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I managed to score a New Bright RC X star (32" long) off ebay a little while ago. These 'toys' were available about 6 years ago and are now pretty hard to find. I thought it would make an interesting project to create a mini working versino of my full size Star 
It took months of watching for one to finally come available on Ebay. But I finally got one... now for the build.
Below is the original version as it arrived. As you can see, this is based on the pre-2007 X star. So I knew I will be doing a little scratch building to get the tower somewhat closer to the post 2007 ZTF3.
First thing I did was to repaint the interior in spirit of my X star color scheme. I used carbon fiber 3M sticker for around in the instrument gauges and glove compartment. The decals were created using Testors Decal paper.
Once the interior was painted and decals applied, I applied 4 to 5 coats of clear coate to protect the finish.
The Exterior was painted to suit followed by the wrap. For the wrap, i used the low res proof that was used to approve my full size wrap and sent to a local decal shop. The wrap was printed using the exact same 3M laminated UV protected material as the full size. I did have to mess around with the scale by creating mock ups to get the size right. Once the wrap was applied, iI coated the hull and top deck with 5 coats of clear coat.
The original swim deck was hacked off and replaced with a real teak deck (Used a kitchen platter from the dollar store). I shaped it, sanded and clear coated it. The swim deck alos provides a mounting platform for the large rudder required for this (now 34") monster.
As you can see I addded the famous bow sheild
The stand was made using an address board (from craft store) and cheap IKEA 4" legs that we had aying around.
The tower was mostly scratch built except for the front and upper portion. I used styrene plastic used for model railroad building. The tower speakers are caps from scented felt markers I got from the dollar store. I was looking all over for anything that had the correct (or close to) proportions to the real ones. The marker caps worked out pretty good. The speaker grilles were cheap RC airplane foam wheel hubs - they fit perfectly into the caps. The tower was peiced together, epoxied brushed (like you would do when fiber glassing) curred, painted, wrapped with vinyl wrap, then clear coated many times.
Next... Whats inside.
It took months of watching for one to finally come available on Ebay. But I finally got one... now for the build.Below is the original version as it arrived. As you can see, this is based on the pre-2007 X star. So I knew I will be doing a little scratch building to get the tower somewhat closer to the post 2007 ZTF3.
First thing I did was to repaint the interior in spirit of my X star color scheme. I used carbon fiber 3M sticker for around in the instrument gauges and glove compartment. The decals were created using Testors Decal paper.
Once the interior was painted and decals applied, I applied 4 to 5 coats of clear coate to protect the finish.
The Exterior was painted to suit followed by the wrap. For the wrap, i used the low res proof that was used to approve my full size wrap and sent to a local decal shop. The wrap was printed using the exact same 3M laminated UV protected material as the full size. I did have to mess around with the scale by creating mock ups to get the size right. Once the wrap was applied, iI coated the hull and top deck with 5 coats of clear coat.
The original swim deck was hacked off and replaced with a real teak deck (Used a kitchen platter from the dollar store). I shaped it, sanded and clear coated it. The swim deck alos provides a mounting platform for the large rudder required for this (now 34") monster.
As you can see I addded the famous bow sheild
The stand was made using an address board (from craft store) and cheap IKEA 4" legs that we had aying around.
The tower was mostly scratch built except for the front and upper portion. I used styrene plastic used for model railroad building. The tower speakers are caps from scented felt markers I got from the dollar store. I was looking all over for anything that had the correct (or close to) proportions to the real ones. The marker caps worked out pretty good. The speaker grilles were cheap RC airplane foam wheel hubs - they fit perfectly into the caps. The tower was peiced together, epoxied brushed (like you would do when fiber glassing) curred, painted, wrapped with vinyl wrap, then clear coated many times.
Next... Whats inside.
lucky me.. First step was to completely gut out the old cheap electronics so that I can start with an empty hull.
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