8 replies to this topic

[pickard]

My AA/DST 1701-A stand broke years ago. After looking for a while, I got my hands on one of the prototype stands from a former AA employee, but it was made of weaker plastic than the production model, began to sag after about a year, and finally snapped near the ball last week.

I decided to take a different approach. I headed down to Michael's (a craft supply store) and spent about 4-5 dollars on the makings of a stand.

I bought this bag of beads that were the same size as the stand tip that plugs into the ship.

I bought two pieces of dowel. One was the same size (roughly) as the hole in the bead. One was larger. I eyeballed all of this. I had to sand down the skinnier dowel a little bit to fit in the bead.

Then I drilled a similarly sized hole in the larger dowel. I plugged the skinnier dowel in there and let a half-inch hang out to go in the bead.


For $2 or $3, I picked up this base which is about 6" across. I drilled a hole in the center (not all the way through) with the same width as the larger dowel.


The final product (without painting):


It's very stable, way more than the original stand.

I hope this might be useful to someone else out there in the same situation I was in.

[FHC]

and if you used a metal tube, you could run wires up it and power the lights 24 / 7. That was my plan a year or two ago but never got around to it.

[Commodore Kor'Tar]

Wow! That's an awesome , quick , and inexpensive way of doing it! Thanks for sharing!

[knightone]

IMO, the wooden stand looks far better than the included plastic stand. It makes it more like a presentation model than a toy. A very beautiful upgrade that makes for a far more attractive display.

[A Chimpanzee & 2 Trainees]

IMO, the wooden stand looks far better than the included plastic stand. It makes it more like a presentation model than a toy. A very beautiful upgrade that makes for a far more attractive display.

and it can double as a paper towel holder

(very nice work, BTW... I need to make a replacement stand for my A. This might be how I'll go. Either that or recycle one of the D's 2 stands...) Thanks for the idea

[knightone]

The only thing I would recommend is staining the base and dowel a darker color.

[A Chimpanzee & 2 Trainees]

The only thing I would recommend is staining the base and dowel a darker color.

Great minds think alike... If I do do this, the way I'd like to go in terms of paint would be to paint it black, with a silver delta shield in the middle, and

U.S.S. ENTERPRISE
NCC-1701-A

in silver letters in a similar pattern and font to the top of the saucer.

[Wildcard]

Cool idea.

[Commodore Kor'Tar]

I seen a few days back on federationmodels.com I think it was, a listing for motorized turntables that are battery powered . Build a stand like one of these then put it up on the turntable , that'd be a spinning thing of beauty !