Yet another studio-scale BATTLESTAR

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We're making good progress on the build so far. It's very tedious and precise work. Our goal is to achieve a very high degree of precision. That means everything should be square, plumb, and neatly fitted.

To that end, I have developed special jigs and tools to make construction as accurate as possible. This includes an expensive machined aluminum table that is absolutely flat and allows parts to be bolted and clamped directly to the metal surface during assembly.

Right now we have the main body and neck sections permanently attached to the armature. This required a good deal of fiddling and adjustment. In addition, both landing bay cores have been built and fitted to the rest of the ship. After final alignment of the arms is completed, the bay bottom skins can go on and then the end caps.

The coffin and pyramid that go under the main body were built a while back. Before we can fit them, however, a pipe sleeve must first be fabricated. The armature I designed goes together without welding because it uses IPS pipe. This allows the use of very special fittings. But, the outer diameter of this pipe is slightly smaller than the one used on the original Galactica. As a result, this replica armature must be modified where the pipe is exposed under the main body and neck.