Building Thunderchild's Shuttles with extras

[bgt01]

Time for some assembly! The hull and impulse sections went together well. I edged around the white “glue here” areas with silver Sharpie. Next went the wing section. After several test fits I used Super Glue gel to lock this in place. I didn’t want it lifting off the impulse engines later on. Next came the engineering section. Something is off somewhere because it didn’t quite fit. It’s narrower in the front than the white “glue here” area and it didn’t sit flush in the very rear. I don’t know if it’s the model or me (it’s probably me) but a little trimming got it to where it positions well. I used regular paper craft gel glue on it so I’d be able to shift it around some. Finally, the warp engines went on.

[bgt01]

The final piece is the optional pod that goes on top. This wasn’t on all the runabouts because they used it as a way to tell them apart on screen. It was on Rio Grande, so on it went. I raised the blue areas on the pylons by gluing them to 1mm chipboard, but I shouldn’t have because that makes them too thick.

I shaped the pod body with a wood dowl and joined the edges by gluing a scrap of white card from behind. I then added raised details. I added raised details to the pod ends and assembled.

[bgt01]

I attached the pod to the hull and the Rio Grande is ready to depart DS9 for the wormhole! I didn’t get the angle of the pylons right so the pod is too high off the hull. I’ll likely go back and fix that, but for now she’s ready to go. The end result is a very nice sized model with great detail. Cudos to Thunderchild. I guess I should build a crashed version to honor the many times these things bit the dust. They were almost as bad as the Eagles on Space: 1999!

[bgt01]

5. Shuttlecraft Galileo (TOS)
This is the shuttlecraft Galileo from the original Star Trek series. She is the first and most famous shuttlecraft in Trek history. This is a very nice model to build. It’s only flaws are in the paint scheme.

First up was the forward main hull. It’s a score, cut and fold piece. Again, I cut of the tabs and edge glued the parts. I glued the sides first, then the rear and finished with the bottom. Pretty simple. It also has paint problems #1: the front lower hull should have 2 small square ports just below the centerline to port. This has 1 solid black line. The 2 long black sections on the starboard side should be a square section with 3 rows of louvers. And the windows should be a little smaller and square instead of slanted on some sides. I didn’t try to correct any of this because at the time I was content to build as-is.

[bgt01]

Next was the rear hull. The lower rear section is another box-like structure that is just score, cut and fold. The upper section is the same box-like construction. They both glue together as shown. The rear hatch area is another box-like section, but it has some very small sides that have to be glued very carefully. This part completes the rear section. Then the two main pieces glue together to complete the main hull.

[bgt01]

Next are the engines. Paint problems #2: they are incorrectly marked “U.S.S. ENTERPRISE” when they should say “NCC-1701/7.” They are also marked on both sides of each engine when only the outboard side should be marked. I changed the markings to be correct, but forgot to remove the inboard ones. By the time I realized I’d glued on engine in place, so I left it.

The engines are VERY small (I hate small) and hard to curl. I didn’t have anything on hand that was the same diameter as the finished engines, so I made something by shaving down a toothpick. Once I got it to size I glued the engine to the pick at the glue tab and rolled it around in my fingers until it went into place. Then I glued the edge and trimmed the toothpick flush with the paper. It’s not perfect, but it kept me from squashing the paper and gave the model a firm base. There was no way I was going to get that tiny bussard collector built, so I went to my trusty stash of Glamour Glitz rhinestones and glued 2 12ss rubies into place, which look just fine. I used the small gray end caps, but I shouldn’t have. They look bad. I colored the ends of the toothpick with silver Sharpie and they looked much better, but I wanted to use all the parts.

[bgt01]

Next was the outer hull skins and struts. Paint problems #3: The small square on the lower port side should be red. I changed this with a red marker. The 2 black squares don’t belong there, but I left them. There should also be a tiny red square by the door just below the centerline that says “Push,” but I didn’t ad it. At this point I was still building as-is. But, I had to change due to the starboard side. It’s a mirror of the port, so it has a door where the real Galileo didn’t. That had to go, so I managed to recreate that side correctly. With all that done the skins glued straight to the hull. I was going to cut the wings off, recut them out of thick cover stock and glue them back on, but I went back to my as-is plan.

The engine struts are made to be cut, folded over and glued. That usually make a wavy, weak part. So I glued the parts to 67 lb. uncoated cover scrap and cut it out. That gave me to nice, thick pylons. I cut the center section out thicker at the top, otherwise it was too narrow and I would have destroyed it and the part would have been really weak.

On go the engines and the Galileo is ready to check out quasars, give giant space tapeworms indigestion, evade blobby alien lifeforms or transport space hippies to acid-filled paradises.

[bgt01]

6. Enterprise Shuttlebay/Cargo Bay Display
Before I started building the shuttles, I had the idea to build the various shuttle bays from the big Rawen Enterprise model as stand-alone pieces. When Thunderchild’s shuttles and Legal01’s 1:200 Enterprise redraw came along, they seemed like a perfect mix for a cool display. The shuttle bay is mostly a straight build, but I have made some significant modifications to make it closer to the movie version.

FANTAIL
Since I needed this to be a sturdy free-standing piece, I did away with the internal formers from the model. I glued most of the straight parts to 1mm chipboard for support. I used pieces of chipboard to make supports as needed. I started at the fantail. I glued chipboard under the landing deck area. I recessed the doors and the blue areas to the sides of the bay doors. I added raised detail to the blue areas for depth. I glued the interior deck to chipboard and used the model formers for support around the door area. I cut and curled the rear part of the outer skin and glued it in place. I cut out the red light areas above the bay doors and glued heavy metallic card in place. This wasn’t a great choice because the card doesn’t curl and glue won’t stick will to the colored side. It took a lot of fiddling to get it in place. Metallic wrapping paper or something pliable would have been easier.

[bgt01]

SHUTTLEBAY WALLS
Since I wanted to look into the bay I cut the walls off toward the roof line. The walls curve in so no chipboard here. I layered the wall “ribs” that go up and down and cut out all the hanger doors. I cut out the windows on the walls and the observation areas and glued some of the crew figures from the kit in place. For empty windows I glued black paper in place. This makes the bay look more lively. I used the TMP crew figures since that’s the movie we see this bay in, and I felt it was one of the few times the “pajama” uniforms would see use in a model.

I cut out the work bee areas and glued them into their box shapes. However, I realized the hexagon areas next to the work bees didn’t have a backing area. So I made some by modifying the work bee area in Photoshop.

I glued the gray internal frame pieces to chipboard and layered the details. I glued the walls and fantail pieces in place.

[bgt01]

CARGO BAY
This section took some work. I toyed with the idea of modifying it to have the correct 4-across storage layout we see in the movie, but decided against it. Instead I went for as much detailing as possible with what was there. I started by recessing all the storage areas and layering up all the little gray crosshatch braces. I also layered the wall “ribs” at the rear.

A big part of doing this was to show off the cargo bay. But, the cargo bay is designed to fit the model, and like all shuttle bay models once it’s inside you can barely see any of it. As such, the forward wall of the cargo bay by the shuttle lift area is blank where there should be more storage units. So, I Photoshopped a new piece for this area, keeping with the 3-across pattern for consistency. I glued the cargo bay floor and shuttle lift area to chipboard and fit the whole thing together with the rear former.

For the lower cargo bay walls I recessed the corridor and lifeboat doors along with the storage areas. The lower walkway was glued to chipboard. After a lot of test fitting, it was glued to each of the three walls. The model doesn’t incorporate the upper walkway shown in the movie. So, I printed out another and glued it in place just like lower walkway. I thought about making a railing like the one in the movie, but since the bay isn’t very movie accurate to start with I decided to same myself some work.