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Bill Lehner's Romulan Bird of Prey |
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This 1975 AMT model represents the Romulan Bird of Prey (BOP) space ship on the well-written Star Trek episode, The Balance Of
Terror. It was a regal, deadly fighting ship of comparable power to the Enterprise. In the show the Enterprise's speed and maneuverability was offset by the BOP's ability to cloak itself in a
shield of invisibility and the extremely powerful weapon capable of awesome destruction. It was an equal to Captain Kirk's ship.
When I first saw the ship in the mid-60s I thought it was a stupid
design. My first impression was it looked like a space ship from the old Flash Gordon movie serials. It had fins and wings that weren't necessary for a ship flying though space.
Over the years I have come to appreciate and admire its design. The shape of the ship gives a simple, no nonsense, serious and strong look to it. It has an overall shape that seems to change with each different view.
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The AMT model making company issued this model in 1975 long after the Star Trek TV show series ended in 1969. Because the model was
issued so many years after the Star Trek TV show was canceled and the BOP was only used in a few scenes the model of the ship was not very well known.
AMT, in my opinion, was shortsighted by not re-issuing the model for the Star Trek twenty-fifth anniversary. Now it is a rare model and commands a price of $60 to $100 at Ebay.
Since the ship is not that
well known and there are not that many of the Bird of Prey models out there it has been a neglected model.
I thought I could give it a chance to get it some attention next to the other, more common and well-known, Star Trek models by attempting a nice build up of the model.
The AMT model is an easy to build model
with just a few large pieces. The easy model was offset by the impossible task of putting on the giant three-piece "bird belly" decal. While this model is seriously inaccurate it can be
disguised to look a lot nicer with a little effort.
I bought my pre-built BOP at a bargain price of $9.99 at Ebay.
When I got the ship and laid out the pieces that had fallen off going though the mail I surveyed the potential for rebuilding. All the parts were there except the stand. My first thought was it is not a proud Bird of Prey but instead a 'Pigeon of Prey'. This model had five sadly painted colors on it. A yellow-white bottom, brown top, an orange superstructure, orange and gold warp balls and purple warp engine exhausts. The paint job had either three layers of "house paint" or a terribly bad, brush painted, paint that rippled unevenly on every inch of the ship. The ship was just begging for a rebuild!
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A list of problems the AMT model had was the ship siding was straight, not angled like the TV show prop.
AMT never did supply a Plasma weapon with this model. The superstructure is too high. The tail fin is too thick and is too long where it wraps around the back of the ship. There are not enough sensors on the superstructure and the sensor sequence on the saucer is not right. The engine nacelles are suppose to have domes on the front like the Enterprise and not balls. Finally, the shape of the length of the ship is too short. With the exceptions of the tall superstructure and the ship proportion all the other problems can be easily solved. With work this model can be made close to accurate.
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My original plan was to simply repaint the ship a more believable color and to change the warp balls into the proper shaped warp domes.
Then my imagination went wild and I thought of lighting the domes, sensors, plasma weapon, impulse engines and a making a lit display stand. If I was going to do that then the model should also have the angled sides like the TV prop. My simple project just got complicated. The steps below explain the highlights of the project.
Removing the old and layered paint was easy.
A stainless steel pan with a cardboard box for a cover was used to contain the model. A couple rounds of Original Easy-Off oven cleaner, a couple of hours wait time between sprays and a little toothbrush scrubbing took the old paint right off without harming the plastic. I recommend you use plastic gloves when you do this. I'll give credit to whoever built this model the first time. The thick layers of paint protected and preserved all the detail on the model so when I stripped the old paint the BOP was like a brand new model.
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For the impulse engines I imagined a subtle red glow coming from the end of the saucer. With the help of JTGraphics Bird
of Prey decals I made two decals for the impulse engine area.
One of the decals was applied on THE BACKSIDE of the Impulse engine styrene panel. I applied Parafilm masking tape to the front side of the styrene, taped the styrene piece to the inside of my house window, cut and peeled the excess Parafilm leaving a masked areas for the impulse engines. The masked areas would be lit later with a red high intensity LED that originally
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came from a car third brake light bar.
After the model was painted the little engine masks were removed. Then the second engine decal was applied to dress up the area. Since the model now had a hidden, internal, bulkhead from the original model the inside bulkhead had to be cut with a rotary tool. This had to be done so the rear mounted red LED would shine through the back of the original models tail onto the new rear engine area.
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The fin was simply sanded down on both sides until it was half the thickness of the original. I knew when to stop the
sanding when I could see light shining through the plastic next to a strong light. The overhang on the rudder was filed to the new saucer angle.
Then the lower tail section was cut back to one half its original length and sealed with super glue. The super glue inside the rudder also reinforced the previously thinned fin.
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To light the 97-lit sensor arrays in the saucer area would be physically impossible because of the limited room for a series of lamps.
With the use of fiber optic strands and a single, white, high intensity LED the lighting scheme would work, and cheaply too.
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This picture shows the insides fiber optic and lighting in the ship. 1.0-mm fiber optic strands were attached to each
sensor hole and funneled though a washer to the inside superstructure where the LED was mounted. The washer was attached to the model with left over spruce from other models. The 5600 mcd
high intensity white Led was attached to the inside rear of the superstructure so it would reflect off the inside roof and help disperse the LEDs limited angle light.
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There are not enough sensor holes on the BOP model compared to the TV prop. The saucer holes are not supposed to be in a continuous
ring around the saucer ending at the tail. On the original TV prop the saucer has three sets of three sensors by the wings on each on each side of the model. Rather than to recalculate where to put on
revised sensor holes I just used the existing holes and made only two sets of three sensors. If I do not tell anyone about the different sensor arrangement no one notices the difference.
I put the fiber
optic "studs" into the saucer with one-sixteenth of an inch of the fiber sticking out. After the model was painted the studs were cut flush.
To "mushroom" the sensors for more light dispersion and break the monotony of flat sensors I used a couple of layers of white glue to build sensor "bubbles". I could have used heat to mushroom the optic but I didn't want to risk burning the model.
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The angled wall of the saucer's sensor lighting was also done with 1.0mm by one-half inch fiber optic stems that were simply
pushed though holes that were drilled through the wall of the model after the model was painted and the window decals placed. The interior of the ship was bright enough that the single LED easily
lit the rim sensors.
All fiber optic rim sensor strands were "mushroomed" with the heat of a candle before being inserted into the model. I didn't bother to glue these fibers because later coats of Future Floor Wax airbrushed on would seal the sensors into place.
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The BOP's deadly Plasma weapon uses a standard brightness yellow LED with 1.0mm fiber optic on both sides of a single strand of 2.0mm fiber
optic.
The plasma weapon was built from an old portable reel to reel tape recorder knob I had in the scrap box. I remember recording TOS Star Trek sound effects back in the 1960s from a TV speaker onto
that tape recorder's crystal microphone. This knob is fittingly appropriate to be on the model.
On to Part 2
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