Odd title for a post about a space ship, however it really is a dream project for me. This Cheyenne Class Starship from the Star Trek The Next Generation Episode, "The Best of Both Worlds Pt 2" appeared in the debris field of the Federation fleet left over at Wolf 359. It appeared as this:
And while it appears tiny and blurry on screen, the model is actually pretty detailed as seen below:
So why am I talking about this? Its a design I've always liked and it is easily replicatable. The studio model itself was actually made from 2 readily available model kits and a few scratch built and found items. The saucer section is made of 2 bottom halfs of the 1:2500 scale Enterprise D model kits with the bridge, captain's yacht, and impulse engines from the larger Enterprise D model kit. The nacelles are actually made from Schwan-Stabilo highlighters, and the struts are scratch built. Since you can't really find those exact highlighters anymore, I was out of luck, until I happened upon this wonderful conversion kit I found on starship modeler. The wonderfully cast 3-d printed parts were perfect and a breeze to work with. They even had clear parts for lighting, and the best part was it was only $16!! I would have normally expected to pay $30-$40 for something like this. So it was just meant to be. So without further exposition, lets look at the progress:
I had to make a raised middle section out of styrene, as if you'll notice in the studio model photo, the saucers weren't just glued together
The Large Enterprise D Bridge stands out.
Making the hind pieces fit was tricky.
This is where it is as of now. I think the styrene I got for the escape pods was too large. I may take them off and start over.
So, while this ship isn't really what would normally be considered a "studio model," lots of lights, 8 feet long with an armature coming out of the bottom, and costing $21,000 to build, it still is pretty much the same thing they used for the model on screen. I have high hopes it will turn out awesome!!
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