Federation Commander

Id be happy with a bit of a how to, , and thats it. Like pick one of the simpler ships you made and give a run down of how you put it together. I have never made anything like this, so its a bit abstract to me right now but I do want to do it myself as opposed to having anyone make them for me.

The photos you posted that I have been zeroring in on are the few that show a ship 'in-progress'.

Ok Kinshi,give me a couple of days,and I'll start off by puting up step-by-step construction pics of the PBS. I do use something in this model that R/C cars enthusiasts will recognise however.(I own a large collection of cars,in various scales). You will need a compass cutter,or failing that,at least a compass,in order to make a trianglular base shape.

I didn't say you had to rush into building a DN now; just that I would like to see what you could come up with at some point. Please don't force yourself on my (or anyone else's) account.

That said, the impression I get from the FRA R-section is that the dreadnought should show its design link to the BC; indeed, it seems that some of the engineers working on the BC planned ahead so that the DN extrapolation could be facilitated.

How much longer it should be than the BC, I'm not so sure; but I would picture it as being at least half as wide again as its stablemate.

It sounds as if the base template I made up is just about right then Nerroth, (see the bottom of page 10).
At the moment ,I have no plans to construct any other ships from this quadrant,but with me,you never know. I might just throw together a Questing ship,using a Fed cargo pod as a base,just to see how it looks you understand,but at the moment I can't envision anything else.

semperatis wrote:Ok Kinshi,give me a couple of days,and I'll start off by puting up step-by-step construction pics of the PBS. I do use something in this model that R/C cars enthusiasts will recognise however.(I own a large collection of cars,in various scales). You will need a compass cutter,or failing that,at least a compass,in order to make a trianglular base shape.

Thank you very much for taking the time to help show a noob a thing or two.

It looks like I won't get the time to get this started until the weekend kinshi,so please bear with me.

No problem..I am not in a rush

My two official OCA's just came through the post this morning,(boy do they look nice),so I thought that I'd compare them to my scratchbuit version. How close can you get,how's that for a guestimate then??? Ok,so my version has a bigger bridge and is slightly wider,but the OAL is exactly the same. Command cruiser anyone?

Very cool.

You did a great job coming up with the size without having the actual ship to look at - a tip of the hat you you, sir!

Certainly that could become a command cruiser, but you might not even worry about it. Several real world warships were in fact of the same class and with the same armament and weapons, but had visible differences. It could be that yours was an earlier or later build, or even a one off experiment that was converted back to being a regular cruiser.

Anyway, awesome job as always!

Just a basic paint job,but here's the three CA's. I've still to do the blue stripes down the centre of the hull,but my hands are shaking a wee bit too much for that today.

Dave, engines on the way...
Along with a bit of an extra bonus...

Thanks for that Tony,I haven't forgotten the deal,and I'll be adding a little something too. I'll need to send it to your comp though,as I don't trust sending photo's in the post. My plan is to not only pick up the rock,but to also take some pictures of the location and surrounding area too. The idea that I have is to climb Dumgoyne,( an extinct volcano only 7 miles from where I stay),and chip off a piece for your mum and take some panoramic pics of the valley from there. That way,not only will she get a piece of Scotland,but will be able to see part of it too.

As promised kinshi,here's the first of my step-by-step build articles.

Scratchbuild No.1:- _FRA Pocket Battlestation_

Basic table


Using the compass cutter,set to a 1" radius,score out a circle on some 0.060" card. Make sure that you don't press down too hard,or all that you'll score is a spiral.It's better to make a multitude of light cuts,than make a heavy cut that ends up wandering off line. We will be using the score and snap method for much of this build,as it's quicker and easier than trying to cut all the way through.
To the left of the pic,you can see both a thumb-tack and a silver disc with a hex,this comes from the R/C fraternity,the scale Drift crowd to be precise. This will be used for the central core of the station.



The raised cross boss will need to be filed flush with the rest of the disc.





Having marked out the circle on the card,it's time to mark off the circumference,so that you can mark out an equilateral triangle.



Using a pair of linesman's pliers,long nose to those in Europe,you can now carefully snap off the excess plastic from around the circle.



Next,snap off the arcs from around the triangle,but don't discard them,as you'll need them later.





Now mark off a triangle on the back of the 'brake disc',5/8" radius.( Be careful of the alignment in relation to the hex on the other side. You ideally want the points of the triangle to line up with the points on a hexside.)





Now using a pair of side cutters,not modelling ones,snip the shaft off the thumbtack. Then using superglue(Cyanoacrylate),glue the dome to the top of the hex,and cement the assy into place on the larger card hex,lining the edges up as best you can.





Now,what I want you to do,is to take the arcs that you cut off the card triangle,mark them off against sides of the smaller triangle thus.



Then snap off the smaller arcs that you've created,and stick them onto the model as shown.



Now we turn to the generator sections,these are just scraps of card cut to match a hexside in width,and just shy of the outer edge of the station in length.



Now,pick any unused hexside,and add a longer piece of card,to represent the hanger module,then it's time to hit the 0.010-0.015" detail card. Cut out two small panels and one long panel/section,(shield grid generators and AWR cooling grids),and glue in place as shown.Then cut three narrow strips for use as the hangerbay doors and glue into place.





Now comes the fun part,which will have you all cursing me,slice off some really thin slices of 0.020" rod,or thinner if you were lucky enough to find some. You will need a total of 14 of them,and glue then in place as shown,though the ones on the dome will CAREFULLY need to be superglued. For mounting the discs to represent the photon launchers,cut off the very tips of the base triangle,to give you a flat surface to glue the discs onto.





The only thing that remains to do now,is to drill a hole for the stand,and glue on some small pieces of card to represent the tractor mounts. Oops,nearly forget there,I said to cut 14 slices,but only showed you the positions of 13 of them. Well,the last one gets glued just above the main hanger door as the landing light.Cest finis.

You make that look so easy, David! Makes me wish I wasn't such a unconfident klutz!