Build Up
Hopefully this build up will help those of you who want to light this beautiful ship. Out of the box you can see that it will take minimal clean up to get the model ready for assembly. The castings are crisp, clean and bubble free.
Now hopefully you are choosing to light her up. I really don't think that there is any other way to go with this kit. If you decide to light the Raptor as she is seen on the screen, you are going to have to get creative. This kit has remote areas, like the dorsal fins, that require a light source, but there is no place to run your wires. Using a dremel tool and a grinding bit you will need to cut grooves into the surface of the model kit to accommodate the wires. In the pictures below you can see where I drilled holes and milled out the channels for the wiring.
Jesse was kind enough to provide us with clear nav station inserts for the cockpit of the Raptor. In looking at all the options available, I have decided to go with EL Light Sheet to backlight the nav station and cockpit clear panels.
The wing tips are another area where there needs to be a light source but is no place to run the wires. Again channels were milled into the surface of the wings to run the wiring. You can also see where the channels have been filled with Aves putty and sanded smooth.
Initially I was going to use fiber optics as the light source for the wings and dorsal fins, but the fiber was not working out so I eventually went with LEDs run to the remote locations. You can also see in the pictures below a light test done with the FO cable.
Here you can see where I switched from Fiber Optics to LEDs in the dorsal fins and where I ran the wiring for the LEDs
The wing tips were an especially big pain in the butt, but I think that doing it this way will give better long term results. The Fiber Optics were milled out and removed and replaced with two 3mm Red LEDs. The LEDs were sanded down almost flat and inserted into the area that was milled out.
Here are some shots of the nav station and cockpit panel almost finished out. The cockpit panels are lit up in the picture below.
The electronics are going to be housed inside the model and the front floor panels have been routed out to accommodate the circuit board. This is the same circuit board I used in my Polar Lights Refit Enterprise. The wing tips and dorsal fins will blink.
I used my regular wood router to route the majority of this area out. I had two mishaps and cut my left index finger and then the second mishap took out the side wall and the tip of my right index finger. I am re-building the side wall with Aves putty and after it is sanded down and primed, you will not be able to tell that it was ever damaged.
These next two pictures are just miscellaneous shots showing some of the wiring done on the wings and the new pilot figures that I just got in the mail from Jesse.
I did something stupid and blew all four of the wing tip LEDs. I plugged them in with no resistors. This will be the third time I have had to mill out the wings and install wiring. Hopefully the third time is the charm. Yuck! Not very pretty.
Luckily as ugly as those seams are, after Aves is applied and sanded down it will look this good.
