Built over a span of 10 months, the completed scratch built cube measures 10" square and weighs just shy of 4 pounds.(By far the heaviest model I've ever built).

The cube itself was made out of 100" thick styrene and has over 50 parts in it's basic construction. The main cut outs were first drawn on the styrene and then opened up on a milling machine. Surface details are also 80% styrene. Many aluminum rivets, steel washers, tubes and other parts were added to the surface. Additional photo-etched surface detail was added using the Micro-Mark Pro-Etch system (over 200 pieces). Over 100 pieces of commercially available photo-etch was also used. Copper welding wire was cut and bent into various shapes and added to the surface. There are over 7,000 parts used in the cubes construction.

The inside of the cube contains 16 green LED's for lighting and over 30' of wire was used to hook everything up. The LED's are mounted on the surface of a 6" square mounted in the center of the larger cube.

The “Time Sphere” started out as two Plastruct 2" diameter hemispherical domes with vacuum formed .040" and .060" plating detail added to the surface. Thin music wire was formed and used as conduit detail for the sphere. Evergreen strips provided much of the surface detail on the sphere as well as over 50 pieces of photo etch. Three internal LED's light up the inside of the sphere.

The entire model(s) was primed with Duro brand automotive primer and airbrushed with a mix of Tamiya Chrome Silver, Metallic Blue and Dark Grey. The surface was then detail painted in certain areas with Flat Aluminum, Copper and Gold acrylics. The photo-etched parts were then scrapped with a flat blade knife to remove the paint to give them that distressed look. Black oil washes were then brushed over the cube to enhance the shadow areas.

The “Show” base was made out of .125" thick styrene and contains all the electronics for the lighting and sound. A 6" Lumin Disk mounted in the center as well as split loom tubing around the base give it that “Borg” look.

Image: Time Sphere, closer look

Image: Overall

Image: Extruding

Image: Another look

Image: All lit up

Image: Closer look

Image: With stars

Image: Enroute to sector 0-0-1