Issue 100

OK. Let's wrap this turkey up.

Confession: by this point I just want to be done with it, so I skipped some of the body details I didn't care for.

OK, first off, I printed off some art and text onto decal paper, and was able to successfully transfer them over (fortunately, I printed multiples of the "big" one):

(translation: Kelly M Luck USAF)

Now it's time to go back and scrape up all the parts leftover that we haven't used yet.

First, a few for the topside turret:

Now a few for the starboard airlock area:

Now the fore starboard recess gets a set of pipes:

As does the portside.

And the rear port recess.

Now, the rear starboard recess.

Now, there's bit 100A, which is a group of really tiny details for the excruciatingly detail-oriented.

...and so on. There's a bunch, and I couldn't honestly be bothered at this point.

Viola, the completed ship, the "Correllian Thunderbird":

Post-mortem: Well, it's been an interesting year. Fun model, huge and heavy. Expensive as anything. Not quite sure what I'm going to do with it now. The fun was in the building, you know. I'll have to find somewhere to put it on display. Not sorry I did it, but all things considered I don't think I'll be doing another partwork.

Issue 99

 OK, gonna finish off the aft engine block (at last!), so first off, let's do some detail work.

First off, the rear ..whatever these are called again.

Now a little something I whipped up last week, printed in different sizes so I'll be able to compare them against the model.

Finally, it's time to finish off the last couple things for the bottom. First off, we assemble the lower turret to match the upper one.

Next, we glue these two bits together.

They go in this bit under the port mandible.

Here's what my finished underside looks like without landing gear.

Now to the engine block. Add the following glue-ons:

Note this is mislabeled in the magazine--it shows 6 as 7 and vice-versa.

And then go ahead and add the 13...whatever they ares. Presto.

Now the deflector shield generators will finish off this issue.

Each large part gets two sides glued to it, as shown:

They go onto the mandibles as shown below:

Next time, big issue 100, and lots of last-minute details.