Serenity - September 24 2006

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009241.jpg

The contest is over and everything went well. Even though I am dead tired I decided to work on the model a bit. Time to take the photo etched solar panels and place them on sheet styrene. The styrene is overly thick but this is needed to make sure the cast item has some strength. One trick I use to get a scale appearance is to thin the edges so the part looks thinner then it actually is.

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009242.jpg

The first panel was glued and then roughly cut out. Seen on top of the sheet with the rest of the panels

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009243.jpg

All of them are cut out and now some trimming

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009244.jpg

Trimmed but then I see I have screwed up as the ones on the right are all orientated the same way instead of 2 of them that should be flipped. Doh!

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009245.jpg

Here is where CA glue debonder comes in. Neat stuff that I rarely use. It was a life saver here as I did not have to ruin the parts and make new ones

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009246.jpg

The debonder is applied to the parts and left to sit for a bit before I try and pry the PE parts off with an exacto blade

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009247.jpg

Success. Woot

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009248.jpg

And reglued down the correct orientation. The edges will need to be cleaned up and I am trying to figure out how to do this. By hand it is possible but slow. My bench sander is too big. I wonder if I can make a tool.