Building the GCU Sokol, Part 2

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10

Part 11 | Part 12

The Sokol model moved forward in the last week with the completion of the mounting system and the first bit of scratch building around the sublight engines. The mounting system was completed after a suggestion to use plastic end caps for the copper pipes to fit into. Kudos to Bill Blohm for that!

The picture below shows the copper anchored inside the main engines with the same end caps. I was not able to do this with the smaller neck, but that should not be a concern. It all stands up on the base board just fine.

With the mounting system solved, I then turned my attentions to the sublight engines that take up the space between the two main tunnel drive engines. I used spare 1/2 ” PVC pipe for the engine and then supplemented with smaller tubes and pipes on the bottom engine. I figured that the bottom of the ship would be a good place to drain things and have the excess burn off. So I used lots of piping for the main details.

This is how much will be visible when the bilge is covering it.

The top sublight engine sits right under the poopdeck starfighter hangar. That will make more sense when I actually build it, for now, just know that these details will be somewhat visible under the hangars. So I had to do some scratch building and then paint it before I could continue with covering it. Honestly, most people won’t see this detail unless they are looking at the model closely.

Here is the same area painted in Lt Gray. I may go ahead and weather this area too, as it will soon be covered with the hangar section.

Next up will be to start the main body construction. This will be lain out similar to a boat keel, using the 2″ pipe as the keel and building bulkheads to shape the main body. I have lots of thick sheet plastic to frame out the main body. The model will start to have a final shape for the next installment of this series. Stay tuned!