Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

Use a needle or a sharp toothpick, etc. to put a drop of either Micro Krystal Klear or a drop of clear Tamiya acrylic on each FO.

First, green lasers do produce a visible beam in normal room lighting without the aide of smoke, dust, etc. Red lasers need something in the way of small particles to "see" the beam, like smoke. Second, if mounted in a diorama, anyone that is close enough to get between the ship and the ba...

I had toyed with the idea of adding green laser pointers to my MIM resin kit as it is hollow as well. I wasn't going to use them as the "weapons" but was going to mount them in the three gravity projectors on the bottom. The ship was going to be pole mounted in a diorama. This would give t...

You want to use rosin core solder. Never use acid core solder. That stuff is made for soldering copper pipes and plumbing work. I tried pure silver solder and did not like it. It has a higher melting point.

For joining large VF pieces together glue small tabs along the parts length. This will give the other half something to rest on when the parts are joined. If the plastic is real thin go with super glue or real light with the liquid cement. To much liquid and the parts may melt. If you use a lacquer ...

Thanks DLM, it took first place at a contest at HobbyTown USA earlier this year.

Starmanmm I used a five zero brush to put a drop on the end of each FO. I would then do a light test. If it needed to be more red or blue etc, I would just add another layer. I think the most I did was paint the tips twice. The ends were mushroomed a bit, that helped them take paint better. I like t...

I used clear Tamiya acrylics on my Keaton Batmobile's dashboard. I used a single white 5mm LED. I built a small box out of sheet styrene with a hole drilled in each end. The LED was inserted into one hole and the bundle of FO was inserted in the other hole. This works very well. The blue glow is a b...

You cut it into six pieces and you have plugs included for five of them. The wires with the black ends are the individual plugs.

I think most people say to use the negative side. Not sure it really matters but I'm not an expert. I have wired many, many models and have always used the negative side with no neagative (pun) results.

Welcome o the forum! You have great advice so far. I think you may be close to me. I live in KY and Hobbytown is about an hour away in Lexington. Walmart in Danville is the closest thing for me. At least they have the road construction done up there!

Welcome Mr Engineer and fellow lightsaber builder! As much as I love Luxeons the way to go in the future for model lighting will be the new Rebel LED. I have been playing around with a few for a while and they are awesome. Oh, here are a few pics of my Lightsaber that I built, it uses a 5w Luxeon. h...

Here ya go!
http://www.beingseen.com/faq.html
And here-
http://www.microstru.com/
http://www.microstru.com/Experimenter-Kits.html

If your going to use fiber optics to light the windows then viewing angle wont be much of a concern. If your going to do interior flood lighting I would try to use as many LEDs as possible and mount them as close as possible to your windows. If you flood with a few in the center of the hull you will...

There are 8 LEDs on at a time. They chase each other 'round-n-round! However, to be faithful to the 4 footer, there should only be 6 on at a time.

This is who I have used several times. Pretty fast shipping all things considered.
http://stores.ebay.com/hktaiyuen-LED-st ... idZ2QQtZkm

Thanks Bert! I'm at work right now, so I will check tomorrow.

Edit- Just scored a Jupiter 2 (new box art version) on the bay for $40. Not bad.

Sorry, in the PM I sent you that was supposed to be "p"ostal, not ostal, lol.

Edit- Payment sent.

Thanks Bert. I missed out on one that was on the bay a few days ago. Someone sold 3 of them! I think they all went for about $30! I was so bummed! Now I just need a J2, lol.

Hey there DLMatthys, you have a pm from me.

Uhhh, you have a PM.

I have not used it for any modeling projects. It has the same properties as el sheet. I have not trimmed it at all in the past so I can't answer that. I'm sure others have used el wire and will chime in.

Have you considered EL wire? Here is a link. This, coiled behind it, should give a nice solid glow with some simple difusion. They have a lot of different kits available.
http://www.thatscoolwire.com/store/item ... %2DLZ%2D3V

Well, there is a purpose to everything I say. Hang in there my friend!

Thanks Bert!

I have 10 LEDs running off one 9v in my Martian War Machine. I don't leave them on but it's the same battery since I built it several months ago.

The battery powered one I mention above is also a color change. It uses a cluster of three LEDs in the base, red, blue, and green. One of the nice things about this one is that the fiber optics are held together by a clear plastic collar at the bottom of the bundle that easily pulls out of the lamp ...

Go to Walmart....go to the lamp section....look for the cheap $5.00 battery powered fiber optic lamp, comes in a clear tube....you now have 1000 12 inch long fiber optic strands. :D You will also be blessed with a small watch battery powered thingy with a female plug on it half the size of a remote ...

Here's another tip if your lighting windows, don't put the LED or cluster of LEDs too close to the windows (like a Refit saucer). Move them back, this will also help eliminate "bright spots"

Tamiya rattle cans are great. But like Saturn said may not match the cap. I just shot an Impala with their white primer (which was white) and then used their gloss white over that. The gloss white had a definite yellow tint to it. I used their semi-gloss black for my Keatonmobile and think that that...