"Sometimes, you have to roll a hard six." Building Steve Paper's 3ft Galactica, Part I

[DJPinter]

Having stalled out on my Polar Light's Enterprise Refit (a bit of advice: you can't use a airbrush in an apartment) and still having the "I gotta build something" bug I grabbed my virtual Boogie Board as started surfing. My criteria was pretty simple; cheap, relatively easy and no painting. It seemed that a card model would satisfy those criteria. My last paper model was a small Cassini probe I made about 7 years ago. The quality wasn't that great, but it was cheap (free). I eventually found Steves Paper Battlestar Galactica Fleet Pack.

I spotted the 3ft Galactica, but I knew I had to build up to that (pun intended) so I downloaded Colonial One, started cutting and promptly got frustrated by the Alien Queen (35) and the Cthulhu (33) parts. So I said, "Frack this", scrapped that plan and dived head first into the deep end by downloading the Galactica pdf files. Actually I downloaded the entire site and got banned until I reset my cable modem.

ANYWAY, I printed the files, cut out the bow's bulkheads (formers) and started my version of the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards. While waiting for the glue to dry on parts FU 1 and FU 2 I was thinking that there has to be an easier way to keep all these parts from getting warped from the glue. The next day at work I was in the kitchenette pondering this very question while stirring my coffee with a wooden stir stick when a 2 watt bulb burnt out above my head. Hmmm...the stir stick was fairly straight and only had a little bit of flex so I grabbed a few for testing. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Actually, it was a good idea. The sticks are easy to work with, light weight, sucks up the water in Elmer's Glue almost as fast as #110 card stock and can stir your coffee while you wait for the glue to dry. Staples has Berkley Square Wooden Stirrers for $2.99. These little babies are 13.97cm (5.5 inches) long, 4mm wide, 1mm thick and come 1,000 in a box.

I bought two.

BONUS TIP: refresh that product's page for a couple of days and you'll get a 10% discount. I considered using Starbuck's stir sticks (17.6 cm x 5mm x 1mm, rounded ends), but they appear to be coated. I didn't want to take anymore chances with pieces rattling around inside the model than I had to.

Well, are you ready to see some pics? What? I didn't hear that could you say that louder?

Alright already! geez...

This is actually my second attempt at the upper bow.

These are the parts that made me use the coffee strips. Not only do the strips give extra strength to a part they also glue you something to glue against (i.e., a bigger target).


Here's the rest of the bulkheads for the upper bow section. I needed to keep everything centered so I pencilled in centerlines and an outline of the smaller part on the next, larger part.


The space between FU 2 and FU 7 is 22.3cm.


Thinking that the space between bulkheads would be evenly divided I drew lines at approximately 4.46 cm.


WRONG!

The spacing isn't on FU 9 - 11 (lined file) either. Those were on the small side of the angle changes on 1a/b. So I decided to put the bulkheads as close as I could to the angle changes.


Well, I've reached the upload limit for this message. I'll continue this thread later.

djp
aka DataZombies

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

It looks like you are off to a good start.
Thank you for the tip.
If you ever decide to tackle Colonial One again, and are having problems, You can always send Revell-Fan a message and ask him for help (he was the one who designed it). He is (always) more than willing to help out.

KEEP GOING!!! I will be following this thread.

 

[Revell-Fan]

That's right!

The head of Colonial One can be a b*tch because of the long, thin parts. Take your time and attach one piece at a time. Do not use to much glue to prevent the parts from warping. I too had to tackle the head twice because the first one warped horribly (I assembled the pieces too fast, the parts got wet and wavy). Even the second attempt warped slightly, but I didn't notice that before glueing it to the main fuselage; I left it the way it was because a correction would have meant ripping the whole ship apart. And do not use the flaps; better glue the parts together from the back with paper strips made of left-over pieces of the parts pages.

As for the internal ribs of the Big G: I too noticed that there were no marks which can be used for putting them in the right position. Maybe it helps if you look at the edges of the outlines of the base and draw a line between the corresponding corners. That gives you an idea of how the sections of the CG ship were modelled. Maybe the ribs fit on those lines. However, your approach is sound and if it works for you, just keep on with that.

I'll be watching!

 

[DJPinter]

Thanks for the encouragement, guys. I did eventually put the bulkheads on the corners, but that was wrong, too. More on that later.

Here's the upper bow with all the bulkheads glued up.


Notice that I was in the process of putting stick along the edge secure the hull to. Here's the finished infrastructure.


Here I'm attempting to show that I'm using a sharpened chopstick to crease the hull at the fold line.


This is the upper bow hull mostly formed.


A test fit.


The circled areas in this picture are cuts I had to make into the bulkheads to get them into the hull. When I do this model again I'm going to reinforce all of the bulkheads edges, build the hull as above and find the optimal position for FU 3 - FU6.


And the finished upper bow. Yeah, the hull is wavy from too much glue. On the next build the sticks on the bulkheads will give me more surface area to glue against and hopefully I won't use as much.

 

[DJPinter]

Just a short post tonight. The bow's mid-deck turned out the best so far. The assembly guide doesn't really show where to fold or how C1 is orientated.

According to Steve the long edge of the trapezoid is on the top.

 

[DJPinter]

The final installment of this first part of the trilogy is the lower hull. The second post follows the construction of the mid-ship. The aft will be discussed in the final chapter.

This segment has a great guide for placing the bulkheads in Galactica 3 Foot Patch1.pdf. The part BL1 from that file replaces FB1. I felt like I was working on a fish.


"Skinning" this sub-assembly was pretty easy.


The finished sub-assembly.

 

[Revell-Fan]

A few years ago (before I tackled the Berzerk and the Gemini) I also began building the small Galactica. The landing bays are extremely tricky. I needed three attempts to make them. ;-)

 

[DJPinter]

*gulp*

Thanks for the warning.

 

[Revell-Fan]

Well, you have one big advantage: You are building the BIG version..!

 

[Danscrew]

I DjPinter,

Glad to see that someone else is taking the big "G". It's an incredible ship and the guys who made it available are more than incredible.

I builed it in 2012 and, i will be honest with you, some parts are very tricky. you must be patient.....very very patient. I't a thing I learn bulding this model.

Your start is very good and KEEP GOING ! and feed us with more pictures.

If I may suggest something..........use formcore for the iner squeleton or plane surface and print the small or curved parts on paper insted of card board, this will help you a lot. Think twice before making your parts. Some of it are very hard (body, landing bay, rear enines.....). Of all this, This model deserves to be built.

 

[zathros]

Dude, you are really kickin' butt on this!! You have made much progress in a very small amount of time. Great!