Topic: father's day restoration project.

[spudafett]

I've started a project that I hope to have complete or near complete by fathers day...

My dad is who originally fueled my love for science fiction, not necessarilly star wars exclusively, but all sci-fi.  Mostly novels.  We had, and have kept adding to a very large science fiction book collection for as long as I remember.  We have so many right now that we have had to start stacking them 2 deep on his bookshelves... both the sets in the basement and upstairs...

His biggest collection consist of star wars and star trek.  He's been an avid collector of both.  He has also been diligently recording every episode of every major sci-fi series since VHS technology was available! (of course now he's going back and re-recording them to dvd!)

Anyway, as a kid he used to build models as well.  Most of his models were airplanes, boats, military, etc... but one model has outlasted them all.  It's a vintage battlestar galactica cylon raider from the original TV series.  The 30th aniversary of BSG was just a couple years ago so this model has to be at least 28 years old as I am 23 and I know he built it before I was born... 
amazingly this model has held up to now, it's been passed down to me and as a kid I played with it like it was another one of my toys...  thus it probably suffered a few scuffs and cracks at my hands. 
My plan is to refurbish his old model, crack it open and install an LED circuit and repaint the entire model.  I'm then going to build a display stand for it on his sci-fi bookshelf.   But to take it one step further I purchased a revell 30th aniversary BSG Viper model that I'll be constructing, lighting, and putting up besidde the raider as though in hot persuit... I'll use the existing damage on the old raider model to simulate battle damage from the attacking viper and hopefully pull off a nice little 2 piece dioramma display.....

[spudafett]

here is my dad's original BSG cylon raider:

[spudafett]

and this is what I have done so far on the new VIPER model.

[hangarbay94]

You lucky boy! having a Dad who's into scifi how cool is that!!!

I remember having one of those Cylon Raiders when i was a kid, it's a very cool ship, and a fair size if memory serves. I'll enjoy seeing how you get on with this, and I'm sure your Dad will want it back once you're done.

Looking forward to more images as you progress!

[Phatty]

Spud, this is an excellent project.  First off, it's about damn time you got your hide back in here; you've been too quiet for too long!  Second, this is a fantastic project in itself, made better only by it being for your father on Father's Day.  Your LED additions are superb!

[CaptainLux]

excelent proyect!

[spudafett]

thanks phatty, I know i've not been frequenting here as much.  There's been so many new members joining lately I just can't keep up!  I've been doing alot of non star wars customs so that's another reason i've not been posting as much.  I've got another thread in this section for my joe and iron man customs, go check that out!

a big update on my progress... 

made alot of progress today and yesterday.
mostly on the raider.

bottom of the model pre-modification


I needed to cut open the bottom of the model to insert the battery pack and LED lights.  I couldn't use my dremel on the model because it would make to large of a cut and I'd have a hard time rebuilding the model and disguising my cuts.  I decided to try something new and use a heated exacto knife to cut through the plastic where I could pop it open...

as you can see the cut didn't come out quite as cleanly as I'd hoped but it did make a much smaller cut than the dremel did, later when I cleaned it up it's hardly noticable.


here is both sections taken apart.


I then installed two pieces of styrene to hold the LED lights for the engine effects as well as planned the placement of the battery pack.


copyright stamp:


My dad's model never had any weapons mounted on the gun posts, IDK if the original kit did not have these or if they had broken off long ago...  i believe they never even came in the original kit.  I wanted to fix that so I found two identical star wars figure weapons that looked good and cut off the stock and handle and glued them to the model's mounts.


I used a can of flat black spray paint as my basecoat for this model:

I sprayed the inside as well to prevent any LED light bleedthrough or wash...

I then masked off the wing stripes, engines and cockpit with masking tape and used my testors spray kit to spray on a layer of light grey.  This is the result after the masking tape was removed:




I've also finished the LED lighting and instalation so I'll get pics of that up soon.  I'm also going to do a little more detailing to the outside of the model and build a display stand.

I'm also needing to find some decal sheets online to try and print off for a few of the smaller details.

[spudafett]

here is the prelimary paint work on the viper.  I'm starting working on both the model's lighting systems soon.

[CaptainLux]

this ones are great

[hangarbay94]

Ahh WOW! The Viper is looking coool!  this thread brings back such cherished memories.

Thanks for the update! please take a photo of your Dad when he sees this stuff, it'll be priceless!

[Phatty]

They are looking very good, Spud.  These are shaping up VERY nicely.

[spudafett]

here are the last wip pics for both models:

finishing up the viper:







last wip shot of the raider:

[CaptainLux]

they look awesome, great work man!

[spudafett]

so without further ado:

Battlestar galactica Viper:
complete with 3 blue LED lights in the engines, and one green LED light shining through the cockpit instrument pannel.  the LED kit was built from scratch.  The cockpit/fuselage section is removable from the engine/wings via 2 screws in the underside allowing access to the battery pack holding 2 AAA batteries. The laser blast effects were made from two clear rods which were part of the model's sprue holding together the clear parts













which brings us to the raider:
this model sports 6 LED's two blue lights in each engine plus two red lights in the front.















on the shelf:

[spudafett]

after taking all my finish pics I realized I'd forgoten the canopy detail on the viper... so I went back and fixed that...
this is the way it should have looked in all those other pics.