How To? - Fill drill hole portholes and install LED lights

[Sutho]

Hi all, I have coming in the post (by slow surface mail thankfully) a 1/350 scale Gunze RMS Lusitania.

I have intermediate modelling skills and can do photo etch, decent painting and limited scratch build of structures as well as kit bash for changing kits.

Just wondering what advice (cost effective) people can give for:

1.) drilling out the port holes on a 1/350 liner and what to fill the holes with - is it best to fill or leave empty. Looking for something easy.

2.) how would I go about installing LED lights, what power should I look at and types to avoid heating and not burning too much light out that it spoils the kit. Is it possible to completely enclose the kit when LED is installed and have it display quality with minimal fuss of a wire going through the base and display stand to switch.

I make all my models full hull in display cabinet.

[Hallis]

Others will want to chime in on this as i've not seen that kit in person. But I think 3mm LED's would probably be too large. You may wand to, instead use fiber optics. But fiber optic lighting can be real hard to work with.

Or, probably the simplest solution would be just to put a light on the inside of the ship and drill the holes to let the light through. A little care would need to be taken to black out the inside of areas but as long as you're not running real bright light then you should be pretty easily tasked with that.

Also,is you use LED's for that light source they run pretty cool so I wouldn't worry about plastic melding too much. And lastly, when you do run your wires and everything i'd make a provision to change the batteries from the base as well. Rather than storing them inside the model.

[LordAnkarin]

Maybe this will give you a few ideas about lighting. Not the right ship, but the steps would be the same.
http://titanic-model.com/articles/fo_tutorial.pdf

[Hallis]

Maybe this will give you a few ideas about lighting. Not the right ship, but the steps would be the same.
http://titanic-model.com/articles/fo_tutorial.pdf

No denying that effect is the most freggin amazing on the planet it also demonstrates what I was talking about in my earlier post about fiber being a monster pain in the butt.

[Sutho]

Thanks for the replies. I have something to start investigating now. I was hoping to keep it as simple as possible and would be happy with simple in hull lights for portholes and windows.

[Ross MacMillan]

I found when lighting my 1/570 Titanic that using a few LEDs to light the interior produces an effect where some portholes will shine brighter than others, depending on the angle of light through the hole; it was clear to see where the bulbs were, and dispelled the illusion of there being individual rooms and lights on the ship.
My fix was to 'wallpaper' the inside of the ship with thin white paper to produce a more even backlit effect - trouble was that with the portholes being so small some light just couldn't escape enough through the tiny gaps and it wasn't entirely satisfactory in the end.

I'd hesitate to use the paper method on a larger scale however, as the windows may be more visibly opaque than with the smaller scale where I was able to get away with it. I like the idea of the fibre-optic method - especially as it makes it easier to kill the cursed light-leak - but so many portholes to light!

EDIT: forgot to mention that the paper method is slightly less bright than without.

[Hallis]

you could use reflective surfaces and diffusion to help alleviate the light direction to some effect. use a directional bulb, shoot it up at a bulkhead that has a reflective yet diffused (easiest with a white textured surface) finish on it. That way the whole area inside lights up and the light beams aren't coming out at different angles.

[LordAnkarin]

In the link I posted, the guy shroaded the led's in plastic milk jug corners. It diffused the light, and helped to get the yellowish light color. Also, glued tin foil to the interior spaces. That stopped leak through, and further reflects and diffuses the light.