The model building is coming along fine, so far. In all honesty, it’s been a long while since I built my last model. That was around 1999, when I put together the Enterprise-E for my mother. By the way, my mother is the reason I love Star Trek so much. I built and painted that model and it’s currently on a stand in her front living room.
Excelsior is kind of a different beast to build. Where the Enterprise was a bit more straightforward, Excelsior has a lot of detail that isn’t exactly explained very clearly in the directions. Now, I’m not sure how many of my readers do model building or not, but the first step is separating the parts as carefully as you can and then sanding down or cutting away any of the leftover bits that sometimes cling to those pieces. Once you have the pieces sanded down, you then need to put them together to see how they fit. Not every mold is the same, and sometimes you get a piece that might be a bit warped.
Well, that’s what happened to my saucer section. The top piece was perfect, but the bottom piece had a curve to it. I knew that regular cement wasn’t going to hold it in place unless I liked holding the pieces together by hand for an hour while the cement dried. A trip to Orchard Supply Hardware netted me bonded cement and just in case the stronger stuff didn’t work, crazy glue. Hey, don’t knock crazy glue. It’s saved my ass countless times in the past.
After I got the pieces to fit together, it was time for some primer paint. I bought two flat white primer spray cans, and after like maybe two minutes of spraying… I got light-headed. My buddy, Robert, had to take over while I took a walk out into the open. We were working in his garage, with the big door and the little door wide open and the fan going full bore, to create ventilation… but still, I was overcome by the smell and I hadn’t been around spray paint in a long time, so it got to me pretty quick. Once he was done with the primer coast, I came back in and started in on planning on the detail.
The model instructions called for Light Blue and Duck’s Egg Blue. Guess what? Not a single hobby shop I went to carried either. So, I chose Pacific Blue (which has a bit more green in it) and Grabber Blue (which has a darker, non-green tint). I figured I would use one for the underside and the other for the deflector dish. I started detailing… but I’m going to leave that for another post.
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Now playing on iTunes: Foo Fighters – Miracle
