Starting where I left off with the armature, time to attach it to the model. This I knew was going to be tricky. What I did was mock-up the 'battle head', lower saucer and engineering hull together to see exactly where it would be inside the model. I then filled and gaps with scrap styrene and used hot glue to attach the rod to the spine of the ship.
WARP NACELLE ASSEMBLY
After I cut off the rear section of the model, I had been studying the thickness of this section and felt it needed to be thicker to match the curve of the 6' ILM model. This also made it easier to create a wire trench. Since I sanded everything down smooth, I traced the phaser banks and transporter emitters so I could reproduce them later.
This also allowed for more space to add navigation lights in the rear via fiber optics.
Wiring up the nacelles were relatively simple but now I would use magnetic wire as this 24 gauge solid core wire was cumbersome at times. All of the wire I tacked down with hot glue, something I still do today. For diffusion on the warp grills I sanded the inside with 600 grit sandpaper. It should also be noted there are 2 fiber optic strands running to each nacelle for the running lights...something that would haunt me down the road. The exterior of the warp grills were sprayed lightly a metallic copper to simulate what the warp nacelles look like when powered down. The beauty of the paint is it allows the blue to beautifully shine through. In the past I dry-brushed copper paint but that technique isn't always consistent.
Moving on to the Battlehead/Neck...
First off I decided since I'm not lighting this, and the placement of the windows are off, I filled them in and like before had to trace out the phaser banks and replace them. On this model, the phaser banks are rounded off strips of styrene which was how the Enterprise looked in the first 3 seasons until a newer 4' model of the Enterprise was built for TNG and the phaser banks then forever that a grill pattern on them, something every 24th Century Federation ship had afterwards...back to my build.
At the time I was experimenting with using silver paint on sections of the model to simulate 'lit' windows. I decided in the end to make the windows 'powered down'.
The battlehead where the Battle Bridge is required to have additional openings to pass both wires and fiber optics through. This section of the ship has a lot of nav lights as the Enterprise is actually 2 ships in one: a saucer section with families, and a maneuverable fighting ship with Warp Drive. It also has a separation light on either side of the separation line which each glows yellow.
I reinforced the two halves of the neck with hot glue.
The fiber optics (nav lights/separation lights) are visible in these shots.
Better view of the assembled warp nacelle assembly clamped to the battle head/neck assembly in relation to each other.
SAUCER SECTION
First thing, I needed to add more styrene to the socket section of the saucer and drill out holes to allow the fiber optics and wires to pass through. I also filled in the cargo bay doors as they are not symmetrical as well as made a 'mold' of where the Captain's Yacht docks with the saucer.
Having looked at the plans for the Enterprise and looking at the model, the most of the lifeboats seemed to intersect grid lines and on the studio model, the life boat hatches trump the grid. Also, there is a missing 'notched' window right in front of the 'Captain's Yacht'. My decision was to sand down all of the life boat hatches in favour of making them decals.
For both the upper and lower saucer halves the egg shaped oval is actually one piece with scribe lines vs. the misshaped 'ticks' on the model, so that had to be fabricated. I also decided to add a registry light. That was trick as there's no way to hide it and since this isn't a 'canon' ship, I could justify it.
Finally the paint...this the colour of the life boat hatches.
That's it for now, happy modelling and look for my next update on the Polar Lights/R2 USS Enterprise Space Seed Edition.
Cheers!
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