Galileo Shuttlecraft from Star Trek

[bgt01]

MORE ASSEMBLY

The main body has been assembled for awhile, so I went back and added the raised detail for the two ducts on the lower port side of the forward hull. These ducts go farther back into the actual Galileo, but I didn’t want to get into creating an inner assembly just to have “deeper black” areas that aren’t critical to the look of the model.

[bgt01]

DOOR STEP

The door step has several mountain and valley folds. It basically forms a box on the back of the lower door section. I used my metal ruler to hold sections straight and flat while the glue set up. This kept any ugly ripples from forming on the outer hull section.

This whole section was then glued to the section of door cut from the hull. I used a light coat of Gel Glue spread with a toothpick and set the bottle of glue on the part while drying to keep it flat and avoid ripples in the skin.

[bgt01]

O_DOORS

CHANGES MADE: Changed shape of door windows to match studio model. Redid style and placement of pennant across door seams to match.

I carefully cut the door sections out of the hull. Then, I cut the windows out of the actual square sliding doors. I glued a piece of acetate to the back for window glass and let it dry thoroughly. I took the cut out doors and used my metal pick to poke holes in all four corners of each window. I then used this as a template for cutting out the back of the door skin for the windows. I used a thin coat of Gel Glue to glue one skin on and placed a heavy bottle on it to keep it flat while drying. Then I remembered how I wanted to do it and used double-sided tape to attach the second door skin. That worked better. Finally, I trimmed the doors to size.

[elliott]

Quite a detailed build. Your superdatailing is neat and clean. Very well done so far. You're doing well. Keep up the good work!

[gotham]

Very impressive build and love the extra detailing. I tried to build the original template some years back, but binned it through fit problems, which you have found solutions to - well done. Can't wait to see the completed model.

[bgt01]

The original door pockets are a box-like design that left the doors sitting more loose that I wanted. And, I wanted to make sure the pennant lined up on the doors and the hull correctly. So, I decided to scratch build a new door holder.

First, I laid the doors on the inside of the hull and marked their open positions. I found the forward door couldn’t be opened all the way unless it had one side trimmed at an angle to match the hull. Then I cut strips of 1mm white board and framed out the door section. This is just slightly thicker than the doors, so they fit much tighter to the hull. Because of the way I’m building it the bottom strip lines up with the centerline.

With the frame glued in, I cut pieces of white card to skin the back and hold the doors in. I slid the doors in and tested the fit and found I’d left a little too much gap at the top between the doors and the frame. I glued a very small sliver of card in to tighten it all up.

I’m leaving the bottom card section across the door until I get closer to sealing the hull up. I also cut off the little tabs the original door design had for opening and closing. My current plan is to attach two small magnets to the inside and use them for opening. If that doesn’t work, I will probably just put a small hole in each door at the strip and use my pick to open and close them. Either way it’ll look cleaner than those tabs do. There’s probably more I’ll have to address as I go with this new design.

[blake7]

Glad to be of help. I looked for build threads of this model before I started, by they were not that far along in the build for me to see how the doors and step were made. Your model is really looking great. Keeping an eye on this thread.

[Ekuth]

Crisp, clean work. Watching this with interest.

[spaceagent-9]

doing great, man!!!!

[bgt01]

MORE NACELLES

I still haven’t found anything to make a good bubble out of for the nacelle end caps. So for now I’ve trimmed the original ends to fit flush against the inner core of the nacelles and glued them in. This will match Galileo’s nacelles as they actually have recessed ends and the the bubbles stick out.