Vidar_710

Grill graphics for the impulse exhaust. I'm no good on a PC so I'm drawing them out by hand. Oval Template made to separate the thick and thin grill lines. The ol' Elementary school making hearts for Valintine's Day technique to get mirror opposites. Templates put in place... Ovals left in place... Tracing over the expose grid lines to thicken them up. Oval templates removed... Not bad for free hand. Exhaust ports placed to see how they look.

I have that 757 kit from Titan as well. I also have the 777-300 since I've been flying them now since last Thanksgiving. Draw was nice enough to do the graphics on the American Airlines Red, White, and Blue cheater line livery for the trip 7. I've since asked him to do the same for the 75 kit. Tracy

Yes, I used it for the windows on my 1/100 Entex 707 project seen in the Airliner section. As a Star Trek modeler, it works great on windows there as well. Tracy

I did, just haven't been back to it. I have been working on the Excelsior project when I get the chance. I'm flying the 777 international now, so I'm gone more than I'm home these days. Tracy

Nice build... I have a 737 American AstroJet, and the P-8 on the roster to build... Suggestion to the wing lights. Use Solarez UV curing resin. On my 1/100 707 build in the airliners section, you'll see what I mean. I added railroad lenses in the wing tips and at the taxi lights positions and covered them with Solarez, cured it, then ground, sanded and polished to shaped on the wings. A little Tamiya clear Red and Blue, then buffed in with 2500, and 7000 grit sanding sticks worked great. Railroad lenses glued into place. Solarez glopped on, then cured with a

Upper surface contours added, more detail to come... Still roughed out shape with material yet to be removed... The bottom exhaust surface was added. To give strength and help hold its shape, lightweight filler was used in the cavity. Red glazing putty to fill in the scratches. After sanding the filler smooth... The 1.5mm styrene half dowel was used to add the final details to the top surface. The ports were too big, and the walls were too thin so additional sheet styrene was applied to

The impulse engine exhaust ports have been roughed out in sheet styrene. I will grind them down to their final shape after the cement has cured overnight. The ports are depicting by the vertical lines on the superstructure templates shown just above the ports.

The corrected shape for the rear of the superstructure is blended in with glazing putty The superstructure master is finally fully complete after a coat of primer to check for flaws. The aft end now finished, the footprint for the scratch built impulse engine exhaust ports is now realized, and so is the dimensions of the surface under the exhaust for the size of the graphics.

Finally getting the back end on the superstructure shaped correctly. Below is a paper template for the shape of the exhaust section. The Lunar Models part is nowhere near correct. You'll see me adding sculpting material to some surfaces and you'll see where resin material needs to be removed. A styrene template is made to go alongside the resin master as a reference on where sculpting material needs to be added and original resin material needs to be removed. Like I said, not even close to accurate.

Small update working on more graphics. The first image is the basic paneling that is under the impulse engine exhaust which is still in the works for proper fit. Here the weathering details have been roughly added just to see if I can do it by hand with a pencil. Side by side with my reference source. For right now, the graphic only fits widthwise. It still needs to be shortened vertically to fit as seen on the studio model. Tracy

I agree 100%. That is the model. I hear Rod Rodenberry is trying to get it back. I'm curious if it will be refurbished or left as is. IMO It belongs in the case with the 11ft model. Tracy

I have this kit. looking forward to the build. I have a 777-300ER already ordered as well. Tracy

I discovered a repeating pattern used in the Excelsior's trench (blackened in). The deflector grid is in 15deg pie wedges, but the pattern is only 10deg wide. This causes the pattern to vary in position from one wedge to the next. Furthermore, a copy of this pattern is cut in half width-wise to fill in under it for the inner half of the trench. The plan is to draw this pattern by hand in my scale so it can be scanned and cleaned up digitally. This will allow me to make paint templates using a cutting machine like a criqut.

Probably a spy.

Calling the master's pretty much done for top surfaces. There are blue panels that are on the sides of the superstructure that come next. A lot of clean up and tweaking was needed. Some of the fine pinstriping were too big and had to be completely redone to fit properly.

Good news... Vintage Flyers has finally created the masking set for this kit. When I receive them, I'll get right in to the painting of the bare metal TGA aircraft from the 1970 movie "Airport". Tracy

I'm posting this image again because I've made a discovery! If you look closely, you can see a thin silver line all the way around the blue field framing the bridge dome. This will be fun to recreate since Alps Printers that could print silver have gone the way of the dinosaurs. Note the railroad track paneling in the blue panels. Apparently, Bill George (the supervisor for building the Excelsior studio model) says these panels were painted using left over friskets from Death Star 2 in "Return of the Jedi". John Eaves is also looking into to these for me as well. He's friends with several

Beautiful build! You've done great work on this and your other builds. Tracy

The NX version of the studio model actually saw three names on it in the Trans Warp configuration: The Excelsior, as well as the Hood and the Repulse in early season episodes on the Next Generation. Other than name changes, the changes to the "conventional" Warp configuration with no painting changes were: The Bridge Dome, The round aft hanger bay dome to a box shape, and the removal of the single large Trans Warp dome for two smaller conventional ones. The Warp dome changes were actually no physical change to the model. They simply made a tomb stone shaped panel with greebles on i

Masking finished, ready to shoot the two blue colors. After drying, I could help but see how they looked placed on the masters to see if everything lined up. Pretty happy with the results. I do have quite a bit of clean-up to do from leaked masks. Then I'll scan them into my PC. All the paint masters all together.

Most of the pinstriping going in before masking off the main panels...

Since I was able to pull off the graphic for the primary hull, I've decided to create decals for the superstructure as well. This part will be a lot easier. Scratch-built NX bridge sitting on its paint template. The studio model reference for this bridge configuration. All the templates hand cut to the size and shape of the masters sitting in their respective positions for the decals. Reference for all the paneling and pinstriping that will be hand painted onto their styrene canvases to be later scanned, digitally

The last image above had an error in it and has since been corrected. The next layer of paneling had to be cut by hand as a stencil using Tamiya tape. Stencils set, Paint applied. Masks removed... Touch ups made and the darker blue boarder is airbrushed in. Calling it DONE! The painting was then scanned in, tweaked digitally, then test printed on to printer paper to check the fit to the masters... Here the test print is laid down over an image of the studio model.

Masking off the tan panels and the core of the superstructure's template is completed.  The Blue is shot... Masking removed completing the preliminary part of the paint work. Some clean-up to do, then on to the layered detail paint to come.

A test printout of the scaled up Round 2 decal is used as a testing pallet for progressing mixes of paint. I finally settled on the colors at the lower right. Yes, they are a little bolder than the images, but those are over-exposed due to the studio model being photographed outside on a sunny day. Masking off part of the Tan panels complete. I didn't want to be too aggressive with the masking and pull all that tiny pinstriping masks off. Tan panels done. Here, the spacer masking only has been removed revealing the double pinstripe d