SPA Modeler

I picked up this kit for the princely sum of $5 from a IPMS member who was thinning out their stash...



I started construction a couple months ago and built up all the major sub assemblies,















then it was sidelined, pending gap filling, seam clean up, etc, in order for me to finish up a couple other projects...
well now I have resumed the work and started the clean up work so stay tuned...

This not only suits your avatar, it's also a very cool project!

Yeah this is a nice change of pace. Although I did build this when originally released and do not remember it being so "loose" in fit shall we say... not that I paid much attention to such things back then....

seam/gap clean up... I have found that Squadron putty is much more malleable four pressuring into tight areas when dosed with liquid cement...





for some gaps in the bridge area I used sheet styrene shims and then cut and filed them to blend with the contours









After all the sanding, I added the warp engine nacelles





I left the shuttle hanger off until after some basic painting because of a decal that goes under the grillwork



after filling and clean up of the warp engine attachments I added the bridge connection boom



and finally the bridge housing once the boom had dried





all ready for painting the base coat now...

That's an interesting project Stik!

When I saw the pics, for a second I thought the kit was a resin kit, probably because of the special "resinish" green colour.

Love the scale of it, 1:537 !

- Kari

KSaarni wrote:Love the scale of it, 1:537 !

Yeah, the '7' makes it so comprehensible.
Talking of scale: A picture with a coin or one silk skinned modellers hand would be nice...

Looks like a though build with all that putty. Keep up the good work Stik!

mostrich wrote:

KSaarni wrote:Love the scale of it, 1:537 !

Yeah, the '7' makes it so comprehensible.
Talking of scale: A picture with a coin or one silk skinned modellers hand would be nice...

I'll see what I can do about a photo for scale... this thing is actually pretty good size now that its all in one piece. Almost the size of a 1/48 WWII twin engine bomber type in width and length... but there are no silk skinned hands at my workbench...

BorgR3mc0 wrote:Looks like a though build with all that putty. Keep up the good work Stik!

Thanks, I have just one fit problem remaining at where the shuttle hanger bay meets the grill area to figure out. I think a little more styrene work will be in order there...

KSaarni wrote:That's an interesting project Stik!

When I saw the pics, for a second I thought the kit was a resin kit, probably because of the special "resinish" green colour.

Love the scale of it, 1:537 !

- Kari

Yeah, sure, 1/537... that sounds so much more precise than the old "box scale" That color is pretty funky, isn't it. And trying to pin down the colors for this sucker is a real wild goose chase...

I just finished an airbrushing session for this build. In the original movie on screen, this sucker looks gray with a greenish tinge. On a site I found about the studio models they are called a dark military green (yeah thats pretty specific). And since the original model was reworked and repainted into a more pure gray for the 6th film, there is no way to go and see how it was. So I compromised and used Humbrol Dark Slate, a nice medium gray green shade. It took me three refills of my airbrush jar, and I still need to go back and do a touch up on the lower side of the boom. But now it looks much better than that original green plastic.











and for those curious about the size of this build, here it is with a standard 12 inch/30 cm ruler



after the touch up of the boom comes the fun part... hand painting all the deflector panels in varying shades... masking and airbrushing would be too time consuming...

That is a big one Stik!

Good to put the ruler next to the battle cruiser, it's big!
And yes, looks much better with this color

- Kari