DeBoers Enterprise

[NemVia]

Well, everyone! This has been a busy year for me. The projects are coming along nicely and I feel I'm gaining some momentem. Unfortunately because of my peak season which will be starting sometime this week, I'm afraid I won't have much time or energy or the will to do much on these projects for the next two weeks or so. However, I've been able to get a lot of things accomplished since the last update. Noteably:

In the Enterprise build: I've added 26 new pics starting on page 3 slide 180 thru page 4 slide 205. I've begun working on the engineering hull. Like the warp engines there is a ton of putty and sanding work that needs to be done and redone. The bottoms of the hulls are the worst parts. They have a little bit of a valley in them which makes it very difficult for a nice smooth and rounded finish. I've had to fill in the old mounting holes on the 2 shipd that will be mounted from the saucer section in the drydocks and the other ship needed a larger bore hole for the mounting rod that will be used for the Mutara Nebula diorama. I have also added some new nacell mounting holes for when the engines are finally attached to the hull. I'm also going to add the lighting effects that are seen on wither side of the travel pod docking ports. To do this I had to drill out the old hatch doors and have rebuilt my own doors so that I can re-cast them in clear resin to allow for the small but interesting lighting effect.

Recasting a LOT of parts. This model was not inteded for lighting that is for sure. That is why all of the port holes need to be drilled out. But also, there are other pieces that need to be redone. So far I've recast the torpedo launching tubes, the lighting housing for underneath the fantail, the strobe light covers or domes for the flashing light effects, the airlock piece which I built at the begining of this project and have now finally got around to casting it into a single piece. I only need two of these pieces, that's why it took so long to get to. And finally the largest piece I've had to cast: the main deflector dish and the dish housing. This too was originally to be done as two seperate pieces, but I didn't like the way the hole drilling was turning out and I do not want it to look like a drilled them out either. So I recast these two pieces into one clear resin piece. I will then follow a technique that was used while building the Spacedock in STIII:TSFS where the entire plexiglass model was first painted over and then all of the spots that were supposed to be windows or portholes where lightly scratched off to allow the interior lighting to come through. I tried this on a scrap piece and it works out beautifully. I will have pics of this later on.

I just have a few more small things to add onto the engineering hull by way of detailing and then I will be ready to begin the painting which I am looking forward to doing.

Well, that's it for this update. Please be safe everyone. I will see you in 2012!

Take care, Mark
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