of the house so my bench time has been limited a bit. At least this time I didn't wait until July to do all of it!

There isn't much to tell except that I have been closing and filling and closing and filing and closing and filling seams. Ya know, the usual.

20170515_155419 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr

20170515_155524 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr

I did go ahead and paint the Aft Field Restoration Matrixes and I think they look pretty cool!

20170516_185308 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr

I also attached, what do you call them, the Linear accelerators on the Bow of the ship. I figured a little hand painting will bring them up to snuff. The majority of their color will be the hull color anyway!

20170516_193259 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr

I put a coat of white on the upper decks of primary hull. Unfortunately, it was also a glossy white. I will get some flat white and try to get better coverage, although a majority of this piece will be grey in color, similar to the Bussard Collectors.

20170516_195242 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr

I also did, or tried to do, some light blocking on the CM. Unfortunately, I grabbed the glossy black instead of the flat. I am having to rethink my approach to the windows on the CM. I have tried masking tape, masking fluids of various kinds and have not been successful in having the material stick to the acrylic with any confidence. Despite some excellent advice from some posters, nothing seems to want to stick to the acrylic except paint so I am gonna try painting and then scraping the paint off.

20170516_195325 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr

So last night, when I tried to scrape a window or two to test my theory, the glossy black did not stop any light. Nuts! So I recoated it with the flat black. We'll see tonight whether or not the flat does a better job or if I need to put on multiple coats. I assume the primer coat will also help block a lot of light, too.

I am gonna stop by the WalMart and pick up some Primer and more Flat white and black. The flat white will be the base color of the hull and then I will try to overlay a coat of pearlescent after I apply some aztecing. Of course all of that will be done after I use masking fluid to plug up the windows, vents, lights.....

Thanks as always for reading and commenting! Any suggestions for improvement are greatly appreciated!

Never Give Up!

Steve

[trekriffic]

Man ... you are going to feel so relieved when this marathon is done.

[MSgtUSAFRet]

Hey, Fellow Questarians!

I hope you all had a good weekend and took a moment to remember those who died to keep us free!

Man ... you are going to feel so relieved when this marathon is done.

Yes. Yes I am!!

I realized I still needed to place the Paragrafix Matter Restoration grills on the exhaust ports so I removed the dividers from the model. I had to trim down the raised area with an exacto knife and finally smooth it out with a fine stone and my dremel.

20170515_155656 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr

Then I set the fin on the engine pods.

20170529_153244 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr

And then masked them for painting.

20170529_221057 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr

Speaking of masking, I used painter's masking fluid to mask out the windows and lights on the wings and dorsal primary hull.

20170529_125559 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr
20170529_125546 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr
20170529_123532 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr
20170529_123527 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr

Talk about tedious!!!

I also assembled, finally, the Bussard Collectors and seated them on to the model! I figured masking them out while they were assembled would be easier than trying to mask out the enclosure with tape, or paper or what have you and then trying to seat the collectors later. Time will tell whether I was right or not.

20170529_150649 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr

And, of course, another light test to see how AWESOME it looks!! ;D

I also painted the CM and the upper decks with the base flat white. It is amazing how much dark colors hide imperfections and how light colors expose them. In looking at the CM and the quality of casting after I had sprayed it white, I noticed A LOT of bubbles and rough surfaces on the casting. So, I think I am going to strip it, sand it and then repaint. I want it to blend in with the rest of the model, not stick out. Besides, I left more than a few fingerprints on it during the painting of it.

20170529_161558 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr

Plus, now that I know how I am going to achieve the look of the CM, the repainting should go much faster!

I still had to had to dry fit it onto the body to see how it looked. Not bad; once it is painted!

20170529_161903 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr

I am hoping to get more done this week; even so far as to get spot light blocking done, a layer of primer down, and a first coat of white. All this depends on the weather forecast. There is supposed to be rain later this week so we will see.

Till then,

Never give up! Never Surrender!

Comments and critiques are welcome!

Steve

[el gato]

[MSgtUSAFRet]

20170529_150649 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr

Thanks for the sentiments, El Gato!

Last night I thought I was gonna have a heart attack! I thought I was gonna have to crack it back open after I had placed the Aft Bussard Collectors. I hooked up my 9V test battery to the ship and ALL of the WING lights were out!

After a brief panic, I noticed, while I was fidgeting with the wire and battery leads, that the wing lights kept flickering. It wouldn't do that if they had popped. So I re-seated the battery leads and the wing lights flickered back on - only to fade off.

Then, I thought "Maybe there isn't enough power?!" So I grabbed a fresh 9V Battery and hooked it up and the ENTIRE ship sprang to life!

Okay, so no "Cracky Cracky!" Whew! Still on track to completion!

Thanks for following, reading and commenting!

Steve

[trekriffic]

Are you planning on running this off a 9V battery permanently or just for testing? If it's the former you may want to consider a 9V plug-in wall adapter instead. Unless you have an unlimited budget for batteries. All those LED's draw a lot of current.

[MSgtUSAFRet]

Are you planning on running this off a 9V battery permanently or just for testing? If it's the former you may want to consider a 9V plug-in wall adapter instead. Unless you have an unlimited budget for batteries. All those LED's draw a lot of current.

Steve, good questions.

Back in March, I did a burn in of the LEDs using a Bench Power Supply.

20170317_172708 by Steve Hartzell, on Flickr

The LED systems were designed for 12V as I have an old 12V Laptop Brick that I am going to use to light this thing. The 9V batteries are for testing the lights and, ya know, me looking!

Yeah, no, I don’t have an unlimited budget for batteries. But I am still looking at your TOS Romulan 1/650ish build to see exactly how you did the internal battery and switch and the wall adapter thingy! Till then, all my builds will accept a wall-adapter of some kind!

Never Give Up!

Steve

[novahobbies]

This has been such a wonderful thread to follow!