USS Enterprise Model Build – Part 4 – Windows, windows, windows…

From reading the information on http://www.makingmodels.co.uk I had already seen that preparing and installing all the many windows will be a pain in the butt.

How to prepare the clear window pieces

After trying to sand the back of one of the window pieces in order to diffuse the light that shines through, I realized that sanding did not diffuse the light enough and that having to sand all these pieces would just take ages….

So I decided to use the transparent paper that comes with the decals as a “diffusing agent”.

But first off I went and installed all the many different windows onto the saucer section as well as the main hull. Some of the windows also have to be painted black.

I went with the tip I got from Rich at http://www.makingmodels.co.uk to separate the “black” windows from their clear neighbours so that the light does not shine from the clear to the black pieces.

Some windows need to be blacked out

Man – cutting a single window from a piece of four is fiddly business ! A couple of times the piece I wanted to cut off flew off across the room and it took a lot of time and cursing to find it again…

Using transparent paper to “mask” the windows

So first I glued on the windows and then I used a hot glue gun to fix the transparent paper over the windows. Hot glue is really forgiving and it worked really well.

The same was done for the top saucer section. For the bridge part I just covered the whole hole with paper so that I did not have to fiddle with the tiny bits inside the bridge piece.

You can see that I also already installed / glued the red and green position LED lights as well as the red impulse engine light and the two clear position lights at the bottom of the saucer.

If you would like to build this model yourself, here is the link to the amazon store: