Chris Ford’s Enterprise C part 2
Start with part 1
Explosive Detail
This now left me with two saucer halves full of patch-work covered holes. I knew in my mind what I wanted the detailing to look like and just prayed that it would turn out o.k. In a number of “Trek” filmsthat show a main starship coming under fire, I noticed that when hit with a photon torpedo or some other damaging device, a gaping hole is rarely left with twisted and curled metal at the hole’s edge. Rather, the explosion seems to have an “eaten away” effect instead. I based my detailing on this effect (see photo above) as it looks effective and I also thought it would be pretty quick to complete. Boy, was I wrong ! I started by painting silver, some 1 mm square lengths of plastic strip (made by a company called Plastruct) followed by (when dry) a partial blackening with matte black Humbrol. Then, for each hole (on the outside of the saucer) I measured where the circular pattern detail “used to be” and cut a piece of the 1 mm sq. strip to that length.. This was curved slightly with pressure from my hand and glued into place on top of the blackened brass plates. For the radiating lines effect, I measured each section that needed to be added (usually in millimetre lengths), cut it from the strip, and glued it into place. It was this that took the most time
Numerous times I found myself working with lengths as small as 1mm, and in all cases, it had to be done with a pair of angled tweezers, good lighting, a steady hand and a LOT of patience. It took me just over a month to complete the saucer top and bottom explosion detail, working a few hours each night. In some cases I angled and bent the 1mm sq. plastic, giving an effect of twisted metal to the superstructure (see photo to the right). The time it took was worth while as the completed effect was very realistic. It appears as if the outer hull layer has been exploded away, exposing the skeletal structure of the starship, and in some cases, even that has been blown away, all revealing the secondary hull layer.
This same method of covering the explosive holes with brass splatter-painted metal was applied to the starship body while it was still in two halves. Once this was done, I joined the two halves with super attack glue with some quick drying araldyte along the inside seam.
Once all of this was dry, I was then able to putty the outside seam. When this was dry I sanded and re-primed it and fitted the warp engine pylon section. This had been constructed earlier, it’s seams filled sanded and primed and had 4 colour coded wires passing from one end of the section through to where the warp engines would sit. (One pair would be used to light the blue EL filament used in the engines (approx. 117 volts ac) and the other to light the running lights and the Hydrogen collector (6 volts dc)
Lighting
I had decided to fit fibre optic windows, as opposed to carved ones. In these cases I would normally fit a fluorescent lamp but the Enterprise-C didn’t have enough space. So I used long fibre optic strands, taken from one of those “fibre optic flying saucer lamps” currently seen in many shops. They possess superb light transmission properties with an excellent bend radius and don’t react adversely to Super Attack glue, a type of cyanoacrylite glue I use. I had previously drilled out selected windows with a tiny drill bit and inserted a strand of fibre optic material through the hole, attaching it on the inside with a small amount of Super Attack glue. Prior to fitting all of the window optics, I glued down all of the colour coded wiring which I’d soldered to the LED’s and gathered them together at one end of the saucer. I did this to both halves, although on the saucer ventral side I cut a hole for all the wiring to pass through. I could foresee that if I didn’t, when all of the fibre optic strands were in place, this wiring could interfere with their stability when it came to securing the two saucer halves together. It didn’t take long to get all of the fibres in place. I bundled the dorsal fibres together and passed them into a small “pot” (made by Ertl for the purpose) containing a single 6 volt grain of wheat bulb.
For the saucer ventral fibres, I attached another grain of wheat bulb over the central area which also allowed the lower dome to be lit. I gathered these fibres into a bundle and secured them to the front of this lamp using Blu Tak. I used more Blu Tak to seal the lamp from any light leaks, allowing for a small air pocket around the bulb. Once all this was done, it looked like quite a confusing mess of things, but it worked. I gathered all of the wiring together and glued the saucer halves together with super attack glue, clamped the whole set up and left it there to set for 24 hours.
The starship body was a bit harder to fit the fibre strands as I could only work through the deflector shield opening using tweezers amidst a maze of wiring passing through the body and out through the bottom and top. The (engine) wiring needs to be completed before adding the fibre optics. To wire it up afterwards, would result in a good number of fibres breaking or becoming damaged. This too was time consuming, taking four evenings to fit approximately 80 strands. Once they were ready, I gathered the strands together, trimmed them and fitted them into another one of those Ertl pots , made for that purpose. This pot was then pushed into the model body. At the start of this project, I had thought about showing the deck structure of the body having been partially blown away, but when I realised all the fibre optic strands plus the electronic wiring that had to be accommodated within this already limited space, I decided against it. Perhaps it best be left as a future project.
At this point the saucer was ready for painting, but handling it was like picking up a hedgehog. Even just setting it down meant that one or two of the protruding fibre optic strands got broken. I decided then to remove the protruding fibres.
This is something I would normally do after painting and I would recommend it. By removing them meant I had to paint around each fibre optic window, which was very time consuming. I got there in the end though. For the starship body, I painted it first, then drilled and added the fibre optic strands afterwards (pulling them through one by one with tweezers via the deflector shield opening). This was a much easier compared to how I had fitted the saucer section.
I now had a completed saucer section in one hand and in the other the completed body and pylons (see photo 9). I wired the saucer to the body (red to red, blue to blue, etc. – it’s why colour coded wiring is used; to make the job easier & more accurate), insulated the joins with electrical tape and used quick drying araldyte to mount the two sections together. At this point, all that remained was to complete the warp engines and lastly, add the deflector shield.
