Greetings! And a Polar Lights NX-01 1:350 build

[kevr]

I was at my LHS today looking at model railroad stuff, passenger cars to be exact - man, I'd forgotten how fine the details were! I really had a new appreciation for the casting quality after working with this kit for awhile!

43 hours - I got a lot done in the last day or so. or at least it feels like it

Got the little bits for the deflector dish parts painted. I went with graphite metal for the supports, copper for the dish (as the instructions suggested, it seemed to match the reference) and a light gold for the center part. Here's a couple pics of the test fit before I painted the blue part:



Masked off the window part of the clear piece and hit it with primer for light blocking:



Once the primer set up I sprayed it with the metal paint which I'll be spraying the hull with. I don't remember exactly which metal I went with, some thing specific based on Steve Niell's build. Tomorrow I'll buff and seal it and then assemble the deflector, and that will be D.O.N.E. It'll feel good to get one part under my belt.

Went after the impulse engines some more. I removed those little details. I picked up some tiny rod styrene the other day so I think putting them back in later will be a breeze.



Then sanded them to a polish once they were flat.



I must say I'm impressed by how they came out. The front of them looks like glass! They look so much better now.




And then onto this - I've been putting this one off, I'm sure you can see why. Ugh.





I gave them a rough fill with Milliput. That stuff is great, I was able to sculpt for nearly an hour before it even thought about setting up. From what I could tell from my references, they look something like this:



Finish sanded:




Now onto the area between the hangar doors. There's a rough lip around the top section, and the hull needs to be seamed in. I filed the outside ends of the top down to match the bottom, then filed the front nearly flush with the bottom and applied some filler. I'll let it set up overnight and try to get this finished off tomorrow.




That's all for tonight. So I'm curious, what do you guys think? Am I being too anal about this kit? It just kills me to think about letting some of this stuff go, but I could be on this for weeks getting things to fit right and look good. I think the end result will be worth it....

 

[Wes R]

As long as you're having fun doing it keep going, it's when the tinkering starts to stop being fun you know it's time to move on and finish the kit. I'm jealous you have a local hobby shop, the never last around here and the 2 that were thriving are 45 minutes away. Kinda wishing i'd bought out the paint inventory at the one up north that was closing down when we visited. They actually had an NX01 on the shelf there that day, it wasn't the polar lights one either I don't think as this was around 2009/2010.

 

[kevr]

Quick update....

So I've really lost steam on this model, almost entirely because of the severe fitment issues. The more I looked ahead and test-fit pieces together, the worse it got. Almost every piece of the hull, nacelles and nacelle struts was going to have to be heavily modified - much like the flight deck area. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid to take on a challenge and do what it takes to get it looking good, but this was way more than I had in mind when I bought this kit, and it sure felt like things shouldn't be this bad.

I contacted Round2 intending to inquire about the casting issues and ask about ordering that missing piece but was only able to leave a voicemail - I'm still waiting to hear back, and I'm not holding my breath. In talking with a couple of the employees at my LHS, who have also built this kit, they were surprised to hear about the issues - the kits they had built were not that bad. After seeing the pictures they agreed I got a bum kit. Call me crazy but I took a chance and purchased another kit hoping that it would be better....

And it is. Sooooo much better. Not perfect, but not nearly as bad as the first kit. The details and lines are noticeably crisper, the edges are sharper, there's not nearly as much flash, and the fitment issues aren't as severe. It won't take 2 pounds of filler to make this one go together! I'm basically starting over, but I really don't mind - I get a 2nd chance to do things better, having learned from my mistakes so far.

So tonight I'm doing ....nothing. Watching a movie, to be exact. I'll dive into it tomorrow, it's been a long day. Just thought you guys would be interested to hear this.

I may not keep this thread going, there didn't seem to be much interest in the build. I'm guessing this kit has been built here a hundred times by now. If you all want me to keep going, let me know?

 

[Mike J.]

Glad you got a better one. Salvage whatever modded parts you can and throw the rest into the parts box.

Even though the molds are machined from steel, they do take wear from popping out thousands of kits, and over time the later models will have problems like increased flash, etc. It's also possible that your previous purchase was stored in a hot area and warped over time.


-MJ

 

[kevr]

Another update

Since I started over, I also started the clock over. 9 hours.

I've been hacking away at the stuff I'd done before, cleaning up the windows, casting lines, etc etc. I'm pretty much doing the same thing, with some exceptions, so I'll spare you all the details.

New stuff: I opened up the windows on the upper flight deck observation thingy and behind it in the hull to let light through. I drilled small holes and then opened them up with an exacto knife and then some needle files.




While I was at it, I also opened up the windows on the lower observation deck and the spotlights below them, which will receive fiber optics or maybe even a tiny 1mm SMD LED in each later on.



And I couldn't help but notice that the windows are pretty thin and large, and I could easily see inside. God help me, I couldn't pass it up:



I must be crazy, but here goes. You only live once, right?



The one in the above photos was a quick mock-up to get it right. Then I built it for reals and added some details to the inside walls with sheet and rod styrene: For the little protruding circles I drilled holes in the side walls and stuck rod styrene through from the outside. I forgot to grab pics of the detail-adding in process, but it looked like a porcupine for a minute there until I trimmed them all down.



Airbrushed some aluminum on the inside and hand painted the details:



I don't know what that stuff is in there, I was making it up as I went along. That reference photo above is the ONLY shot i could find on the whole wide interwebs showing the interior of that observation bay. The floor of the bay can't be seen from outside the model, so I'm not worried about detailing out the rest of the room - I can imagine that there's a control console and stuff below the halfway point on the back wall, but since you can't see it, I'm not gonna bother. But I like how the room is lit up red inside, so for that I salvaged a piece of the clear from behind the deflector on the "spare parts" kit, sanded it back to clear, dull coated it to diffuse and painted it transparent red. This will be the ceiling.



You might have noticed that the back wall is still white. I masked it off when painting, there's a reason. I made up a back wall graphic in Photoshop and will print it on a high resolution photo inkjet printer and affix it to the back wall. I made most of this up too, using what I could see from that reference pic as a general guideline. The two sides of the back wall look identical in the reference pic, (lord knows why - redundancy maybe?) so I ran with it, mostly because lazy won out. I know the details will get completely lost printed that small (it's only 12mm x 5mm!) but it's the idea that there's something back there that counts. The idea here is that light from the interior of the model will shine through the thin white styrene back wall and hopefully make those displays glow where they're not black, and also come through the red ceiling to give the room that red glow. We'll see if it works once I get the interior lighting installed - down the road a bit.



More another day. It's late.

 

[kevr]

Well, tonight I caught up on a lot of busy work to get me closer to where I was on the last model - gluing in the cannons, finishing de-flashing the windows and removing seam lines around the hull, yada yada...

With everything fitting better, things are going much, much faster. It took me maybe 3 hours to get the cannons to fit right on the last model because I had to grind away major material on the inside of the hull to get the angle right and then completely re-shape the holes! This time it took only about a half hour to do all 6 - it was only minor flash removal and they dropped right in. What a difference!

So not a lot of new progress, but I'll share what I've done. I glued in the upper observation deck. Got some filling to do there.




The front overhang. This is one of my favorite parts of the ship, it just gives it a cool, mean look, so I want to get it right. It fits better than the other model, but not by much. The entire thing is sticking up too far, and these sensor thingies are what's holding it up too high on the ends, so I sanded the bottoms of the sensors down until the curve came more in line with the rest of the hull. I did this on both ends. The left side looks pretty good but the right side is about as good as it's going to get, I'll have to rely on filler to make it right.



Here's where the biggest problem is - the middle of it. It sticks up too high and there's a gap between the overhang and the hull behind it where the two should be seamless.




there's a little locating pin with a spacer at the top of it up against the bottom of the overhang, to space it the correct distance away from the hull. You can kind of see it in there under the center of the overhang. The vertical spacing from the hull looks right to me when comparing it to the reference photos, so I want to leave it there.




That means the overhang is too thick causing it to stick up from the rest of the hull (and thicker than the reference photos IMO) and the locating pin is spaced about 0.5 mm too far forward causing the gap between the overhang and the hull. So the plan here is to cut off the locating pin (leaving the spacer), and use it to fill the hole in the hull. That will allow me to move the overhang back and seam it into the hull. Then I'll have to fill the seam and sand the top of the overhang down until it's flush with the top of the hull. That will also thin it out. I think it's going to cut the thickness of the overhang about in half. I cut the registration light housing off the top of the overhang so that I could get a smooth sand across its length. I'll put it back on later, probably using the fiber optic strand itself as the housing. That's the plan anyway. Wish me luck, it's going to be delicate work while doing a lot of rough sanding and shaping. Delicate rough sanding?

That's all folks!

 

[kevr]

So, some more progress:

Got the lower observation deck finished, ready to go in the hull later after I light block, paint, etc. I don't think it turned out too bad.



I might try to thin out those windows a bot more, we'll see how stable my nerves are when I get to looking at it again. If I think I can get them thin eough, I may use clear sheet for the windows instead of krystal klear.

Speaking of that, I have a question: How clear does that krystal clear dry? I also picked up some Modge Podge figuring I'll experiment with both. Any input on your experience or if there's a preference would be helpful.

Anyway, after having done this I might take a crack at the captain's ready room on deck A - that has a pretty big window too.

So here's something I'm doing different this time - I glued the sides of the flight deck into the hull first, getting those ribs flush with the top beam.




I'll try to seam them in a bit further along. I'll still have to finish this edge off with filler like the last time, but it's soon much cleaner to start with this time.




The sides and the hull don't quite match up at the bottom...



And the rear wall is too tall...



So a bit of persuasion (sandpaper) and things are looking better now.



The back wall is not wide enough to go all the way across:



Leaving a gap on both ends. But I have a plan for that...




The dry fit looks pretty good, I oughta be able to get a pretty clean seam when I glue it in.

But I can't do that until I seam up the sides, finish off that round-y rear part, and seam in the upper observation deck. The reason being that I have more working room with the back wall out, and I want to hit this area with a light primer coat first to make sure all my filler looks good and there's nowhere else I need to clean up.

Meanwhile, at the front of the ship, I figured I would start on that overhang. I cut that pin off, stuck it in the hull and did some light sanding on the overhang to make it fit a bit more snug, I'll get pics when I get back to that part. I wanted to get it ready for fiber optics so I could drill the holes in the back wall. But to locate them I had to get these drilled out first:



Those holes are 0.75mm diameter, drilled dead center of a 1.0mm target! It took considerable effort to make myself remain calm enough to have a steady hand at this - I still can't believe I pulled it off. It took me 4 practice holes on the spare part to sort out the best way to get this done. (kinda glad I bought a second kit now!) I figured out it worked best to 'center punch' with a #80 bit by starting a small hole first. I found that by angling the pilot bit I could correct the position of the starter hole in the first few turns in, so it was exactly center. Then I followed that with the larger bit.

In the 2nd pic, the hole on the right is drilled at a slightly different angle than the rest, which is why it looks off center, but on the face of this detail, it is not. I just hope it doesn't affect the angle of the light coming out the fiber optics later. If it does, I may try to correct it by angling the back of the hole up a bit. If not, I'm not going to worry about it.

And that was enough nerves for me this evening,

G'night all!

 

[OzJames]

Looking good so far. Looking forward to watching this come together. Great work

 

[kevr]

Thanks, Oz, I appreciate the words of encouragement! I can't wait either - all this boring sanding and filing will pay off in the end. I think I'll be getting to some preliminary painting this next week - at least of some of the smaller bits. I can't wait to see some color on it.

Sorry no real update tonight, but I ordered the fiber optics and control board. I'm about to that stage where I need to be drilling holes for fiber optics and figuring out how I'm going to do the nacelles and deflector dish.

I looked at the available control boards out there and decided on this one:
http://tenacontrols.com/page13.html

I got the first board listed on the page. It runs on 12v, which is easier to work with for the other circuits I'm going to be building, and the buzzard effect is the most accurate (I think) of all of them.

So here's the lighting plan:

There will be different groups of lights around the ship. The groups are:
control board stuff - nav lights, strobes, bussard collectors
interior lighting, warm white
inboard nacelle chillers and deflector dish
outboard nacelle chillers (they're a different color and intensity from the above)
impulse engines
spotlights (registration, shuttle bay, flight deck)
sensor arrays
red and blue forward sensor array (under the overhang)
Maybe, if I'm crazy, docking port lighting

Each of these groups will probably be a different brightness, so I'm going to pick up a bunch of potentiometers so that I can dial in the permanent resistor values for each group.

The model will be mounted via a mini XLR connector or something of the sort on the end of the pole, with power coming up through the base. I'm thinking of doing a Li-on battery and charging circuit along with a latching circuit inside the model to turn the power on and off. To activate the latching circuit, there will be a momentary pushbutton or (if I can pull it off) a touch sensitive switch in the base which will latch the power "on" so the model can be removed from the base while remaining lit. To turn it off, it will be reattached to the base and the switch triggered again. I have a friend who might be able to help me with the circuitry, I'm hoping it's doable because that would be really cool.

 

[kevr]

I didn't have a lot of time to spend on the model today, but I knocked out a few important things. Most of it was catch-up work, but the big thing is the impulse engines.

This is something I thought I could do better. I sanded the lenses flat and polished them again just like last time, then cut out some corrugated siding styrene I picked up at the hobby shop today. I cut it to size, glued it on the back of the lenses and trimmed and sanded them up. Gluing was tricky, I used CA because it's thicker and less likely to run into the little groves on the siding and in between the two pieces, ruining the look. It still wanted to run in. I messed the first one up slightly when I put too much glue on and it ran into the grooves too far. I had to peel them apart, clean it up, re-sand the back of the lens and cut a new piece of styrene. I used a very minimal amount of glue around the edge until the ends of the grooves got a seal between them and the lens. I did not apply glue to the short ends, it would have just wicked right into those grooves. Once I had the grooves sealed, I put on a thicker coat of CA to bond them.



The LHS only had this styrene in .040" thickness, which didn't let the light through as much as I wanted, so I thinned the styrene out by sanding the back down until it got thin enough to give me the amount of light transmittance and diffusion that I was looking for.



I'm really, really happy with the way they turned out and glad I decided to try something very different here.

Tomorrow is some more catch up work, same as before, so I won't bore you with that. I'll be drilling holes for the fiber optics in the next day or two, and once the control board is here (tuesday) I can start messing with some of the lighting and start working on the nacelles.

My friend is already spinning up his brain for the electronics - he suggested a capacitive touch switch inside the hull to turn the lighting on and off. Apparently it'll operate through the plastic, so I can affix it somewhere and then touching that spot on the finished model would turn the lights on and off. Pretty cool! I'm thinking I'll stick it under the bridge dome. That's the only place I can really think of...... If anyone has any suggestions for where else I could put it, I'm all ears.

 

[Mike J.]

Well, you could stick the switch in the base.

 

[kevr]

Mike, thanks, that was the original plan but I want to be able to remove the model from its base while keeping it lit (hence the rechargeable battery) which involves either building a latching circuit so the lights stay on when removed from the base (momentary contact switch in the base) or putting the switch in the model (capacitive touch switch that works through the plastic). We'll see what's going to work better once we start building the circuitry.

 

[brandomack]

Great work so far! You're going to want to think about adding an armature, as the rear end of the model has severe alignment issues. I ended up chopping off the back of mine and scratchbuilding a refit secondary hull.

http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=101387&highlight=nx+refit

 

[kevr]

Brandon, thanks for the encouraging words. Your build is impressive, I have a lot of respect for people like you who can scratchbuild this stuff. I wouldn't know where to start! If you don't mind sharing how you did the warp pylon spotlights on your model, it would help me out, I've been looking for ideas - most of the fiber optic stuff I've seen doesn't really throw light on the hull the way the movie CG's do (or at least it isn't coming through in photos) and that's something I want to achieve for both the nacelle pylons and the registration lights. Someone mentioned stealing yours and Ian Lawrence's ideas for the lights, but I poked through your thread and around Ian's website but didn't see what the idea was....

 

[kevr]

Brandon, can you point me in the direction of an armature? The only one I could find on a cursory search was the one by SIP, but it seems to be out of stock at the couple places I could find it. Any suggestions?

 

[kevr]

So I picked up a paragraphix photoetch detail set. It includes a bunch of stuff, a cargo bay and shuttle bay interior, docking ports, and some windows.



I'll probably use that enterprise graphic and the maybe the logo on my base. Neat. I had to see what these hatches look like.



And I couldn't stop there, I had to do the docking port too. Not too shabby! I like the level of detail this set adds.




All my lighting and fiber optics finally got here, so I had to play. I'm still working out how best to light the chiller grills. Once I sort that out, I'll post an update with the results but for now, I decided to try a couple things on a docking bay.

Here's the hatch from the flight deck lit up with 0.75mm fiber optics::






I grabbed one of the docking ports from the perimeter of the hull because I wanted to try out an idea for side lighting them:




That's 0.75mm fiber optics on the ones on either side of the port, and 0.25mm for the spotlights shining on the port. Man, that 0.25mm fiber optic is some fragile stuff! I'll have to be extra delicate when I'm stringing it. I drilled in from behind and up at about a 45 degree angle from damn near the bottom of the piece using a #80 bit. I could have gone #81 but 80 is the smallest my set contains. I'll have to pick up an 81 this weekend.

As an after thought, I could probably drill these straight in from the sides because I cut the fiber optics flush with the wall, resulting in an angled cut of the fiber optics. When I was messing around I noticed that an angled cut didn't change the angle at which the light emits and only hurt the light distribution. Next time I'll try drilling the hole straight in. I may have to lay down a thin coat of black on the outside of the hull because I'm noticing how the fiber optics leak light into the hull as they pass through. Is this necessary, or will the primer and topcoat be enough to block that light?

Anyway, the .75mm and the .25mm optics are on different LEDs. The .75 is on a standard cool white LED turned down pretty dim, while I had to put the .25mm optics on one of the cool white super bright LEDs (40,000 mcd and 9000k) that I bought for the registration and hull spotlights. This balanced the light between the two spots so one wasn't overwhelming the other and to give a pleasant ambient glow. Sorry my camera kinda sucks, especially in low light, but they look awesome in person!




I don't even know how or if these are lighted on the "real" ship - I couldn't discern any lighting on the drex renders I have - but accurate or not, I really like the effect and I think it's going to add a spot of depth to the finished model. I think it's ok to wing some of these details a bit and make it up as I go, especially when I can't find good reference and what I'm making up will add to the finished product.

Well, it's starting to get interesting! I can't wait until it all starts to come together.

 

[kevr]

Man, this prep work is starting to get tedious but at the same time it's getting interesting, figuring out how to integrate the lighting.Most of the filling and sanding on the saucer section is just about done. I'll be getting back to cleaning it up and finalizing it soon, but I have to do all the docking ports first because the 0.25mm fiber optic for those needs to be run before I can attach the sides to the lower section. Also the rear of the flight deck is just about ready to go together too. Now that the bigger pieces are getting finished up, I'm beginning to make a painting plan - I'm seeing areas where I'll have to pre-paint before assembly. Light blocking and white will go on once the sides are glued up.

I'm still mulling over the best way to light the chiller grills on the sides of the nacelles.

I turned my attention to the impulse engines. Here's the plan:



One section of an LED strip will be mounted on a backing about 10mm back from the engine grills. The two LEDs on the right are for the engines while the one on the left will wrap around and light the inside of that center section, what's it called, the warp field generator? You'll see what I'm talking about in a minute. These LEDs are cool white.

On that note...I noticed that the outboard chiller grills are a deep blue, while the inboard ones are a shade or two lighter. The impulse engines and deflector are an even lighter blue, almost a cyan. I figured out that a light blue tinting on the transparent parts and lighting with white LEDs gave me the shade I was after. The chiller grills will get blue LEDs to get that deep blue.


Anyway, the raised stop in the hull is too tall, it's going to block the light to the engines, so I had to cut it down.




My experimenting told me that I needed to get the LEDs at the correct angle and distance from the back of the grills so they would throw their light pattern in the correct spot and with the right intensity to mimic the reference:



To do that I had to get the end piece fitting properly and glued in place.




Getting the backing fitting into the hull...



...and then I built a structure off the back of it to hold that 3rd LED pointing into the center section. After a whole bunch of test fitting and checking the light pattern on the grills to figure out and mark the structure's exact position to get the lighting effect I wanted, I glued the whole thing in place.



Hopefully these single LEDs on each side pointing in are enough to give that blue glow to the transparent top of the center section. If not, I can add another LED in the middle. We'll see.

So here's the finished result.



As usual, they look better in person than through the camera. The camera is exaggerating an almost imperceptible difference in brightness between the two grills and also darkening up the color. In person, they look perfect.
I'm very pleased with the way this turned out. I hope things keep going this smoothly.

I removed the transparent grills (the were temporarily held in place with scotch tape) and masked off the LEDs in preparation for light blocking and white. In hindsight, I should have at least light blocked before this went in, but that's the great thing about hindsight. I'll light block before I do the other side.




Question: Does anyone know if these lights are strobes, or just static ambient hull lighting? (That's what it looks like to me.) They don't look like windows, and the parts for these holes are clear raised pieces like the strobes. There's also one of these behind each clearance light on the saucer section.



I promise there will be gluing and painting going on soon!

 

[kevr]

Well, it's been a busy week. Sorry it took so long for an update, but things are still moving along. I got all of my lighting in, including the EL strips I ordered, so the focus has been figuring out how all of my lighting and fiber optics are going to integrate into the model. Now that I've gotten into this a bit and my friend is working on the electronics, the whole battery idea has gone out the window. The EL strips and the warm white interior lighting strips require 12v, and it turns out that's not a "normal" voltage for small rechargeable batteries.

Anyway, these EL strips are perfect for the nacelle chiller grills. The color is dead on and it's a nice even glow across the entire surface. It's even the correct brightness, right out of the box.



These need to be mounted right up against the grills, so I cut some flat sheet to affix it to. I'll need one strip each side, so I got that all sorted.



A quick mock-up:



I also light blocked and finished off the fit of the impulse engines and engineering section, and then sprayed white in the center section for the interior lights that will be there.



And cut slots out of the ends of the nacelle struts to allow for wiring to be routed:




And that's enough on the engineering section for now, I wanted to get back to the saucer section. I cut grooves in the top to run 1mm fiber optics for lighting the landing deck above the bay doors. The fiber optics will be run through those channels, heated and bent at a sharp downward angle and the ends mushroomed to put the light where I want it. Then I glued the back wall in place. So that's pretty much done now.




I went after the docking port and ready room window on A deck. I thinned out the plastic here and shaped the openings. The port side got the hatch from the Paragraphix detail set, and I'm thinking of building a little ready room inside because that window is really big. Theres some minor mud work and cleanup to do yet. I also drilled out the holes in this sensor array to add 0.75mm fiber optics later. The fiber optics will go in the bottom three raised holes - I'm not sure if these are sensors or thrusters, I've found mixed information, but whatever they are they glow blue in the reference pictures. When I was playing with LEDs, I had a UV colored LED and I just couldn't resist using that cool futuristic color. So all of these sensors - thrusters - whatever they are will be lit with the UV LED. They're all over the ship, so it oughta look pretty cool.





Aaaaand finally, the overhang on the front of the hull.





I have quite a bit more work to do up here. The overhang blended into the hull behind it rather well, but I still need to seam it in. And the sanding process pretty much wiped out the front of the raised plates behind it. As much as I tried to avoid them, there was still damage due to the heavy sanding. I have some 0.015" styrene strips that will fit the bill nicely. I'll just remove the sanded down sections, replace them with the strips and blend it together.

So that's all for now. I bought my next kit, the polar lights 1701-A - that thing is HUGE! I can't wait to get this one finished and start on it!

 

[kevr]

Hi All, quick update, thought I would share the finished overhang. It's not perfect, but I'm still proud of the way it turned out - I think I'm getting better at this mudwork.




I'm working on running fiber optics and finishing up the upper saucer section. Hopefully I have both saucer sections done by the weekend so I can move on to the rear section and nacelles.

More later!

 

[Wes R]

Looking good. Wiring kits makes me nervous though it shouldn't since there's enough tutorials and i have Electronics for Dummies lol.