OlCabour's Hangar

Back on this wip after a very long absence.

While the paint was drying, I go into a small scratch Shuttle Tydirium around a blue 2mm micro LED. I reduced 3-view blueprint for a length of 1.2 cm. The metal rods welded on the LED are embedded in the upper wing. They bring electricity from the connector hidden in the hangar bay.

The 2 escort Tie are only 4 mm long. The wings are plastic card, the rest is cross of brass rod welded and some white glue to the central ball.

It is time to finally close the box, so the whole upper part is installed, glued and screwed to the bottom part.
The back requires a bit more attention (cyano glue and putty) to prevent light leakage.

Last adjustments before painting:

• Realization of covers of the light rods (otherwise too bright)

• side connectors covers (tubes and tank wheels)

• the canons of turbolaser turrets are awfull as is and are replaced by a simple brass rods

• the turrets locations need wedge so that they are level horizontally.

Before:

After:

• the screws are hidden behind small squares of plastic card.

• Obviously, it was just cured when I realize I forgot fiber on a belly outgrowth ! Too bad, the holes are filled with plastic putty. Grrr!

Next is the setting up step of the electrical and lighting circuit.

Ventral Electric supply

Side electric supply

As the bridge is removable, connectors are done with plugs.

The 3 main thrusters are warm white LED, they are entrenched in truck covers (clear resin parts provided in the kit), painted black then aluminium.

The 4 secondary thrusters are cool white LED (they indeed have a bluish tint on the studio model). They are glued to bottom of tubes, themselves fit into the tubes glued on the engine bells, which will be fixed later.

On the set of model, some bulbs were exposed in the trenches, and lit comprehensive areas in the trenches. To avoid over-lighting the trenches, I use light rods (the bulb being so remote and hidden inside the model).
These light rods are made from frosted clear rods, tubes and warm white LED.
These 11 rods are then glued to the back of the trenches.
(unfortunately, no photo of the installation step)

As I am not sure of me with these light rods, so I placed a switch on the sub-circuit, hidden in the details of a side trench.
A second switch is placed on the sub-circuit of the engines, in case they would interfere during photo shots.

To facilitate transport, the bridge will be removable.
To hold it in place while remaining removable, I made a sort of plug : I used wood stocks, glued on each side, and 4mm aluminum rods.

The aluminium rods are glued on the neck side. Everything is held in place during bonding.

If a metal plate is screwed onto the bridge wood part to prevent the rods to go too far and damaging the optical fiber and LED to come.

It finally slid a little too well, so I put some masking tape on the rods to slightly enlarge the diameter.