Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

Zubie, I think you're right about Cameron going for a Vietnam War vibe (foreshadowing about all that military might, as Newt says, "It won't make any difference"). It's great visual storytelling, like Ridley Scott does: he doesn't hit us over the head with it, and probably very few conscio...

The "brown color" you have heard of is the discontinued Humbrol 170 "Brown Bess, " or MC6 in their catalog when the movie was made. It's not exactly brown. It's like olive but with some red added to make it less green. I think if you showed it to different people, you would get d...

That may be the problem, that it's a fool's errand. I always loved Humbrol for brush painting - my favorite experience with it was brushing gloss dark sea blue onto a Corsair, and all the brush marks magically leveled out. I don't recall if I ever tried to airbrush it. But settling in the tin, the p...

I wanted a quiet compressor that wouldn't wake my wife up late at night, so I started shopping around. I noticed compressors with different brand names (Speedaire, Paasche, etc.) looked exactly the same. This told me they're probably mechanically identical and all made in the same factory in China. ...

WraithVerge: Thanks for that suggestion! I will try this, though I think I will use sanding films. I have a bunch of decal paper from Bel Decal (who went out of business) and as carrier film goes, it's thick and glossy, so I'm not too worried about sanding clear through. (Incidentally, I'm already s...

I still have an ALPS printer that still works. But I don't use it often because I can usually get away with printing decals on a laser printer. But I've gotten some really nice results with the ALPS and want to use it again. (Specifically, I want to print black and white hull markings for Space Batt...

Here is a trick I just found out about yesterday, so I haven't tried it yet: boiling aluminum with eggshells. The fellow responsible for this excellent F-101 says he used this technique: http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/G ... tt/00.shtm

That would be Ross Waddell. He gave a very informative talk in 2013, the only time I actually made it to WF.

For lighting clear models like the 1701D repop, that first layer of black on both the inside and outside would help reduce the amount of light traveling sideways through the plastic and coming out the wrong place, like nav deflector light coming out the windows.

Not for everyone, but I use those resharpened micro carbide bits that come in random assortments from places like Harbor Freight. They have a 1/8" shank and come in sizes down to #80. My set has lots of #80's, which is good because they're easy to break. I use the smaller diameter bits in my Dr...

Great build. A couple of Lee Stringer's greeblies don't match those in the screencaps, so you can still improve on his work (i.e., stand on the shoulders of giants). Notice the rebel flag has only 11 stars instead of 13, reflecting the actual number of states that seceded.

Acrylic resin is supposed to work great. It's a combination of acrylic polymer powder and acrylic monomer liquid. The mixture cures to form solid acrylic, the stuff plexiglas is made of. Turns out it's used in nail salons. I bought some in a beauty supply shop for about $10 for both the liquid and p...

I was going to suggest using a drill press. The bit would deflect a bit, so you'd need to peck at it, and horizontal pilot holes at the correct height might help. But Kekker's suggestion is brilliant. His must be the best way to get neat holes aligned correctly.

How about a DIP switch? Digikey has a bunch of single position DIP switches.
Mostly these are about 6mm long, but maybe you can find one that isn't much bigger than the .1" pin spacing for through-hole. There are are even smaller half-pitch ones, if you're up for SMT soldering.

Don't be too hard on yourself. A lot of people have trouble with Round 2's decals. Also, that inner ring of decals looks like there is no way to get it to fit. And, yes, battle damage is the traditional and fun response to all modeling disasters. (In grade school, my attempt at scratchbuilding the H...

The way I described should let you make very uniform rungs, especially if you make jigs and fixtures (you know that without me telling you, Gary!), but boy, will it be a lot of work! I hope people appreciate it when they see it! Incidentally, I was just thinking about something similar when you ment...

Gary, if you're thinking of individual rungs (that is, each rung is anchored in the surface so there are no side rails) then it might look something like this . This is something well within your capabilities. Drill two columns of precisely spaced through-holes, about a scale 16"-18" apart...

Pop the chip out of the socket and check the capacitors and diode with your meter. One of them may be fried. If everything is okay, you could try it again with a different 555 chip in the socket--worst case, you end up with 2 dead timer chips. Test it with a 9V battery first. If you can't find the f...

Something else in the circuit is causing the chip to draw too much current. Perhaps something happened when connected to the wall wart, but that's just speculation. My execrable soldering skills are often my only guess why when my circuits don't work.

For starters, when it worked, was a wall wart supplying the power, or a 9V battery? Timer chip circuits often don't work with rectified AC since it will trigger them 60 or 120 times per second. The chip is overheating now? Then too much current is being drawn though it. Your mission, should you choo...

Just for the record, which Klean Strip product did you use? http://www.wmbarr.com/product.aspx?catid=72&prodid=77 Strip X in the gallon can: http://www.wmbarr.com/product.aspx?catid=72&prodid=119 I had it for stripping paint from furniture and cabinets, and decided to try it on a model. Wor...

George, I don't know either what resin your Norway was made from, and it might be a softer resin. I notice the paint stripper you used is a spray, though I don't know what difference that would make. Fortunately, the shape of your kit is still okay, so hopefully some puttying and sanding can restore...

OK, so Arduino can't put out much current. Transistor switch, easy fix. I just remember Transistor Man when wiring those. Picture is from The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill. Great book for those of us who need to build circuits but don't have time to go get an EE degree. As for flyback prot...

I suspected you did something like this: http://www.instructables.com/id/Cheap-2-Way-Bluetooth-Connection-Between-Arduino-a/ I bet the Arduino puts out enough current to run the motor. But the BT board might not even put out enough to run more than one LED. What BT board did you use? How does it con...

Thanks Glorfindel! That Rub-n-Buff technique in the youtube video is pretty neat. Adam raises a good point in the OP about the problem of scratching off the metallic basecoat. Depending how much metal is exposed will probably determine whether it's a product like Alclad or Metallizer, or metallic pa...

Hairspray works great. It remains water-soluble after it's dry. You paint over it with acrylic, which remains porous for a while after it dries until it's well cured. This armor model was my first use of the technique, applying acrylic white winter camo using a brush and an airbrush, then wetting it...

You already have one that flickers. But if you want to use it to make another LED flicker, you can put it in series with the one from the tea candle. Some people freak out over series LEDs like bacon bits at a bar mitzvah, but it works fine if the second LED operates with the same amount of current ...

My wife bought some not too long ago at Walmart. We had nearly run out thanks to Hurricane Sandy.

Those cables probably are solder. They're smooth. If you want a texture like braided hose, you can take fine twisted wire (don't throw away those old earbuds!) and wet it with superglue. It stiffens it enough that you can form it something like solder. On another note, there was only the one filming...

Here's the Olympia at Penn's Landing in Philly. Obviously repainted many times, but clearly white from the waterline to the gunwales, and what looks a lot like sand yellow from there up. I'd be leery of painting the "white" part any color but white: it sure looks white in period photos (i...