This is the Stargazer
Models Discovery from 2001: A Space Odyssey – one of my favourite fictional
spacecraft. The model is available from Starship Modeler (http://www.starshipmodeler.biz/shop/index.cfm).
Stargazer Models did an
excellent job on this kit. The model is a real work of art – very nicely
designed and cast, and very well thought out from a construction perspective.
I chose to attempt something I’ve never done before – lighting a model,
which slowed my glacial pace of model building down to geologic timescales as I
tried to figure out how to do it. In the end, I decided on lightsheet from
Miller Engineering (http://www.microstru.com/Experimenter-Kits.html) and a 5 mm
LED lighting a cored out pod with fibre optic cable run through for the
headlamps.
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The lighting required a
fair bit of surgery on the resin bits, but in the end it came together
relatively easily. My soldering skills certainly need some work and I was
completely paranoid about having the system just short out on me!
The cables for the
lighting are cored below the main 1/8” steel support rod and make a right
angle down through one of the collars and are passed through the brass support
tubes. The light sheet requires a separate power supply which required
sending two types of voltage to the command sphere. One 4.5V DC for the
LED and then a lead from the lightsheet power supply. Luckily there is
enough room behind the Pod Deck to house the wires, connectors and resistor (for
the LED). The wires are fed underneath the base to a Radio Shack housing
to hold the power supply and connected to the wall transformer.
From a construction
perspective the hardest thing is aligning the spine components – I used a
small alignment jig with 11/16th runners to help out, and decided to use a
slightly larger copper sleeve to build the components on and then slide them
onto the steel rod. It’s still hard to maintain the correct alignment
and I can see where the spine bits are off slightly. From a distance you cannot
tell.
For painting I used a primer coat
followed by flat white. Then with six different grays, I masked some
panels off on the command sphere. Then dulled everything down with a
thinned light grey, followed by Payne’s grey oil wash. Overall the
effect is pretty good, although in some areas it is a bit dark. Plus in
reality I could have likely used only two or three grays rather than six – you
really cannot tell the shade differences.
I had a great time working on this
– I love the subject and the casting is really first rate. It’s large
though - 30 inches long plus a bit for the extended pod! Oh well, we
don’t use the dining room table anyway!
Graham Symmonds
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