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Modded "Maquis" fighter

Lighting the Revell "Maquis" fighter

SECTION 9 :- Base extension

Due to me wanting to have the lights separate I need to put in a switch, but the base is too shallow for any to fit.  Out comes my trusty parts box & I found I had a battery box from an old kit that was crying out to be used.  The fighter base was a bit too wide to go straight onto the base, but using the trusty plastic card would cure that.  I did some test fitting to see the best place to rest the kit base on & marked that out on the battery box.  Out came the heavy cutting gear & I cut an area out of the battery box that would be above where the wire come out from the kit and base.

The kit base had a thin piece of plastic card cut to cover the entire bottom. This was to cover the edges that stuck came out over the box & also to keep the base level.  This was then glued to the battery box & allowed to dry.  All that was needed was to cut through the thin plastic to allow the wire to come down.  The base upright & added tube were glued into position. Two 5mm holes were drilled in each end of the battery box ( one for the switch & the other for a power connector ).

The whole unit was then sprayed. I used some dark metallic grey I had from a previous car kit ( Halfords UK), but you can spray this whatever colour you wanted. 

While the paint was hardening I set to work with my soldering iron again & made up the switch.  I used a mini switch which had dual pole dual throw with centre off (DPDT).  This would allow me to have the switch off in the centre position, one with just the interior lights on one setting & interior with engines on the other.

The centre pins had the 2 positive inputs (red) soldered on, one the LHS I put on just the lead for the interior lights (white) & on the other both the white & a lead for the engines (green). All of these were then covered in heat shrink to stop any shorting.  This switch was then left for fitting at the end.

SECTION 10 :- Weathering & final assembly

At the moment the kit looks a bit bland, so lets get highlights & weathing done...  I use mainly Humbrol paints on my kits so I went through my conversion charts & found the colours I needed. It is a also a good excuse to watch the pilot episode of  "Star Trek Voyager" to see if the colours given are about right. I say "about right" as the ship is always going to be different as the light conditions will never be the same as in your house as used in the TV programmes.  It looked to me that there was too much panel detail going on, so poetic licence on the final amount was called for ( Purists will now be screaming, but sorry ).

The first 3 sets of colour were the alternate grey ( H - Humbrol 141), Africa brown ( D - Humbrol 63) & copper ( K - Humbrol 54). These were allowed to dry overnight.

The final 2 colours were the tank grey ( G - Humbrol 67). This is where I now changed from the paint guides as I did not put as many of the panels in as shown for the code (I) , but the fighter, in my view, is looking good without them all.

It was now just a final stage of dry brushing with thinned matt black & tank grey over some of the raised parts of the fighter to show "weathering" or to show it has been in battle a few times.

SECTION 11:- Final wiring

It's time to marry the fighter to the base. I took care to feed the wire down the tube into the base before first locating the stand & then gently pushing the rod into the hole at the bottom of the fighter.  I then fitted the switch & power connector into the base & soldered up the remaining set of wires.

Well there you have it model makers.. My lighted version of the Maquis fighter.  I hope the effect & time is born out in the pictures below .  If you want to ask any questions, just drop me a line........

SORRY FOLKS THAT'S IT :-)