# Battlestar Atlantia In Drydock



## Griffworks (Jun 24, 2002)

So, being the AMS/OCD suffering modeler that I am, and yet conversely seeing as how I like to build non-Hero / non-canon ships fairly regularly, I got it into my head that I wanted to build one more _Mercury_-class battlestar before I tackle an attempt at a show-entry worthy _Pegasus_. Mostly because I wasn't to display _Pegasus_ with open landing bays, with maybe some deck crew, a Raptor and a Viper or two on the Flight Deck. As we all know, practice tends to make perfect, so I figured I could kill two birds with one frak cannon and build both a non-hero ship and reacquaint myself a bit to scratchbuilding. 

I'd thought it would be kind of kewel to build the Battlestar _Atlantia_, apparently the Flagship of the Colonial Fleet - if only over Virgon for the Colonial's counter attack against the Cylons when Admiral Nagala took "personal command" of the ship. I didn't want to build a stock kit, tho, so got to pondering what I wanted in a build. I figured that _Atlantia_ was likely the latest/greatest of the Fleet ships - or pretty darned close to it - so would need to be at least a little different, externally. To that end, I've decided she'll get different paint markings, as well as slightly different decals. I had contacted J-BOT Decals about what all he had that might not be currently displayed on his site and he sent me a sample of a custom _Mercury_-class decal sheet he had done for someone a short while ago for _Atlantia_ and which includes flight deck decals for all four of the bays. Coincidence, luck or destiny? 

In addition to the decals, I'm going to be using the Catalyst Creations Battlestar Pegasus Upgrade Set. You'll have to contact *G-Man* directly to get in the queue for a set of these. They're sweet and I'll be doing an In-Box Preview that I'll submit to Starship Modeler in another week or so. 

One of the _other_ resources that I've been looking at of late is 3D grown parts. Hiring someone to do parts at this level is cost-prohibitive. However, Shapeways.com has all kinds of interesting things there. Specifically there are a bunch of interesting parts designed by *aptivaboy* for use as alternate parts on the Bad Azz Models Pegasus kit. One is an antenna/probe array, there's some engine inserts, gun emplacements w/platforms, a missile box launcher and even completely original designed battlestars. He's a frakkin' genius, far as I'm concerned! 

Well, about two weeks ago I ordered one of the antenna array's and two missile box launchers and they arrived a couple of days ago. These parts are very, very kewel looking. You can find them onaptivaboy's Shapeways store page.




Again, I just ordered the antenna probe and two missile box launchers. The missile boxes are too small to hit w/primer very easily w/o risk of them being blown all over the place, so I'll likely have to attach then in-place where I want them for primering. 








I had already removed the detail on the part of the _Pegasus_ kit where this is meant to go in anticipation of adding this. It fits nice and tight in the void - after minor trimming w/the Xacto and some light sanding of the kit parts. I think it looks pretty darned nice and not at all out of place. Of course, that might change once I glue it in place and start painting.... 




I really like this antenna array and will likely buy at least one more for a later project. Definitely want more of the missile boxes, too. 






The parts that I've handled thus far all fit pretty tight, just like the original kit parts. I've test fit the flight pod arms into their slots on the Moebius kit part and they're nice and tight there, too, just like the original kit parts are - tighter, even. As with pretty much any resin kit, you have some basic clean up work to do, as well as the obligatory washing of the parts prior to painting. A little degreasing dishwashing soap, Xacto or other edged device for cutting off the pour stubs and a bit of sand paper for cleaning up the seams is standard and works well. 

Couple of more pics can be found in my Battlestar Atlantia album on PhotoBucket. 

.


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## Trekkriffic (Mar 20, 2007)

Never built any BSG kits myself but I know what a fan you are Griff so I know you'll do a great job on this. Those upgrade parts look sweet! Looking forward to more pics as you progress.


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## StarshipClass (Aug 13, 2003)

Nice! :thumbsup:


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## Griffworks (Jun 24, 2002)

Thanks, fellas. 

I made more headway yesterday and last night. Mostly more sub-assemblies, such as the head and main hull sections. I've discovered that the Catalyst Creation pieces for the Gator head "trench" stick out a bit too far on the port side on my piece to allow the guns on that side to properly fit. I've done a little bit of carving on the details in three spots and will carve on the back of a couple of the gun emplacements so that they'll more properly fit. The FTL insert piece has required a LOT of sanding, as the backside of the piece that fits inside of the main hull was too thick along the edging. Little bit of carving, then sanding has thinned it out enough to fit w/o causing a major gap in the seam. 

I've taken a few pics and will take a few more to post later this afternoon or tonight. I have to edit them, first

Tonight or tomorrow I'm going to start on the landing bay interiors. I was just reminded by one of my boys that I said I'd take the kids to see a movie today.


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## Griffworks (Jun 24, 2002)

Not as much done today as I'd hoped or wanted.  




I spent a goodly amount of time last night and this morning first carving on, then sanding the Upgrade FTL part, as the back of the part was fairly thick and wasn't quite fitting. The problem was that it wouldn't let me get a good seam seal on the main hull section. I got it pretty close, as you can see in the above pic, but still not close enough, as in the pic I'm holding that aft section pretty tightly. If I couldn't get it to where I could close it up with minimal effort, then the seam would eventually pop due to the internal pressure. So, I took an Xacto blade and shaved off along the edges, then sanded it so that I could get a thinner area. It was angled a bit, but still wasn't allowing a good seam. So I decided to just sand the crap out of the back of the whole thing. 




Every time I thought I had it to-shape and that it was good, I'd ease up a bit on the pressure and the gap would instantly appear. So, sand, clean, look and fit, then start it all over again. 





I eventually got it to where I was happy enough with it. I figure that if the seam will stay about like the above pic, it won't be too much of a PITA to fill the seam and get it where I want it. 




I also used some .010 Evergreen sheet stock, trimmed to fit, to cover the gaps that exit on the aft beam/extrusion on the kit. If you don't cover that up, it's an open area and doesn't look right. If nothing else, I get the feeling that it would be like the exhaust port in the Death Star and the Cylons could fire a missile up the astral's any battlestar and Blow It Up Real Good. I used Ambroid Safe Weld Plastic Welder Non-Toxic. I had to let it cure for a good 8 hours, tho. 




I also finished adding most of the Catalyst Creations Upgrade parts to the Gator head. The fit was pretty tight, tho some minor puttying was required on the inside and I've started puttying on the exterior in the joins of a couple of spots. No major gaps, but I guess one or two of the parts had some minor warping or shrinkage. The nose and chin piece fit alright, tho the nose piece had some minor bit of warping, as well as a slight chip in the resin. Overall, nice, easy fit on the parts, any issues easy to fix with some putty. 




The only resin part for the Gator head that I didn't use was the one on the bottom of the lower "jaw" area. It requires you to cut out a section from the inside of the hull and replace it w/the upgrade part. This is an area where the detail is definitely much crisper on the resin part, but I just didn't feel like putting the energy into cutting the plastic, as its something of an awkward area. 

One thing I noticed about the resin parts that I hadn't before is for the "mouth" trench area. The MM kit part has a dome shaped detail on the back that's not represented on the resin part. It's definitely there on the CGI model, as seen in this screencap from "Exodus, Part 2". I'm not sure how I'll "fix" that omission. Prolly look at cutting that part off of the original cut part and gluing it in place or taking this opportunity to add something completely different. 




I also got out the trusty old razor saw and removed the "lock" part of the positioning tabs that are on the front parts of the main hull. This is the area of the part that the Gator head is secured to. Since I had already built up the Gator head, I decided to just remove that, as they're not really necessary to secure the head to the main hull. I did the same thing on my Battlestar _Triton_ build and have had no problems since finishing her.

I've been scribing the base of the "arms" where they connect to the flight pods. I hope to have that done tonight, but don't want to rush it. Once I've completely removed the arms from the kit parts, I'll start removing the positioning pins and the "walls" that separate the front and rear openings from the interior. I'm hoping maybe to have that much done by tomorrow evening, as well as get started on building the blanks for the walls. I plan to cut the sheet styrene a bit large so that I can sand to fit.


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## Griffworks (Jun 24, 2002)

OK, made some progress today, tho not what I would have liked. My Dremel is working, so I'm having to do all of the cutting by hand. Need to check on a replacement battery, I guess. That or just go buy a corded version. Suxx0r not having use of the grinder and cutting wheel. 

Anyhow, on with the show!






FTL engine detail area. You can see where there's practically no seam and what little bit of a seam is pretty much sealed with regular Gorilla Glue (not the CA stuff). 




Port side engine section of the main hull seam area - or pretty much a lack thereof. I _love_ this Gorilla Glue! 




Starboard side - I'm not likin' this Gorilla Glue! 

Yeah, not really. Sometimes you just have to fill a seam.



Seam area for the Gator head to the main hull. I'm going to have to fill a few areas w/my Tamiya, but I was actually expecting that to happen. Not a big deal and it's a smaller seam area than I would have if I'd just used regular CA. 

Now's where the fun begins - and bogged me way the Heck down.... 






As already mentioned, my Dremel is dead. As such, I had to use my Xacto, some elbow grease and musckleses to remove the sections inside of the lower bays that I wanted out. I left a bit of the "walls" as well as parts of the tabs in-place to act as supports for when I get around to building the walls and ceiling for the landing bays. Should give it plenty of support for those parts, as well as possibly adding overall support for the landing bays. Or so I hope. 

I should have slowed down a bit and thought this thru a bit better, tho, as I had removed all of the alignment pins from the bottom landing bay part, as well as the keyed flat deck portions prior to aligning the parts and gluing them together. I left the small tabs for the top part, tho, so that made it easy to properly align the upper deck portion to the trench detail piece. However, I'm pretty much having to eyeball the alignment for the bottom part, and have already had to pop the parts loose - yes, you can pop Gorilla Glue apart, I discovered, just not as easily as with CA - , clean the parts and re-glue the parts together. 

When I do the port side, I plan to "snap" all the parts in place, but put glue on the center three "meat" parts together before I remove the alignment pins and the like. Lesson learned! 

As you can also see, the bottom portion of the arms have been removed in anticipation of using the Catalyst Creations flight pod arms from their Pegasus Upgrade Set.

More to follow in 60 seconds (board is programmed to deny you posting more than once w/in a certain time frame to deter SPAMMERS - same as you can only have a max of 8 images per post...........).


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## Griffworks (Jun 24, 2002)

And now you have... the rest... of the story.... 






Top portion of the starboard Flight Pods. I've cut off the most forward arm and done a test fit of the parts. I still need to remove some of the details just outboard of where the arm is intended to go in these pics so that the arms will properly seat in-place. It looks like there will be no issues other than I might have to buildup the connection point on the bottom landing bays a bit so that everything seats properly. I'll continue to test fit all the arms on the starboard flight pods before I begin work on the port set. I want to work out as many of the issues as I can before I get too involved with the second in case I need to cut things differently. 

As it turns out, I'm not going to be using the "trench" detail piece for the flight pods, as they're flipped upside-down per the key tabs, as well as orientation of the details. They're also not entirely accurate, regardless of if you attempt to use them as they're keyed to go on the model. 

Looking closely at the original kit part, you'll see a total of three Raptor launch tubes - yeah, we've never seen them actually launch Raptors this way, but they added it. On the kit part, those Raptor tubes are on the "rightside up" elliptic, not flipped, so that the orientation of the Raptors once launched will be the same as the main plane of gravity (mainly on the plains) and also note the orientation of the other detail parts. 

Now if you own the Upgrade Set, compare it to the Catalyst Creations part. There are only two Raptor launch tubes and they're upside down, as are the detail parts. For them to go on correctly, you have to flip them upside down, remove the two key tabs and if you're building the landing bays as-is, you have to re-drill the large tab alignment holes. And even then, the spaces that are meant to position the guns aren't placed accurate, as they "drift" the further aft you go. The number of Viper launch tubes is incorrect, as well. The two outer groups of Viper launch tubes should be thirteen each, while the inner group should be eleven. 

If you have doubts, here's one of the reference images I'm using, easily found on DaInfernalWebz at Modelers, Miniatures and Magic: http://www.modelermagic.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/kg_cg_ns_pegasus-058.jpg I recommend that you save the image to your 'puter and open it up with a program such as Windows Live Photo Gallery or Photo Viewer so that you can expand the image up four or five clicks to definitively see the details in the "trench" area. 

I don't say this to be negatively critical of the Upgrade Set or the manufacturer. I just want to point this out so that other folks know what to expect if they buy it, as well as a possible and relatively easy fix to this. 

Instead of doing that extra work, I chose to be lazy and just use the parts from the kit. I chopped up two of the recessed parts for the Gator head from the kit and have used some of the inside detail pieces to add some extra detail to this build, since it's not the Pegasus or some other "Hero" ship where I feel I need to be more accurate. I'll be posting some more buildup pics shortly. 

I contacted *G-Man* about this to make sure he was aware. Unfortunately, he can't do anything about the masters, as the parts are pretty much "welded" together. It would cost him quite a bit to have new parts grown and a new master worked up for just those two parts. 

Other than that and the missing "domes" on the back of the Gator head "trench" detail piece, this is a great set. I've not found any other issues with it beyond the standards for a resin kit - some minor warpage of thin parts, a couple of areas a bit too thickly cast, pour stubs and some flash. Nothing that the average, experienced modeler who's built some kits can't easily remedy with a sharp Xacto blade and/or some sandpaper & elbow grease. The arms are especially excellently detailed. I plan to cut the domes off the back of the kit part that I didn't use and add it to the back of that resin piece. 



Anyhow, back to my build... Since I'm not using the flight pod trench detail piece and the kit parts are lacking in detail at the fore and aft sections of said trench, I decided to get a bit creative and recycle some kit parts. I cut up one of the lower Gator head section parts from the aft inserts. I first used a #11 Xacto blade to cut in to the plastic so that I would make sure that I wasn't cutting at an angle w/my razor saw. The razor saw made short work of cutting the parts once I had the guide marks cut into the plastic. I cleaned up the edges a bit w/my Xacto, then some light sanding the two parts to be glued together. 




I then used Gorilla Glue to glue the two parts into place. I'm not sure why it is that Moebius Models didn't included detail there, on the "outside" portion of the arms and on the top back of the Gator head. Same with having the landing bays closed up. My understanding is that it was done so that the flight pods had good structural integrity, but I really don't feel that would be an issue had they left them opened up and just added the supports along the inside areas where you can't see them. 

Well, that's it for today. Hope to make some decent headway tomorrow afternoon at some point! 

.


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

Whew!


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## Griffworks (Jun 24, 2002)

Too many words for you, John? 

I'll just post pics next time for ya....


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## Griffworks (Jun 24, 2002)




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## Griffworks (Jun 24, 2002)

I've started adding commentary to each of the images uploaded to my PhotoBucket album for this build. It's something I want to do regardless of what's shared and what's not. That and since threads at some forums are pruned and/or archived, I figured that I'd just go this thread. 

That being said, I've not stopped working on this build. I've run into a couple of issues that have made aspect drag out a bit longer than I had anticipated, tho. Mostly due to the toe-in that I discovered of the "arms" - specifically the two "front" arms on each side toe-in somewhat - and the building of the landing bay interiors. Today, I modified every one of the engines, which took me prolly the better part of four hours of work. 

Newest pics on Page Two of the Battlestar Atlantia, start with image Atlantia036. 

I've not added commentary to the all of the images, but to everything I've uploaded the last ten or so days. I'll eventually go back and add it to the first page of images, as well.


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## Griffworks (Jun 24, 2002)

Lots of Updated pics, starting on Page Two with Atlantia040. Highlights are that I finished the landing bay interiors, finally! I also added some gun platforms to the Gator Head, as well as some missile launch doors to the underside of the Gator Head. 

Unfortunately, the _Atlantia_ build has somewhat stalled. I had originally used Mr. Surfacer as the primer, then ran out. I can't get it locally w/o having to drive about 70 miles, round trip, so decided to go with my old standby - Rustoleum. Well, I sprayed the Rustoleum on there four days ago and it's still tacky to the touch. I've put it in a box in an upstairs closet that tends to get fairly hot in hopes that maybe it'll bake it a bit and fully cure. If not, I'll end up having to strip it - which might well cause the glue to come apart on the landing bay interior work that I've done, so I'm trying to avoid that if possible. 

On the upside, this has allowed me to start work on my Battlestar _Pegasus_ build, which I'm trying to complete before a local model club contest on 21 September. I've already started on that build, and will be using most of the Catalyst Creations Pegasus Upgrade Set parts. I've already got the Gator Head mostly complete and plan to get a new thread for that at some point in the next two days.


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## SJF (Dec 3, 1999)

I like your idea of putting doors on the landing bay openings. It's inspired me to try that out on my Peggy. :thumbsup:

Sean


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## Griffworks (Jun 24, 2002)

Wow! Someone's actually reading this thread and viewing these pics?!? 

Thanks. Yeah, it makes sense to me for there to be some sort of mechanism to close the bay interiors off. They could even pressurize the landing bays for ease of some repair work, such as on the elevators, shuttles or the like. 

Thread with pics of the _Pegasus_ build later tonight or tomorrow. Main hull is complete and I've started on the Flight Pods.


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## SJF (Dec 3, 1999)

Hell, our aircraft carriers have massive doors that close off their lower deck hangers, so it only makes sense that a battlestar would have the same thing. 

Sean


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## Griffworks (Jun 24, 2002)

Right, but the hangar decks on battlestars _are_ sealed and atmospheric capable. We're talking about the landing bays, which are more akin to the flight deck - launch and recovery of aircraft. The hangars are where regular maintenance occurs, thus need to be shielded from vacuum in order for the maintainers to much more efficiently and quickly do their jobs.


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## Griffworks (Jun 24, 2002)

The issue w/the primer being tacky seems to have cured itself. Maybe it just needed a bit longer, I guess. I had set it in an upstairs closet which is adjacent to the attic and which has no insulation along the attic-side wall, so it gets a bit hotter than anywhere else in the house. It only sat up there for three or so days and when I went to check on it the other day it was fine. Regardless, no longer tacky to the touch. 

Anyhow, I'm going to be doing some of the work on _Atlantia_ concurrently with _Pegasus_. Mostly just the landing bays, as I'd like to match up the colors between them.


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## Griffworks (Jun 24, 2002)

Quick update. I've not done a whole lot to _Atlantia_, as the focus has been on _Pegasus_. However, I did the following: 

* finished painting the landing bay interiors. They're sloppy as Hell, tho since you can't really see all that well inside there, anyhow, so I wasn't terribly concerned. 
* got in the *Aptivaboy* _Pandora_ gun sets last week and started adding them while putty and paint were curing on _Pegasus_.
* added some detail pieces to the "flight pod gun fantails", to included a circular part that the box missile launchers will sit on top of. 


Guns!


_Atlantia's_ going to be able to put out one Hell of a broadside! 

Updates on Battlestar _Atlantia_, Page Four starting with pic *Atlantia080*.


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