1/350 Klingon Bird of Prey - Improving the AMT Kit

[Neon Nautilus]

I've also added the 'cloak strip' to the back edge of the wing. The existing kit detail seen in this shot that I posted earlier has been removed (in a huge shower of shavings!).

Then a strip of my laser etched 'cloak strip' has been glued in place centrally down the back edge of the wing.

Next I added a 0.38x0.5mm styrene strip either side to finish off the 'cloak strip'.

These strips also extend around onto the top and bottom of the wingtips.

The wingtip is almost finished, still a couple of spots of filler that need sanding smooth.

 

[rms77]

Really nice work. That laser-cut tank tread material you’ve made looks great. They used that stuff all over this model! The round section on the wing tip looks so much better now.

 

[Clerval]

Sooo many shavings! I genuinely have to brush myself down after every session!

Well that just sounds like a good Friday night but ah... yeah we're talking about your model.
Coming along great.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

Well that just sounds like a good Friday night but ah... yeah we're talking about your model.
Coming along great.

Thanks Clerval!

Really nice work. That laser-cut tank tread material you’ve made looks great. They used that stuff all over this model! The round section on the wing tip looks so much better now.

Thanks rms77! Just got to figure out how to get the resin GS gun parts to work with it now.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

Here's a little update with some more work on the wing tips. I realised that I'd cut the very tip of the upper surface too short, I'd misinterpreted the ref, thinking it should be cut at the height of the 'handle' that hangs off the wingtip. So, I grafted on some scrap 1mm styrene sheet and reshaped the ends just on the upper surface.

At this stage I turned my attention to the gun fairing.

I was going to use the kit parts, just thin them down and reshape a little. However, after cutting them free from the original wingtip parts, I realised they were quite undersized compared to the studio model. They don't sit as high and are a little less full in shape.

Here's the part attached to the original port wingtip with the starboard one already cut away. Also some pics of the fairing parts after separation. You can see on the side view that there's not much plastic left to work with due to the hollow molding of the rest of the wingtip part.

So, as you may have noticed by now, I like to make things as complicated as possible for myself. Rather than just use these parts my brain was working overtime on possible solutions to fabricate a new part. Where it ended up may or may not work but it's going to be fun trying.

I decided to vacuum form new parts. I don't have a vacuum former and the cheapest I could find are the small dental machines, but they're still £170. So I'm going to try and make my own.

To start off I made a wooden buck for the part. The shape was first marked out and roughly cut and belt sanded to shape. I took a little too much off the front so glued some more wood on and blended it in. This was then further refined with a hand sanding block until I was satisfied with the overall shape.

Here's a shot of the piece in place on the wingtip whilst checking the size.

I've tried to make it slightly smaller than I need to allow for the thickness of the styrene sheet I'll use to form the piece. The finished part is bisected with a ridged strip down the centre so my intention is to cut the vac formed piece in half and bridge with a laser etched ridged piece. This will also allow me to tweek the size and shape a little too. I'm waiting on some materials for the vac former build so will update on this in a later post.

For now I put this part to one side and got the panelling in place on the wingtip. The port side (right in the images) was a lot easier as I have great reference for that side. Unfortunately all the images I have of the starboard side (left in the images) aren't very clear on detail so I've had to use images of the Nice-N replica for ref that I linked several posts back.

It's so nice to be cutting panels for a flat surface for a change!

 

[Neon Nautilus]

In my last post I mentioned I was going to have a go at building a vacuum former. Well here it is! Top left is the vacuum box itself, below that is a two part frame for holding an A6 (105mm x 148mm) sized sheet of styrene. The bulldog foldback clips are for clamping the frame together and then onto the vacuum box.

First step is to sandwich a 0.5mm styrene sheet between the two frame parts. The lower part of the frame is thicker so that when it's placed over the vacuum plate the styrene sits about 2mm above the surface. This allows space for the vacuum to pull the styrene down.

Next I set up the vacuum box. I designed it to have a port on the underside to fit the end of my vacuum cleaner tube. It's made up of 5 layers. The hole on the outer and innermost layers fits the hoover tube perfectly; the 3 middle layers are slightly larger to allow for a layer of felt around the inside wall of the hole. This creates a solid seal and helps hold the tube in place.

Here you can see a view from underneath my workbench with the vacuum box clamped into the bench and the hoover tube inserted.

Finally I placed the form I'd made onto the vacuum plate. It's held down with some some double sided tape and I've smeared a little vaseline over it to help with removing the shaped styrene. The felt gasket is to ensure a tight seal between the frame and the vacuum plate.

All ready for the first try! I start by heating the styrene sheet with a heat gun, it's an old Black & Decker I inherited from my Grandad. I keep it a fair distance from the styrene to avoid bubbling up the surface; just took it slow until I saw the sheet start to droop. As soon as it did I quickly pushed it down over the vacuum plate and hit the power button on the vacuum cleaner. There was no time for pics but here is the result!

Oh man! I was so pleased!!! It worked exactly as I'd hoped. I messed it up a bit as the frame went on a bit crooked, that's a skill issue though and I'm sure I'll get better with subsequent pulls. I've also got some webbing in the finished result but for a first go I couldn't be more chuffed!

I did a bit of research on how to avoid the webbing and raising the form and adding a skirt will sort that. I CA glued a scrap piece of 6mm thick MDF to the form, then trimmed and rotary tool sanded a bevel to the edges resulting in this.

That worked much better, here's the result and my first usable part. I'd also changed the thickness of the styrene to 0.75mm as the 0.5mm was stretching a little thin over the form. I also found I could heat it less than on my first go and still get a good, if not better, result.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

As it's a bit tricky to photograph all stages of the vacuum forming process, here's a video to show it. It starts about halfway through the heating process.

I stopped the video a little short, below is the demolding complete with the very satisfying sound as the styrene pops free!

If anyone is interested in having a go at this themselves, and is interested in buying one of these vacuum forming machines, drop me a message to discuss.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

The next job I've tackled is laying down the I-beams on the underside of the wings. The look I'm trying to replicate can be seen in this pic of the studio model.

As shown in a previous post I've already done this for the starboard wing. There were a few things I wasn't happy with though so I stripped them out along with the stepped pieces as I'd like to redo the work. Because I'd started laying the I-beams from right to left I ran out of space and the left most I-beam was cut in half to fit the space. It was also damaged at the corner. You can see it in the top left corner of the image below.

The transitions of the stepped pieces into the raised area (outlined in red in the pic below) was not very clean either. I've also recently worked out that this outlined area does not appear to be indented on the studio model. Rather it is built up from stacked plates.

In the above pic you can see I've already removed the I-beams. In the following pics I'm removing most of the raised detail from the outlined area. First with a rotary sander, then chiseling and scraping with a #10 scalpel blade. I'll rebuild this once the steps and I-beams are in place.

To lay the I-beams I start at the inboard edge of the wing. It's held in place, then I brush EMA plastic weld along the inner edge before trimming the end off.

To get consistent spacing I hold a 1mm square styrene rod between the I-beams as I position and glue them.

This is repeated for 14 I-beams on each wing until all are in place. The studio model had 12 on each wing so I'm not totally accurate here. I'm using a styrene I profile of the closest dimension I could find, and getting the right looking spacing meant I ended up with 14 strips. For me, that's fine on this occasion.

Unfortunately I also ran out of I-beam strip so I've had to buy another pack in order to add just one strip on the port wing. I totally had enough until I decided to redo the starboard ones! I've also ordered some 0.3mm x 0.25mm strip as I'd noticed there is a very thin strip on top of each of the studio model I-beams. This will come in very handy for detail around the rest of the hull. There's lots of thin strips and this will save me a lot of energy trying to cut consistent width strips from sheet styrene.

Here's one more update pic as I've panelled and detailed the port wing tip. You can also see I've been adding additional detail strips to the 'feathers' on the main wing. Lots of tedium and more to do here so I thought best not to show loads of in progress shots.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

The new pack of I-beams and styrene strips arrived so I was able to finish off what I'd started in the previous post. The 0.3mm square strips were lined up centrally along the I-beams and then a lightly loaded brush of plastic weld run along to stick them down. Too much plastic weld on these super fine strips turns them to goop so I had to go carefully.

Once these were in place I could start working on the stepped sections as seen in the below images.

To make these I'm layering six pieces of 0.25mm styrene sheet. I first cut out 150mm x 20mm strips from the sheet Plan is to make a long stepped piece that I can cut into 4 individual pieces.

I scaled up an underside view of the studio model on my phone to match 1:1 with my model. From this I worked out that each step would need to be 2.4mm deep so I made a guide to which I could butt up the sheets each time I added a layer. This would help keep each step a consistent width. First image below is the guide, in the second you can see it being used to position the layers.

I ended up finding this to be too much hassle to get right though and instead just used my calipers to help position either end of each new strip 2.4mm away from the edge of the previous. Once positioned hold in place and run plastic weld along the front edge of the strips.

To glue the back half of the strips I'd gently lift the edge and apply Revell Contacta underneath. This would then be spread out evenly by running the glue bottle's applicator through the gap. I'd then rub the barrel of a pen over the top of the stack to push the layers together and smooth out the glue.

I ended up redoing all of this as I wasn't totally happy with the end result. Eventually though I had a couple of usable pieces.

Before cutting the steps to fit, I needed to extend the width of the area next to the indented vent. For this I lined up pieces of styrene strip. The vent is at a slight angle so some wedge shaped pieces were added to square it up ready for the steps to be added.

The steps are at an angle, so to cut them to fit I first butted the back edge into position, then marked the overhang from the wing and cut. In the image below, viewed from the top edge of the wing, you can see the steps protruding from underneath. I've marked them with a pencil line and then cut by pushing a razor blade through it along the line, guillotine style.

I'd then mark the other edge and cut before tidying up the edges.

I added a strip on the inner edge as I'd noticed on the studio model there is a piece that extends down from the steps between the I-beams.

The stepped piece was then glued in place and the process repeated for the second wing.

A similar process was then undertaken for the second step piece on each wing.

At this stage I had a really strong urge to...

Feels good to see it taking shape!

 

[Fett_Ish]

This thread is the best and I love watching all this fiddly work. It’s amazing!

 

[Neon Nautilus]

This thread is the best and I love watching all this fiddly work. It’s amazing!

You're so welcome Fett_Ish! It's great to know the efforts in not just the work but time taken to photograph and post is appreciated.
Will have some more to share soon, I'm trying to work on the model every day, even if just for a half hour.

 

[edge10]

Agreed, top notch work!

I can also now steal your fingerprints as well!

 

[Neon Nautilus]

Agreed, top notch work!

I can also now steal your fingerprints as well!

Ahhh man! I'm now going to have to spend even more time pixelating my fingertips in all the pics!

 

[Neon Nautilus]

A little more work on the wingtips to share here. I noticed on the Nice-N model that the domes on the underside of the wingtips are separated from the wing all the way around apart from the oblong structure at the rear that connects it to the wing. I'd not really noticed this on the studio model pics before but after a second look at one of the B&W images I could see it.

The Nice-N model is pictured on the left (viewed from the rear) and the studio model pic is on the right (viewed from front).

I'd already created the separation on the outboard side of the dome shared in an earlier post. To cut the gap on the inboard side I used a drill bit in my rotary tool a little like a milling bit, then refined with a scalpel blade. I don't have any pics of the process but here follows some images showing before and after.

This is the before pic, you can see the dome is still connected.

In these shots you can see the gap has been cut. I've also sanded and scraped flat the raised panels. Extra cloak strip was also added to complete the ring that's now visible through the gap. This was repeated for both wings.

Now the raised panels have been scraped flat I needed to replace them. So I applied masking tape and, as I have very limited reference for this area, used the Nice-N model images as a guide to draw in the panel shapes.

First layer template marking for both wingtips.

First layer panels cut from 0.25mm styrene sheet and glued in place.

Second layer panel template marking (I only have an image of the starboard wingtip at this stage).

Second layer panels cut from 0.25mm styrene sheet and glued in place.

The third layer consists of applying various lengths of 0.5 x 0.25mm styrene strip.

 

[Neon Nautilus]

Next up is to replace this greeblie positioned behind the dome. I'm using the Nice-N model for ref as I cannot find clear reference for this in my images of the actual studio model.

I'd already cut away the molding from the kit parts whilst carrying out the work in the previous post. I also shortened the oblong part that connects to the dome by about 1.5mm.

Here's a step by step on how I formed these parts. To start off I cut the basic shape from some nice chunky 2.0 x 4.8mm styrene strip.

This formed the core to which I added a strip of 0.25 x 0.75mm styrene strip to the top.

Next I cut a 2.0mm strip from some 0.5mm styrene sheet and glued that on top of the previous strip.

I then padded out the shape on the outer edges with the same 2.0 x 0.5mm strip. I sanded all the parts flush and rounded the corners of the outer edges a little.

These were then panelled with a strip I cut from 0.25mm styrene sheet. It was first glued on the top edge, then bent around the side and glued. I then cut it to shape before adding a second piece to finish of the panels shape.

Finally a circular detail was cut from 0.75mm dia styrene rod and glued to the rear.

The finished parts were then glued in place onto the wingtips.

Here's how it looked on the original kit part for comparison.

 

[publiusr]

Top notch detail!

OT…The new BoP variant

 

[Neon Nautilus]

Top notch detail!

OT…The new BoP variant

Thanks publiusr, much appreciated!

 

[Neon Nautilus]

A mini update here to share some work I've been doing on the starboard wingtip.

Firstly I've added the cables that can be seen emerging from the main wing, wrapping around the wingtip and entering the disrupters.
These are made from 0.35mm styrene rod.

Flipping the wing over you can see the work I've done to detail the underside of the wingtip where it joins the main wing.
It's all roughly there but I'm not claiming 100% accuracy on this area. I've been working from lo-res studio model pics with tons of compression artifacting, cross referenced with images of the Nice N model, plus a little artistic licence to get the look I want.

It didn't seem worthwhile taking step-by-step images on this. I've just built the details up using various size and thicknesses of styrene strip, rod and sheet cut and bent to shape.