USS Cygnus 1/700 - The Black Hole

[szarchie]

I have been a fan of the USS Cygnus from Disney's The Black Hole since it was released back in 1979.  Showing how old I am now!

The MPC kit that was released left a lot to be desired and it wasn't until the advent of 3D printing that technology could do justice to the design.  Thankfully, someone far more capable than me created a stunning 3D model and offered the parts, via Shapeways, to build the Cygnus at 1/700 scale.  This roughly translates to a 5ft replica when complete.

My son and I are going to be building the Cygnus and I hope to chronicle the journey here.  We decided we wanted to try lighting the model as it's really meant to be displayed fully lit.

First up is putting the laser-cut acrylic armature together.  The various parts were sent to Pololu to be cut and I can highly recommend their work.  We are using epoxy adhesive to make sure the armature is as strong as possible.

[RU41]

Nice subject. Looking forward to your build log.

[star-art]

It will be great seeing one of these come together. BTW, while epoxy will certainly work, the strongest glue joints in acrylic are achieved with a solvent like WeldOn #4. Just keep in mind, this stuff is absolutely toxic so don't use it indoors and don't breathe the fumes!

[szarchie]

(04-14-2021, 04:06 PM)star-art Wrote: It will be great seeing one of these come together. BTW, while epoxy will certainly work, the strongest glue joints in acrylic are achieved with a solvent like WeldOn #4. Just keep in mind, this stuff is absolutely toxic so don't use it indoors and don't breathe the fumes!

Thanks for the tip.  I was not aware of WeldOn.  Sounds nasty but I will have to look into it.  Cheers!

[szarchie]

Some more progress on the armature. Mostly work on the center section.

Also starting to figure out the blue LED lighting for the rear engine section.  

[szarchie]

Some more progress on the center section of the armature.  It's a lot like watching glue dry........







Engine lighting test



Subassembly for the connector between the center and stern armatures.



Stern armature test fitting.

[szarchie]

Lots and lots of test fitting on this project.  Just when I think I have something figured out I realize later that it's not going to work and I have to rethink it.  No real instructions with this one so lots of trial and error.  In my case, more error than trial....

Some progress on the armature and figuring out how to connect the stern.  Also some lighting progress.

[szarchie]

Working on attaching the Center, Bow, and Stern armature parts.  Lots of test fitting......

I did make a temporary stand for the armature to elevate it off the bench, which makes working on the model much easier. Also started running the lights through the armature to see how that would work and look.

It's definitely fun to temporarily add the parts and see the classic shape of the Cygnus start to come together.

[Satazius]

Gadzooks that is super-cool.

[szarchie]

Started prepping some of the smaller armature parts. Wanted to make them hazy but transparent so the lighting is diffused. I used Rustoleum Frosted Glass for this which worked pretty well.







I was really scratching my head on how to paint these complex parts. I was contemplating spraying from a can but was concerned that I would deposit too much paint and some areas are really tricky to access. My son suggested using some sort of dye so we ended up doing with Rit fabric dye. You have to heat up the dye to about 90 celsius and then immerse for 5-10 mins, which worked great. The parts were nicely colored and there was no accumulation of paint. The dye is absorbed into the material so all the details are preserved. Very happy with how that worked out.

[szarchie]

Not much to report. Making slow progress on the armature and adding strips that enclose the lighting. So hoping I got all the wiring right as going back in well not be easy. Also temporarily added some of the parts just to see how they look. It starts to look like the Cygnus pretty quickly once they are added.

[szarchie]

Been a while.  Life stuff getting in the way of building models!

Started to make some progress on the stern section.  Mostly adding the ship parts to the bottom of the stern armature and checking the wiring and fiber optics along the way. Amazing how the iconic shape comes together so quickly once parts are added!

[Joseph C. Brown]

That is looking gorgeous!

[szarchie]

This post is a bit picture-heavy but made some progress on the stern section. Getting the engine lighting in place was a bit challenging but I think it was worth it all when we did the lighting test. Starting to look like the Cygnus!

[Joseph C. Brown]

Wow! That is looking so awesomely cool!

[szarchie]

Been a bit slow on this lately. My son is back in college so its taken a bit of a hiatus. But some small progress being made on attaching the stern section to the main armature. There is a ton of test fitting needed on this model. I don't know how many times we had something "figured out" only to find that we didn't anticipate something else. But its all part of the fun in building this model

[darkimmitator]

wow !!!

[szarchie]

Another lengthy gap between updates.  Wrapping up the stern section.  Really nice to see it coming together.  Also, starting to pay more attention to the bow section and how that will be assembled.  Its a bit of a puzzle and will take some additional "engineering" I think.  The parts do not fit as well as the stern.  Maybe this is where Primitive Dave lost steam with the project, not sure.  

[szarchie]

A mix of things for this update.  I started to test fit the bow section as well as dry fit a bunch of parts on the center section.  Starts to really look like the Cygnus when the additional parts are on.  For the "nest" parts in the center I had to remove a few mm from the transparent parts to get them to sit properly on the spine sections.  Easy enough but was not expecting that.  The bow armature box sits in the bow structure nicely but there were some extraneous pipes on the inside of the piece that had to be removed.  I just snipped them off with a clippers and then the armature box fit perfectly.  Again, was not expecting that but was an easy fix. Test fitting the wires that will power the engine lights was also fun. Figuring out where to channel them through the scaffolding structure was a bit of a puzzle.  But all part of the fun of this project.

[Bjorn]

This is looking fantastic!
One of my favorite films from my childhood. Thank you for sharing.

[szarchie]

Probably too many pictures for this update but here goes. The connection between the bow and the center armature parts is a major pain in the ass.  I guess this was not really finished or it could be that I am just not looking at it correctly. Either way I just could not get the parts to fit properly with the original design so some improvisation was needed. The armature part between the two areas need to be significantly slimmer so thankfully my son's skills in Solidworks saved the day.  He redesigned the parts and I had them recut.  That was a whole other drama with Pololu and file formats but I have to say their customer support was unbelievably amazing.  The large hole in the piece was designed in for running wires.  Now the armature insert sits flush with the 3D printed model part which it was not doing previously. 













While I was waiting for parts to be cut I continued to detail out the center span. There are tanks that fit into either end and they are a bit of a puzzle. I figured it out eventually from looking at reference pics but it was a head scratcher.

[szarchie]

I am sure there are better ways to build this model and if I was ever to do it again (probably zero chance of that) I have learned a lot and would do things very differently.  I needed to work on the model from below so I made a jig to hold it turned over.  Worked out pretty well and was a lot easier than stooping down and trying to contort myself in various ways.  





Also worked out the wiring to the front engines.  I had to cut holes in the engines which was another delicate job as I was trying to make it as inconspicuous as possible.

[szarchie]

Wrapping up the bow section and gluing all the parts on. The fit was a bit fiddly as several parts have to be glued at the same time, at least the way I did it.  I also lined the dome housings with silver foil to try to help with reflecting light and adding a bit to the brightness of the LEDs.  Not sure if it actually did anything but it didn't hurt.  Starting to look and feel like the Cygnus........finally!

[szarchie]

Been working on a base for the Cygnus model in parallel.  I got a bunch of extra detail stuff from Marc Noonan and he had designed a pretty cool base to go with the 1/700 Cygnus.  I got the parts/layers cut in acrylic at Polulu and again there was just an insane amount of back and forth with file format issues.  But the level of customer support and patience was amazing.  Massive shout out to Arthur Rodriguez there for all the help in getting everything sorted out.  I ended up going a bit off script from Marc's design and opted to go with a translight image of a black hole with the Cygnus flying into it. I got it printed at the FedEx store as they have the material and really big printers!  I didn't have the highest resolution images to work with so its a little dodgy but the overall effect is nice, I think.  

The base effectively became the power supply for the lights in the model.   My son designed a part to hold a switch and a plug for an external power supply.  We had to cut a slot in the acrylic layers to make it fit. Acrylic is seriously a pain in the ass to cut and work.  I guess if you have a laser cutter its awesome but I do not so lots of sawing and filing to get it to fit.  Attaching the model to the base was also pretty traumatic as there is a share of handling of the model itself needed.  Luckily the Cygnus is pretty light but its very delicate.  So we were really glad when we had it attached.  The top 3 layers of the base were adapted to form a "lid" that can slide up and down the brass supports to access the guts of the base.  We installed some magnets to help keep it closed but also ended up adding some registration tabs so there is no movement of the lid from side to side.  Pushing hard to get this done over the Christmas holiday!!

[szarchie]

Full steam ahead!  The end is in sight so motivated to getting this done. Another day or so of work left I think. Because of the bow fit issues there were some significant gaps in the pipes that span across both sections.  It was big enough that it was bothering me to the point where I had to try to fix that.  With some more fiddly work with styrene pipe and some brass rods I managed to get it to an acceptable place.  Not perfect by any means but unless you are looking up close it does the job. I tried to match the original paint and failed miserably.







Next up were some of the detail antennae parts.  These were extras from Marc Noonan and did not come as part of the Primitive Dave model. They are really nice but also really delicate.  Prepped them and mounted them on some brass rods for the bow array and the bigger basket antennae we mounted on aluminum tubes that allowed the fiber optics to pass through.  Then painted them and mounted them onto the pyramid like frame that goes over the front domes.  Also added the mast/spire which all adds up to a cool looking but seriously delicate piece.  And that had to be done in duplicate, one for the top and one for the bottom.











Also got the base more or less finished and when closed up with all the wire hidden I think it worked out pretty well.  Its definitely helps finish the overall piece.

[szarchie]

I think I am done with the Cygnus!  I can probably tweak it for ever and a day as there are things I would like to change.  However, it's been a long project and I think it's a case of diminishing returns.  Either that or I am just burned out on it.  Anyway, the final sprint was to add all the detail parts.  I added the "baskets" to the lights on the bottom of the ship.  I added brass rods to finish the top spine section.  I attached both of the bow antennae arrays without breaking anything, which was great, given how delicate they are.  They do add a nice sense of scale to that area.  There was also a lot of detail parts to add to the stern tower.  Lots of delicate horizontal spires and antennas as well as some sort of radiator array at the base.  I did break one of the top detail parts while I was putting it on and it took me as long to fix it as it did putting on all the other detail parts.  That was fun! Finally i added the tower antennae.  I am still amazed at detail that is achievable with 3D printing.  That part has some tiny details that I managed to keep intact.   In the end the all details definitely sell the majesty of the design and give it that epic, gothic feel. 

[szarchie]

The last two pieces were the Probe ship that was used to enter the Black Hole and the Palomino that docked with the Cygnus at the start of the movie.  Again these were provided by the amazing Marc Noonan and 3D printed at Shapeways.  The detail on these is so small and delicate that it was hard to get ones that printed successfully.  In fact Shapeways warns that they are too thin to print and you have to select "Print it Anyway". I broke these several times just handling them for painting.  But, I think it was worth it in the end as they fit really nicely with the Cygnus.


There was one very unfortunate development.  For some completely unexplainable reason the blue LEDs in the engines stopped working.  We spend hours trying to figure it out, got them back working for a bit and then lost them again.  I wish I could at least have gotten a few "Beauty shots" with them but it was not in the cards.  Maybe we will revisit some other time.  Definitely disappointing but not the end of the world.

I will get some better shots of the fully finished model later for a final presentation.  This was definitely the most complex model I have ever attempted.  I really enjoyed this project as an opportunity to spend some time with my son.  As he is in college now those opportunities are getter rarer so this was a gift in many ways.  I hope you enjoyed the build journal as much as I did putting it together.  Cheers!  

[Bjorn]

Congratulations to you and your son on completing this epic build.

It looks absolutely fantastic. I really love the lighting.

Well done!