Recently I purchased three Furuta Star Trek Nebula class ships off eBay. They are a decently detailed model and, being plastic, are not too heavy when it comes to sitting them on a flight stand.
The original model is on the right, my painted one on the left.
The basic paintwork on the model is good enough, but I wanted to play around with the colours a little and also see if I could also make the saucer section detachable.
In painting the model I dry brushed it in a medium gray paint being careful not to paint over the registry number on both the upper and lower decks of the saucer section of the ship.
Then I inked it in black ink. Once dry I then gave it another dry brush in a lighter gray paint before picking out details and doing highlights along the lines and edges of the model.
I did a two step painting process for the warp glow of the nacelles buy using a darker red or blue followed by a lighter red or blue. The yellow was a golden yellow colour. The reflector dish was done with the same darker blue, highlighted by a light blue and then white dry brush.
When I constructed the model, I cut the pegs that are used to hold the saucer section to the secondary hull. I then glued a rare earth magnet to the secondary hull and one to the saucer section.
Top side of saucer section detached from secondary hull
Bottom of saucer section.
The rare earth magnets hold the saucer section nicely but I stuffed it a little by not aligning where the two magnets should go exactly. So if you look closely you will notice that the saucer is on a slight angle. Its not noticeable on the whole, so I didn't kick myself too much. But it is something to be careful of if you do this yourself.
There is a nice niche that can be exploited if your magnets are the right size. These niches are due to the holes where the lugs attach when you construct the model. I used 3mm round x 1mm thick rare earth magnets and the one on the secondary hull fitted almost exactly into the hole present there. But the magnet on the saucer section pushed the saucer downwards slightly on an angle. As a result it also means that the saucer can sit slightly to the left or right of the center line of the secondary hull. So just be aware of this.
So in the end this little experiment worked out nicely enough. The size of the model is a good match for both MicroMachine and Attack Wing / Hero Clix Star Trek miniatures, though they are bigger than the Nebula class ships of those two product lines. So this model may not be to the desired size for your games.
