Federation Commander

Added brass rings to the FastHawk engines. These will both hide the transition between metal and greenstuff putty, as well as better match the line-art in Module R6.

That Fasthawk's looking quite well so far...

Great... now there's another mini conversion I absolutely have to make.

That really is looking sweet, Will.

Very nice Will. I had the same idea for brass hoops (seeing the art in Module R6). I made mine a bit wider since I couldn't get small pieces like that very easily.

They weren't easy for me either, believe me. Lots and lots of Dremel work and filing.

Completed Romulan JayHawk BFF, shown with my original engine attempt (filed down from a scrap Klingon D-hull boom). This engine was in-scale with the Snipe mini (it's source on the "real" ship), but looked too small on the mini, thus the reason I fabricated a bigger one out of brass.

Working up a jig to assemble my reconstructed Federation CVA.

Looking good will, but have you thought about using fine pins to pin the nacelle struts to the secondary hull?
That always seemsto be a brittle joint, even on a mini that's designed to have a tabbed/slotted connection in that area.

Yes, indeed. I'm looking into pinning the engines, but haven't settled on the configuration of the pins. I'm thinking one horizontal (which will be tricky to drill the holes for into the plastic) and one vertical down through the "tab".

I'd just go with epoxy under the stub... CA glue at the end of the stub (there I go again ) and a single pin vertically through the nacelle strut tab into the secondary hull.

Looking great Will.

I'd also shy away from the horizontal pins--those plastic nacelle pylons are so brittle. Though, I'd do two pins into the tab so there is less 'wiggle" in them.

Federation dreadnoughts, under repair, along with a pair of Orion interlopers.


Two of the dreadnoughts had shed their upper engines, due to issue with them being so tall on their stands and my storage cases allowing the lid to press down on them.

To prevent future issues, the stands were "chopped" to reduce their height and the strut for the engine was carefully drilled out and reinforced with a brass rod. The rod runs up into the engine itself and also runs down into the saucer's "neck". The rod was then encased in solid cyanoacrylate glue, which was then filed down to shape.

The Orions were acquired quite a while ago, in an eBay lot, and both had wings broken off. These were reattached with epoxy glue and reinforced (on the bottom side) with cyanoacrylate.


Romulan FastHawk fast battlecruiser kitbash, completed:



Romulan SaberHawk heavy war destroyer kitbash, completed:



Missing engine-mounted phasers added to Klingon FD7 fast battlecruiser kitbash (Thanks Paul!):



An initial dry-fit on a gluing-jig for the Federation CVA fleet carrier reconstruction:

Wouldnt it have been easier to lower the stand height on those dreadnoughts?

Thats what I did with mine. I snipped off a quarter inch then drill the hole in the mini larger to accept the new fatter stand post.

They dont topple over as much with shorter stands. I do that with my larger and heavier mini's too.

It would have been easier, but they had already long been epoxied to their stands. I have poor luck with extracting stands once they're attached (usually just breaks the peg off in the mini).

So, out came the razor-saw.

The end result will be essentially the same, I just had to work harder at it.

As it is, these are probably going to get stripped and repainted. They've sat in basecoat only for over three years now, and I'm seeing lots of stuff that I must have thought was "ok" then, that I'm not to keen on now.

Great job on the Saberhawk and the Fast Firehawk.

Is there any specific reason for using the photo-etched brass sheet, other than it's thickness?

Are those plastic DN center engines on the metal minis?