Outliers

USS Melvin Part 4

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Yes, it’s been three years since the last part was posted, but after quite a hiatus I suddenly felt like working on the Melvin, and as such she is getting a Part 4.

When I “completed” the model in 2013 I intentionally left off the deck railing because I thought it would be insanely fiddly to assemble and it would deform due to the flexing of the deck when opening and closing the ship (to access the internals).

But I decided I was finally up for the challenge of fiddling with the railing, and having run the ship multiple times since 2013, I had become confident that deck flex would not affect the railing. So I busted out some string and super glue and got to work.

The railing is made of posts with grooves into which you glue string. It was very difficult to set the posts oriented in exactly the right direction and many of them are not.
Inside corners were the worst as keeping tension in the string would pull it off the posts before the glue could set. In retrospect creasing the string may have helped.

I also left off the second set of Lucky Star stickers that I had made for the left side of the ship. I had been lazy and uncertain if I wanted to keep the stickers. Well, those went on as well because why not?

The new set of stickers on the left side. The ship is at Shoreline Park in Mountain View.
The new set of stickers on the left side. The ship is at Shoreline Park in Mountain View in the early morning.
The old side. She used to have
The old side. She used to have “nonsense-wars.com” stickers too, but I don’t know what happened to them.

I’ve also done a little bit of an upgrade on the internals, mainly cleaning up wiring and switching the power source to one of my rechargeable batteries. The servo to wiggle the turrets back and forth has also been wired up. I don’t think running performance has changed, but I have no way to compare.

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