HO Scale Starbug Taxi |
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Starbug from Red Dwarf TV series. This is a small ship that ferries the crew from Red Dwarf (the mothership) to planets or asteroids. |
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| Left: the Gallant out of the packaging. Right: disassembled. An interesting note that the stripe down the side is from a thin section of black plastic. It did have four tires, but I lost one when taking it apart. | |
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Bottom view of the kitbash after I had watched one-half of the first season of the TV show Millenium and stayed up until 2:30 a.m. on Sunday morning. There were several "startovers" during this time. I began by sanding the bottom of the model so a piece of .060 black styrene would glue flat to the underside. This piece is wider at the doors to provide a step. Once dry, it was trimmed and filed to match the contour of the car body. Filler had to be used on the rear as the body is upswept. The front wheel wells were filled in with .030 styrene strip. A giant tailpipe was made out of 1/4" styrene tubing and a 1/8" piece was slipped in the back end. The front was cut at an angle and covered with .030 styrene strips. The entire assembly was sanded smooth to remove all sharp corners and the gloss on the pieces. Two pieces of 1/8" tubing were added crosswise and the wheel well fillers notched out to fit them. The legs are made from HO scale air cylinders with brake wheels glued to the bottom and N scale tank placards glued on top. |
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| Half way through adding the Starbug power equipment! | |
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| The back legs were done like the front except that only one half of the cylinder was used and a vent from a tankcar was glued on top. This was to allow clearance for the back door to open. Tichey Train Group louvres were glued to each side of the tailpipe and a lamp shade glued to the small section of tailpipe. | |
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The completed car. Body and underframe painted with Model Master Medium Green. The passengers and driver are Model Power Sitting People, highly chopped up in order to fit into the interior. The front and rear bumpers are painted with Model Master Euro Gray. Weathering is Testors Steel and then a bit of Steel mixed with Model Master Insignia Red and a final scuzz of Testors Brass. I did have problems getting the body halves to mate and this may be because the piece of styrene glued to the bottom distorted the lower half. |
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See Karen Birch's photos of a real car on Red Dwarf Event (photos on Flickr) |
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