I’ve started an old (a Round 2 release from a few years back) AMT Bird of Prey, which I will be posting in the Star Trek GB. I wanted to post a WIP thread for those who may be interested, but not following the Star Trek GB. My plan is to install lighting in this puppy. I will be using a lighting circuit of my own design. This is the first kit I have attempted to light, so we’ll see how this goes. There is a TON of other stuff I could do to get this thing more accurate like slant the side of the hull, install a step on the upper hull where it connects to the sides, extend the tail bla, bla, bla. Needless to say, I’m not going to go that far. It will be a pretty much OTB build. And after the Indianapolis and Musashi, I’m looking forward to something simple.
So here is the kit.
And the lighting circuit. The long multi colored wires and LED’s will route to the engine nacelles. The LED’s are Red, Blue and Yellow. The wires have since been lengthened to ensure they will reach the engine caps. I also have two blue LED’s in the hull. I doubt this will add any effect, but I had some laying around, so what the heck. The red/black power wires will route down to the base.
I drilled holes for view ports and sensors, following some interesting drawing from the internet.
The first drawing appears to be a guide for the kit. The second drawing looks like something from a blueprint book. The engines on these drawings show to be warp engines (with impulse engines in the stern), but in the original show, the ship only had sub-light abilities.
I know I’m geeking out right now
Sooo, then I painted the inside black. I will paint a coat of chrome on the black, hopefully this will stop any light from shining through, if not, I’ll line some aluminum foil on the inside. The view ports will then be lined with wax paper for light diffusion and the sensor ports will be backed with sheet styrene to prevent light from shinning through. I also coated the engine nacelles with black and they will follow the same process.
Nice, I built this as well, lit the inside and the engines. I have some words of caution. Make sure you at least copy (exact size) the decal sheet. The body of the bird is very fragile and very difficult to manipulate. After I ruined mine, I had to get some thin inkjet adhesive vinyl and use that in place of the decals. Works OK unless you have some extreme bends. I did with the wing tips on the nacelles. I ended up CA gluing them down. I tried Testor’s Decal Sheets and they didn’t work either. Good luck!!! Please post the final.
I was watching some you tube vids on this kit, and they cautioned the same thing. The new kit does have newly designed decals, but they still looks touchy
Bish,
I’m trying to get into the habit of posting a WIP when I work on a build for a GB. There are just so many members, including me, who don’t look into a GB but may follow a WIP
I finished painting the interior and ran the wires in to the wings and nacelles. I also epoxied the light board onto the bottom hull, I laid the top hull down to show what the lights will look like. I must say, this is turning out better than I thought.
I put everything together this weekend, filled and painted. It looks like I have some more filling to do. Now I’m assuming the BOP is an atmospheric craft, so I am going to weather it accordingly.
I used MM Gloss Ghost Grey enamel, but was very disappointed in the coverage. I will probably just spray it with some Krylon after I get the seams where I want them. Much less expensive than going through another bottle of MM.
well this is about as far as I’m going to get before my vacation. I will be back on the 11th. All that’s left is to put on the decals and do some weathering.
