Well, it got so warm here over this weekend that I decided not to risk turning my pale insipid skin colour a healthy shade of brown.  I decided instead to tuck myself away in a sweltering hot hell hole, err workshop – oh alright, spare bedroom, have it your own way.  It was about time this Klingon Bird of Prey got lit up.  I was originally going to claim that it was cloaked and just show everyone an empty display stand, but I probably wouldn’t have got away with that.  Instead I’ve decided to add a bit of internal illumination in the form of just three LEDs.  A white one (upper control deck), a green one (forward lower decks) and a low output red in the torpedo launch tube.

Internal Lighting Wiring

Let There Be Light!!

I have to admit at this stage that no one, and I mean absolutely no one can be more surprised than I was when I connected up the battery and it only went and bloody well worked!  The reason for my self doubt was that I had to do a lot of hacking off of alignment tabs, cramming of wires, use of extremely hot, err, hot air gun (heat shrink tubing).  After all that I was sure it was all going to go Pete Tong – but no…Whooo and Hoooo!!!!

Forward View

As you can see, at this stage I just couldn’t resist quickly dry assembling the front of the model and seeing what the lights would look like.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that the effect was just as I’d hoped.  Still a lot of light leakage to sort, but nothing a kilo or three of filler wouldn’t put right, I’m sure.  And finally, here’s the day’s work , after gluing together the lower section and bottom upper section (meh – you work it out!) – complete with the ubiquitous filler!!

Lower Deck and Boom Assembly

Cya next time!

Well, when I say boring, what I really mean is drilling.  I’ve at last got off my lazy backside for an hour or two and decided to make some modelling progress.  What I’ve actually achieved doesn’t seem a lot, but believe me, when you’re drilling holes with a 0,5mm drill held in a pin chuck it certainly seemed like an accomplishment at the time!  I’m also working in a rather, well, compact and bijou area of the spare bedroom which doesn’t make it any easier either!

Not a Lot of Room!

I used the same method for fixing the window locations as I did with the Enterprise kit.  As Polar Lights had kindly included both vinyl stickers as well as decals, i used the stickers as templates to drill through.  Trouble is it ain’t easy drilling two 0,5mm holes next to each other to form a rectangular window!

Template Stickers

Still, I stuck at it and this is the result for the front upper bridge area:

Upper Bridge Windows

The only thing left to do then was the windows in the lower “bulb”, or lower deck section.  This caused me a bit of grief as it turned out, because right behind the windows inside the casting was the front locating peg in one half, and its mating boss in the other.  The only thing I could do if I wanted these windows to be lit, was to remove the pin and boss, and just rely on the central pin and boss to locate and align the two halves.  The next few photographs illustrate the result.

Pin Removed

Lower Deck Windows

The object that looks like its already lit up on the right hand side of the photo above, is a red LED that I’ve already affixed to the torpedo launch tube. (It’ll fit in the hole in the front of the bulbous lower deck.

Now You Can See the Windows!

Subsequent to these photos, I had to cut away a little of the bulkhead in front of the remaining pin and boss so as to clear the back of the red LED that is fixed into the torpedo launcher.  Then it was a case of giving the interior of these parts a quick flash over with some primer in preparation for the light blocker (for light blocker just substitute balck paint!

Resin Parts from Dons Light and Magic

Some more new goodies have just arrived for the future build of my 1:350 Enterprise!  These tiny resin parts are some magnatomic flux construction grilles (!!) for the engine nacelles and some worker bees, cargo containers and transport pods for enhancing the hanger deck area.
Swiftly arrived across the pond from Don’s Light and Magic, only to lounge around the British Postal system.  The postal handling fee was twice the tax I had to pay!!  Easy money for some eh?

Modifications for Lighting

I’ve been a bit slow in proceeding with this model so far, but I’ve now got the bits I need to carry on.  Lets just check now, prozac, athletic support, guide dog – yep its all there, I feel like a new man.  Don’t know why, I haven’t worn this one out yet!  Ooooops, too much information?  Ok, lets just concentrate on the model (remember – the Klingon one?  No, I do not mean Belana Torres, I mean the Bird of Prey Warbird – sheesh pay attention, please!!).  Right, after all that waffle, all I have done so far this time is to ease a few gaps out and drill the odd hole to allow the wires that will supply the LEDs (when I fit them) to travel up the neck of the vessel to reach the forward part.  In the photo you can see where I’ve marked the areas that I’ve butchered modified with green marker.