Building the Klingon Cruiser part 5 by Billy Lehner

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The LED in each warp engine positioning light was a standard intensity, 3 mm LED positioned behind the light casing that was thinned from the inside using the rotary tool. A fiber optic was glued to each LED and led out to the rear of the warp engine for the rear positioning light.

To simplify the electrical system I chose to use a dual power system to prevent the blinking lights from interacting with the static lights. The blinking lights were run directly from a 3-Volt transformer and the static lights were run from a 4.5 -Volt transformer in parallel circuits with resistors dropping the current to a level safe for the LEDs.

Wires are routed out the lower tail of the ship. The ship’s hull was then assembled, painted and trimmed.

The ships construction was based on the widely sold Klingon blueprints but painted the TV prop colors.

I used pictures of the original Klingon Cruiser prop for the color paint scheme. When the Cruiser prop was on display at the Star Trek Exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. back in 1992 I took photos of it. Color balancing the photos I determined what the colors were and custom blended the shades of paint for the model. The light gray frontal area was close enough to Testors Model Master Dark Ghost Gray but the other colors were custom made by trial and error. The shiny trim is Testors aluminum buffing paint and the shiny trim on the warp engine is a combination of aluminum buffing paint with the center painted titanium buffing paint. I used an Iwata HP-B and HP-C airbrush to paint the model. A little weathering with the use of the wife’s makeup and the job was complete.

Here is a photograph of the model with a photographic gray card. The card was carefully spot metered and exposed for middle gray. If you have a gray card available (it is easily picked up at a photo store) you can match your gray card to my gray card using a computer graphics program (I use Ulead PhotoImpact). If you do that then you will see what color I painted the Klingon Cruiser.

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