________________________________________________________________
My White Star Whale
Well I’ve had this model for a few months now so I guess it’s time to start documenting this monster of a build!
This is the first model I’ve built in almost 15 years. In fact come to think of it, the last model I tried to build was an Enterprise! But after a little mishap with an xacto blade it ended up covered in blood in the trash and I was left with 10 stitches on my index finger.
I guess you could call it my white star whale. So it seemed fitting now that I’m older, that I give it a try again. And hopefully do it right this time around!
Little did I know though before buying this kit for my wife and I that it’s well known around the hobby forums as one of the toughest models on the market. It’s just a challenge on every level, both artistically and mechanically. Not to mention the shear scale. Holy crap, this sucker is HUGE!
Long story short, this is going to be a challenge. Especially since we’re planning on putting our own personal touch on this kit with photoetch copper parts and a full interactive lighting system that I’m building from the ground up, all courtesy of an Arudino and my trusty soldering iron. Whom I have named “Oww that f*$&er is HOT!”
Anyways all joking aside, I’m hoping we can finish to bulk of this ship before our son arrives in February. Though honestly I have no idea when we’ll actually complete this beast. But join us anyways why don’t ya! It’s going to be a lot of fun.
Now…first things first…lets talk about lighting this sucker up!
Glad to see you finally plucked up the courage to get started on this beast Doug!
I too was a bit concerned about the aluminum tape shorting things out (well, I will be when I evenually get round to tackling my big E), and have been experimenting with a second layer of tape (insulating this time) on top of the aluminum tape in the areas at risk – might be worth a try?
Going to be building the new PL TOS Enterprise? : )
Nice work so far btw.
Bernie
Hey Bernie! Thanks for the comment!
Ya the foil tape is pretty tricky. It reflects light amazingly and insulates your wires really well but if things get packed tightly, you’ll definitely start see some shorts like I was finding in my saucer. A trick I used was just using the wax paper from the backside of foil tape to kind of “sandwich” the problem areas. It’s a pretty simple trick but it took quite a few times tearing off the misbehaving foil tape to figure that one out, haha.
And ya I can’t wait for the 1/350 TOS Enterprise to get out into the wild. Did you sign up for the 1701 club too? It really looks amazing, especially because of the included lights and motors. No more headaches from Arduino coding! haha. Thanks again for all your help on that too btw!