U.S.S. Reliant on a Budget

(Page Two)

-----Starting Subassembly and Lighting-----

There are four sections to Reliant that need to be assembled as subassemblies...the nacelles, pylons, aft bulkhead and the lower saucer section. For each of the subassemblies make sure that you give yourself plenty of time to allow any glue and putty to dry. Remember to glue, dry, then putty and dry before you remove any excess adhesive material. This will make sanding the edges of parts easier. We will also begin to do some budget lighting in the following subassemblies so make sure that you TEST and TEST again the lights before you glue. Do NOT apply full voltage to the lights or you'll burn them out. One "D" battery will be sufficient to test each light.

Starting with the simplest, you want to assemble the aft bulkhead that contains the blue shuttle bays and red impulse engines. You'll need to make sure that you've already painted the inside of the bulkhead black before doing this. I chose to sand the rear of the docking port lights (parts #105) in order to diffuse the light coming from inside the ship a bit. After this has dried, attach the rear bulkhead to the lower part of the saucer section. Use white model putty to seal the edges. Set aside to dry.

The main sensor array (roll bar) can now be assembled. This is step number five on the instruction sheet. Follow it and make sure that you use putty around the edges and sand and smooth them out after it's had time to dry.

If you have chosen to use running lights on your nacelles, then this is the time to pull out you diagram and decide how you want to place your bulbs. This is also where we start getting back to the budget theme of this article. Remember all of those little clear Christmas light bulbs that you have laying in storage? Well pull them out because we are going to start making some use of them here. For my running lights I chose to indirectly light them using penlight flashlight bulbs. To do this I CAREFULLY broke off the very tips of the Christmas light bulbs. This will leave you with a small tip of glass with just a small amount of the bulb where it begins to flare away from the tip. Put the two halves of the nacelles together and secure them lightly with rubber bands. Mark and drill out a hole in the rear of the nacelles for the tips of the Christmas light bulb so that only the tips will extend out from the hole. Remove the rubber bands and open the nacelles back up for the next part. The remaining portion of the bulb (the flared part) should be able to fit inside the nacelle.

If it's not, repeat the process. You only want a tip of the bulb to extend outward about a couple of millimeters. Now use a piece of the spare plastic styrene mentioned earlier to make a mount for the flashlight bulb on one half of the nacelle and extend the wires forward to the opening at the top of the nacelle where the pylons will attach to the nacelle. When attaching the wire to the bulb you can either purchase lamp bases or you can solder the wire directly to the bulbs. Wiring directly to the bulbs will save some money, but you will have to be very careful that you don't allow the current to cross and short the circuit to your light bulb. Allow the bulb to rest in the middle of the space inside the nacelle and give yourself about eight inches of extra wire so that you can extend the wire through the pylons and inside the lower saucer section.

Now before we get to the final assembling of the nacelles let me share with you the joy of Pop Tarts. Right now you're saying "What the heck is he talking about Pop Tarts for?" Well not only are they tasty, but they come individually wrapped in MYLAR! So eat the Pop Tarts and use the mylar to coat the ends of the nacelles. Just use a thin layer of glue and apply the sheets of mylar inside and then trim off the excess. It will reflect a lot of light from the bulb up through the Christmas light tips that will be extending through the top of the rear of the nacelles.

It makes for some very nice looking running lights. Now you can go ahead and glue and putty the nacelles together. Make sure to extend the wiring for the lights out the top of the nacelles. Set the nacelles aside to dry and go jogging to pay for your Pop Tarts.

Now that you have the nacelles assembled, you need to assemble the pylons that will attach them to the saucer section. Using the inward half of each pylon attach them to the lower section of the saucer and mark where the wiring for the running lights will extend inside the ship. Drill a hole large enough to LOOSELY accommodate the thickness of the wire through both the inner half of the pylon and the lower saucer section. Be very certain of where your marks are for where the wires will go into the saucer section. Use a sharp knife to carefully score a tunnel on the inside of both halves of the pylons to receive the running light wires.

Assemble the pylons as seen in part 2 of the instruction sheet while using the tunnels you've created to run the wires up through the pylons and out the inner half of the pylon where you have drilled your hole. The extra wiring will extend inside the ship later. Let dry and eat some more Pop Tarts. You'll need the mylar in the next section.

-----Starting Saucer Subassembly and Lighting-----

The lower saucer is where you are going to be placing all but one of the flash light bulbs to light your ship. There are some intrepid souls out there that put lights in the sensor array. However, I decided not to go that route.

At this point you will want to start drilling all of those tiny little holes on the sides of the lower saucer section, the larger holes on the upper and lower section of the saucer section, and the windows that are on the "face" of the upper portion of the saucer. I used a tiny drill bit that I purchased at the hardware store to drill the small holes and a slightly larger bit for the larger holes. You can tell which holes are to be small or large simply by looking at the drilling site and also by viewing the videotape of the movie. The windows on the face of the upper saucer section will require you to drill small holes in the middle of each window and then use your X-acto knife to cut away until you have a nice square window. This will probably take a couple of days to do if you're taking your time as I was.

For those still keeping track of the budget theme, the drill bits were about 49 cents each. Buy a couple of each in case you break one since they are pretty delicate. At this point I decided to use the small tabs that are attached to the base that comes with the ship. They are extra pieces of clear plastic and since I decided to use a different way to display my ship the base itself even became a usable source for light mounts.

Back to the smaller tabs though. I chose to drill the upper and lower sections of the hull where there would be running lights. These are located as 9:00, 12:00 and 3:00 (looking forward and overhead from the aft of the ship) on the saucer. Sand down the tabs - (you may wish to use the tips of the Christmas light bulbs also if you chose) - until they fit smoothly into the holes you drilled for the running lights. The running lights on the bow of Reliant should be left clear. There are also two pairs of running lights on the top and bottom of the aft bulkhead area that should be clear.

Paint the running light on the port side of the ship Tamiya #X-27 clear red and those on the starboard side with Tamiya #X-25 clear green. Glue them all into place after allowing the paint to dry.

Ok, at this point we're going to have to spend some money, unless you just happen to have a bunch of old flash lights lying around. I went to Radio Shack and bought 2 bulbs that you would use for a 4 "D" cell flashlight and 2 of the screw in type bulb mounts. I also bought eight more of the penlight-sized bulbs and the 8 more of the bulb mounts for them. I used a bunch of the wires that I had in an old telephone cable to serve as wiring to the mounts. I think that I spent about $20 for the bulbs and mounts. Sorry, I didn't save the receipt, but then again I'm not going to be taking anything back at this point anyway.

Assemble each light bulb with its base and solder with about ten inches of wire. This is excessive, but wire is cheap and you'll trim the rest later. AGAIN, test each bulb using only one "D" cell battery to make sure it works. Before placing the bulbs I again used my trusty Mylar that I had from the Pop Tarts and glued it all over the inside of the upper and lower sections of the saucer section...anywhere that I could place mylar without covering windows and port holes.

For the windows I chose to use a piece of transparency paper that you would use for any copy machine. It's thick and sturdy enough to use for the windows and slightly opaque so you won't have to sand it down. Carefully measure out small sections of the transparency paper and glue it on the inside of your windows and portholes. Be careful not to place any glue where it might run over into a window. You want to use small drops of glue at strategic points and not use a lot of glue and just stick it on the inside. You'll just end up with a bunch of your windows with glue sticking out like a sore thumb.

Back now to the lighting. You now have your windows in place and the nicely reflective mylar spread out inside both halves of the saucer section. It's time to do a little lighting. Start with the upper half of the saucer section. In the center of the area where the bridge dome is going to be placed in the final assembly drill a LARGE hole. It needs to be ALMOST the diameter of the whole bridge (Part #25). This will allow a lot of light from the bulb to pass up and into the bridge area. AFT of the hole you will need to mount one of the two larger flashlight bulbs. I chose to use a piece of the base that comes with the ship to mount this bulb.

For this (and all subsequent light placements) you need to remove a small amount of the mylar so that you can glue plastic to plastic. Glue the bulb mount using polystyrene glue or rubber cement onto the base. As an extra measure to make certain that the bulbs did not shift their position I tied the mount onto the base with several wraps of thread. You need to now repeat this same procedure on the lower half of the saucer section with the second of your larger bulbs. This is the main source of light for the Space Planetary Dome (Parts #19 and 104) area under the ship.

For the remaining lights, mount them so that they are not in contact with the plastic on the lower saucer section at the points where they can cast as much light as possible outward from the inside of the Saucer section. You will notice that penlight bulbs are made to spread light in an area that covers about 180 degrees (my estimate). The placements I chose allow light to shine to the edges of the saucer section (which illuminates the running lights), to the impulse engine domes (both top and bottom), and lastly aft towards the impulse engines, docking lights, aft running lights and the shuttle bay areas.

At this time you want to again start testing your bulbs to make sure that they are secure in their individual bulb holders and also to make sure that you have the correct alignment of positive to negative. You're still testing one bulb at a time here, so keep using the single "D" cell as your power source. Also make sure that you have your bulbs oriented inside the saucer section to get as much light shining out as possible.

At this time I chose to start connecting individual bulb wires together by twisting the wires together and cutting off any extra wire, testing each as I went along. You're going to need a lot of space now because this is the point where you want to bring the wiring from the nacelle lights inside the lower saucer section and the ship is going to have to lay on a flat surface looking like some clam or frog you dissected in high school with wires looking a bit like spaghetti. When you're finished twisting all of the positive pole wires and negative pole wires together use a bit of solder to secure the wires. Keep testing your "circuit" as you go along to make sure you haven't crossed poles or have any loose bulbs. This is also a good time to place the two halves of the saucer section together to make sure you have plenty of clearance for the bulbs and also to check for any "leaks" where you might have light shining through in places where you don't intend for it to.

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Copyright © 2007 by Anthony I. Wootson & Tim Roy. No material may be reproduced without permission of Anthony I. Wootson. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.