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First let me start by saying that Revell of Germany did a great job on this kit, the detail is outstanding!
When I first got this kit in my hands, I knew I was going to light it, I also knew that I would use fiber and a lot of it.
I had a ton of .5mm fiber I had pulled out of this old ugly Halloween pumpkin thing and this was the perfect project for this
fiber.
Most of my time building this kit was spent on drilling the individual holes and running the fiber. The engines were designed in
such a way the mounting LED's inside was relatively simple. I drilled out the engine nozzles and used metal washers to create a little detail and a clean opening. I then painted some clear acetate with
clear blue and placed the acetate behind the washer, I then had to create mounts for the LED's. I used 8 blue super brights for the engines alone. (photo. 1)
I originally thought that I would have plenty of room to work with inside the hull but once I had the 500+ fiber strands
installed, things got cramped very quickly. (photo. 2)
I built, drilled, ran fiber and painted in sub assemblies, super structure, dorsal half, ventral half, engines and the trench
pieces. (photo. 3 shows super structure during fiber run)
I used a total of 9 standard size white LED's to light all of the fiber. I grouped the LED's in three's and placed each
individual LED group in a clear tube (aquarium tubing).
This allowed me to place larger bundles of fiber in with each LED bundle.
I separated the fiber into bundles and placed them in the tubing. I then wrapped the tubing with electrical tape and made
everything light tight.
After wiring everything together, it was a challenge to get it closed up but I was pleasantly surprised when the ship closed up
nice and tight.
I ran just two wires down a brass tube in to a wooden base and connected a single a switch to a 4 AA battery pack.
To paint the kit, I used Polly scale acrylic German light gray as the base color and various shades of gray for the individual
panels. I used Gunship gray for the engines and dry brushed with a metallic. After coating with Future floor wax, I did a wash using burnt umber. After the dull coat I then added some weathering using
pastels.
I'm very please with how this project turned out. It's also nice to have a good kit to work with in the first place!
Bobby Hunter
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