USS Reliant - Near Miss

By Mike Walston

The black dome that came with Round 2's repop of the USS Reliant was an improvement over the stand offered in the kit's original issue, but it still didn't make the ship that much more interesting to look at sitting on a shelf. To spice things up I took the saucer section of the old AMT/Ertl Enterprise model to recreate the near miss scene from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan."   I got a 1/8 inch thick aluminum bar from Ace Hardware and bent it to go up from the Enterprise, through the Reliant's starboard engine nacelle and support pylon, and into the Reliant's interior at approximately the same angle as the ship's approach in the movie. Red, white, blue and green LEDs were used to light both ships, powered by two 9-volt batteries hidden inside Enterprise. I used brighter LEDs on the running lights than I should have in order to get them to reflect off of the other ship; emphasizing how close they came to colliding.  In addition to the finished shots, I have the "in progress" pics of my crazy-looking wiring, and the support armature going through the painted sub-assemblies of the ships. Another "movie shot" angle of this model can be seen on page 8 of FineScale Modeler magazine's March 2013 issue. Image: Hull Wiring Image: Components

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