This part is the whole UNSC fleet from start to finish. It’s pretty much the same steps from parts 1-3, so I put it all in 1 page instead of breaking it up. Here are the 8 UNSC ships from GZG’s Fleet Intro Pack. As you can see, 6 of them need assembly.

 

This is part of the battlecruiser. You can see the bad cast on the right side. I feel this piece was very poorly cast. Every other piece of every other ship was good, but this one was lame. Note: GZG has sent me a replacement for this part, and it is much better.

 

All the flash removed, and all the pieces washed. There was a lot less flash to clean up on these ships compared to the ESU fleet. Each class of ship is in it’s own bowl so I don’t get the parts mixed up.

 

Now for assembly. I used superglue and epoxy. There were some parts that fit very tightly. For these I used superglue, because it sets very fast. Some other parts had some play, or spaces that needed to be filled in. For those I used epoxy. It sets slower, but it will fill in space, and superglue will not.

 

Here are all the assembled ships.

 

And here they are after priming.

 

This is during painting. All ships got a dry brush of dark blue, then a more selective dry brush of lighter blue. Then details in yellow, and some ships got some details in grey. The engines are a dry brush of very dark blue, then a selective dry brush in a slightly lighter blue. Then all the ships got a red and yellow “thruster exhaust”.

 

Now to attach the stands. I used epoxy for this. Only 1 “pole” needed to be glued to the stands, the rest snapped in tight with no glue. All the “poles” are glued to the ships.

 

Getting ready for sealing. I use a clear matte sealer. I don’t want to get it on the bases, so I made these skirts to protect the base and pole.

 

 

Outside, ready to seal. It’ about 65 F here in San Diego, CA today (Dec 23, 2012). [ed: When this was origianlly posted, to Imgur]

 

 

The finished fleet. The yellow details came out better on the better cast parts. They are sloppy on the poorly cast battlecruiser hull.

 

 

 

 

A close up of the heavy cruiser.