Sulaco

[Mark Hansen]

That's fantastic! One question: Are the stands that its resting on based on the acrylic patterns?

[Thales]

Originally Posted by gotham

I have had this downloaded for some time now, but don't have the courage to tackle it (yet). Maybe something for the future. Great to see a build of this model. Great work.
Just had a gander through you photo album - getting itchy fingers, I so want to build this. Damn you sir, why is it so good !!

Be prepared to set aside some significant time. I am a bit of an obsessive builder in that I always have to be working on something. This one represents an entire year of vacations, weekends, and evenings after work.

I also quickly figured out that since there are so many large slab faces on this model, that cutting a slightly undersized piece of chipboard and laminating that on the inside vastly improves the structural rigidity when all is done. If you don't reinforce from the inside the end result tends to flex a good bit on something this size. So for any flat face that was more than about 15x15mm, I cut out a piece of chipboard and glued it inside and after that everything was much much stronger.

[Thales]

Originally Posted by Mark Hansen

That's fantastic! One question: Are the stands that its resting on based on the acrylic patterns?

Yes, Those stands are the acrylic patterns cut out of chipboard.

[Thales]

Also when doing this, I went through a whole bottle of aleen's, two boxes of toothpicks, 40 razor blades (if not more), 25-30 #18 blades (if not more), and a pile of art markers for touch up. HP made a fortune on me in ink. I think I went through 4 sets of cartridges in the 3 years since I started it.

Oh, and two cutting mats too... And I wore a slight curve into the edge of a metal ruler.

I wonder if I'm going to go through withdraw now that it is done.

[gotham]

Withdrawal, surely you'll just start the next project (there's always the next project, and the one after that, and the one......).

[nikischutt]

Beautiful build!

Question, the USS Kelvin model, where did you get it?

[Thales]

Originally Posted by nikischutt

Beautiful build!

Question, the USS Kelvin model, where did you get it?

I think I got it over here in the download area:
http://www.papermodelers.com/forum/v...ownloadid=1940

[Marco Scheloske]

Originally Posted by Thales

Yes, Those stands are the acrylic patterns cut out of chipboard.

Cool to see another SULACO finished, and an interesting use of my acrylic stand design.

[rgmarine]

Great work.

[Thales]

I showed the gallery to a few other groups as well. One of them contained an acquaintance of Syd Mead and they passed along his contact info. I ended up conversing with Syd for a while over the holiday weekend. He said that this model conveyed the heaviness and texture of the ship very well. He also shared some of the original concept drawings of the Sulaco where it wasn't a bunch of bricks stuck together. The original idea was for a number of spheres strung together with a large engine on the rear.