Decals On The Second Klingon Battle Cruiser

When I built the two Klingon models, one set of decals transferred fairly easily. The second decal sheet was unusable. I finally got around to drawing up and home printing a second set.

Here's a wing decal from the Estes kit.

These have a white background.

Here's what I drew up.

I think it works, just looks a little dingier.

On the left is the Estes decals.

On the right are the home print.

The red dash decals are close.

My home print (right side) were spaced a bit wider. I don't know why I did it this way.

Comparing the original and new decals - 

The radiator lines are real close.

The bottom is straight, there is some camera distortion.

The new home print decals are in both pictures here.

On the left, some of the black flaked off where the new decal was cut to fit over the raised plastic ridge.
On the right, some black touchup was done using a fine point Sharpie.

FINISHED! Now I can sleep through the night.

Estes Klingon Battle Cruiser, #1274, Finished

 

Well, I'm glad that's over!

Not a fun build. The chrome stickers went on fine, the water slide decals in one of the two kits weren't useable.

The rear view picture makes the model look big.

It's not a large rocket.

At least this one doesn't have a parachute "probe" extension like the Enterprise did.

That long decal windows decal is lifting. The other decals on this sheet seem fine - at least for now.

This is a tough build. If you see it on Ebay - I probably wouldn't bid on it!

Estes Klingon Battle Cruiser, #1274, Step 27, Decals

I thought about scanning the decals but I wouldn't be able to home print a replacement because of the white areas. 

I had built two of these - 

The decals were old so I gave them a coat of decal film. 

The two kits must have been from two different batches. Only one decal sheet was useable, even after the decal film coat.

One sheet transferred after 30 seconds in the soak water.

The second decal sheet did transfer, but wouldn't stick to the model.

Micro-Sol didn't help the bad decals.

Look at the left side of the long windows decal. It is starting to lift. Some Future applied with a brush to hold it down.

Below that is the black "eye". It's a two piece decal that has to go over the raised seam.

The white "TEZ" decal centers over the Mylar sticker.

There are some tiny red decals that go on the rear of the engine pylons.

More small windows between the front dimples,

Windows on the adapter.

It's a big parachute considering length of the lower BT-50 body tube.

I set the parachute beside the body tube allowing for the length of the engine below it. There isn't enough room for wadding and the shoulder of the adapter.

Estes Klingon Battle Cruiser, #1274, Step 26, Chrome Trim Positioning

A few of the chrome trim pieces were long (on the left) and two others too tall (right).

I didn't want to do the trimming after the pieces were on the model. These were stuck back on the backing paper and cut.

As my usual practice,

The sticky back pieces weren't touched where I could help it.

I positioned the pieces while they were stuck on just the tip of my hobby knife. 

Here's the outside wing trim pieces.

The windows sticker was trimmed earlier to fit the the height of the flat side of the bridge.

Estes Klingon Battle Cruiser, #1274, Step 25, Small Brush Painting Details

Considering how small the hand painted areas are, it doesn't make much sense to include the brush paint bottles. 

Small black dots in the primary hull recesses (upper left) 

Silver paint in the rear ridge centers of the warp drives (Upper right) 

Two small red dots on the top of the bridge (bottom)

You can't brush paint the black into the round recesses. You could dip a sharpened dowel in the paint and touch the centers of the recess making a round dot.

I used Sharpie pens. 

Rotating a larger round point pen in the hole left a center where the tip couldn't reach.

A ultra fine point Sharpie filled in the center.

Here's the finished black. 

The Sharpies came through again.

The red dots were done with a fine point brush.

This Klingon nose cone reminds me of Squidward.

The "Bonus" kit included a bottle of red paint - for these two little dots. No other red on the model.

The third brushed color is silver.

If you've got a decent square brush, it's easier than you would think.

Estes Klingon Battle Cruiser, #1274, Step 24, Painting The Light Gray

One of my two kits included two cans of spray paint. One is a primer, the other a light gray. 

Also included were four small brush bottled paints in black, red, silver and thinner. These kits were probably over 20 years old. I'll use the small brush paints but really don't trust the small cans of spray paint.

 

I don't use tack cloths. 

When tack cloths are new, they can leave an film on your model.

I simply use a cheap chip brush to clean off any dust.

One of the warp drive assemblies cracked right down the seam! A few more drops of CA and some finger pressure closed it up. 

As mentioned, the kit came with a short can of Testor's Light Sea Gray paint. The can was too old to trust.

I used the Ace Hardware Light Gray. 

It is just about the same shade.

There are plenty of nooks that are hard to reach with the spray paint.

Shoot all the tight inside areas first, then shoot the entire model.

On the right are two areas that didn't get good coverage. I went back afterwards and touched up the gray using a brush. The gray paint sprayed into a small mixing cup.

Estes Klingon Battle Cruiser, #1274, Step 23, Gluing On The Drive Units

With the model turned on its side,

Here's the angle I sanded the wing extension to fit into the slot on the top of the drive units.

Mentioned earlier - I'm gluing the wing tips into the slots on the drive units. The instructions have you glue them under the edge of the wing. I felt my method would give a stronger joint.

The exposed tube inside the drive unit was roughed up with some 400 grit wrapped around a Q-tip.

This will also flatten out the round tube side giving a larger glue contact area.

Here's the fit of the top of the drive unit. 

The tip edge of the tapered wing goes into the straight slot of the plastic. 

Use the side of the of the pylon template to set the angle.

Be sure to use the "double glue" technique on this joint. You'll want a good initial grab.

Some tape will help hold the angle as the glue dries.

Estes Klingon Battle Cruiser, #1274, Step 22, Gluing On The Card Stock Engineering Hull Top

Oh Boy - you need three hands to pull this off!

The cardstock was dry fitted many times. You have to double check all sides to make sure it is evenly spaced.

Look close, you can see a pencil line traced on the outside of the long straight fold. That gave me a guide line to sand off the filler/primer (under the tab glue area) for a better glue bond.

With the glue tabs folded underneath - I noticed the piece wanted to raise up off the wing surface.

To prevent some of the rise, I glued the rear small tabs down onto the underside. The rear tab area is flat against the wing anyway.

Tweezers held the glued tab closed as it dried. 

TIP: Don't try to glue the entire card stock top all at once!

You will be better off gluing in sections. 

First - The front of the lip was glued to the balsa edge underneath about halfway down on both sides. After it dries, this lets you lift the "shell" and apply glue to the underside tabs. for the next glue step 

Second - Apply a line of glue to the tabs under the sides.

When gluing card stock, you don't need a lot of glue! More glue takes longer to dry. A (full tab coverage) skin of glue grabs and dries quicker.

It's a balance. Enough glue for lining up and working time, but no so much glue that will make the cardstock pucker when dried.        More on this step tomorrow - 

Estes Klingon Battle Cruiser, #1274, Step 21, Fitting The Warp Drives

Here's a place where I didn't follow the instructions.

You are directed to sand an angle on the outside of the wing edges, then glue the drive on the other side. I did some dry fitting and this didn't give you a very wide gluing surface. .

I was concerned - the warp drives would be the first things to break off on a hard landing.

I preferred to have the open "slot" on the warp drive assembly hidden on the inside less to fill.

Instead of sanding the angle on the side as shown above, 

I sanded an angle on the bottom. You can see the parts contact in the inset picture before the angle was sanded.

Here's the angle I used, 

The block is almost parallel to the bottom face of the wing.

 

Here's my new fit - 

No gaps at the top or bottom of the joint.

This will be very little to fill.

Estes Klingon Battle Cruiser, #1274, Step 20, Wing Gluing? Gotcha!

Here's where I screwed up!

The instructions show a slight down dihedral here at the right center illustration. 

I thought the center tips (here pictured towards the front) should be touching. There is no reference to this in the instructions.

The low tips of the front and rear hanger bulkheads touch the wing face in the rear.

With the front tips touching at the top centerline and the root edges down their pencil lines, there is very little dihedral angle on the wing sides.

The only reference is on the last page showing the decal placement.

My model doesn't have this much down angle on the wing sides.

GOTCHA: To get more of a down dihedral -

You would have to have a gap between the center wing tips over the body tube. 

The long root edges of the fins might have to be glued a little below the pencil lines on the body tube.

Estes Klingon Battle Cruiser, #1274, Step 19, The Small Detail Pieces

These detail pieces are small!

These are sanded down to 1/16" thickness. 

Sanding the sides at an angle is not easy.

Now to fill the grain - 

CWF was applied and sanded.

Then stuck down onto masking tape and shot with filler/primer.

The piece on the far right has the primer sanded down to the surface. 

The pieces were set in place and traced with pencil.

Primer was scraped off and the details glued on.

Estes Klingon Battle Cruiser, #1274, Step 18, Engineering Hull Prep

The engineering hull top is a curved piece of cardstock.

Gluing flaps are folded underneath the exposed top. I burnished mine with a Sharpie pen barrel.

A close up shows the broken edges at the card stock fold.

A rub of medium CA glue was applied with a Q-tip. This hardens the fuzzy edge so you can sand it square with a sanding block.

The hold down tics are smoothed down with a sanding block.

I did some dry fits and found the cardstock front  wouldn't follow the curvature of the vacu-formed hanger deck piece.

A curve was pressed in the same way I curve a card stock shroud. 

Set the card stock over the soft heel of your hand. Press and roll the Sharpie barrel over the card stock. You should get a curved top. 

A dry fit - 

much better.