Klingon ships of the Starfleet Handbook, part 2: Star Trek starship parts kit expansion #28

[Note: You can find an alternative Google Drive location for this project at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1khu2arGc4GQ0iOR1nhyiNvmDLd8SWbPD?usp=share_link]

Note: I’ve created a Patreon to my modelling projects. If you’ve found my work useful, have the means, and would like to my efforts, please give it a look. I will continue to release my designs for free on Cults 3D and Thingiverse, but Patreon will get early access and in progress updates on my new projects, and it will serve as a central location for announcements. Thanks for reading!

[Part 1 is here: https://cults3d.sitegames.net/en/3d-model/game/klingon-ships-of-the-starfleet-handbook-part-1-star-trek-starship-parts-kit-expansion-27]

This is the 28th expansion parts kit meant to complement my original Star Trek Constitution Class Parts Kit. In this case, I’ve collaborated with Art Braune - a lifelong Treknologist and Trek Archivist, to delve into the depths of old fanon Trek manuals to come up with something a little different. From Geoffrey Mandel’s Starfleet Handbook, Volume 13, the “Class I Equivalent - Klingon Imperial Fleet”.

When originally published in 1978, this article included side profile artwork for several ships designed by Patrick Flannery, and later versions of the handbook would add designs originating from Todd Guenther, Eric “Jackill” Kristiansen, and Marc E. Shamma'a. While many of these designs have had more detailed blueprints or 3d models made over the year, Art and I have attempted to take a fresh attempt at rendering these ships using only the original side profile artwork as a guide.

While this was originally going to be a small kit containing some additional parts to add to my existing Klingon kits, it grew more substantial and with the number of designs increasing, I’ve decided to break it up into two kits. This second kit primarily focuses on smaller and non-combatant designs from the article.

See my Cults3d Profile for the full list of parts kits I’ve released so far. Each of these kits includes combined ships and ship parts STL files, along with blender source files used to create them. Ship files should be ready to print. Part files are provided so you can import into your 3d modelling software of choice to combine and modify to easily create your own ship designs. All parts are meant to be cross-compatible between kits.

Included Ships

This kit includes the following ships:

ES-A2 “Akh’ist” class scout / ED-S1 “Kortak” class destroyer

This ship is small and weird looking in the original artwork, and my take on it is perhaps the most radical of interpretations from this kit. Taking a small feature of the side profile artwork, I extended this to a kite-like structure connecting the neck and secondary hull, presumably packed with sensor arrays.

Included are three versions: a Mk I with the original TOS detailing and non-standard command module as seen in the article, a Mk II with a more standard TOS era command module, and a Mk III featuring K’t’inga style details, all with corresponding parts files.

Q4 “Lecthu” class destroyer / C-2 Sho’tar class scout

Not one of the ships include in the original 1978 handbook, this single nacelle ship is a later design by Eric “Jackill” Kristiansen.

Included in this kit are TOS and TMP era versions of the ship models and parts.

N-2 “Hasparath” class transport

The Hasparath is an interesting design. My understanding is that it originated as a Todd Guenther design, and detailed drawings by David Nielson are available on Cygnus-X1. These drawings describe the Kobayashi Maru (of Starfleet Academy fame) as historically being a privately owned instance of this class.

N-5 “Har’tu” class transport/tug

The N-5 is also an Eric “Jackill” Kristiansen design not included in the 1978 handbook, and is essentially a “single-wide” variant of the larger N-6. The equivalent of the Federation Ptolemy

Included in this kit are TOS and TMP era versions of the model and parts, along with ship models including Klingon and Romulan style transport containers.

N-6 “Morast” class transport/tug

The Morast is the larger “double-wide” transport ship.

Included in this kit are TOS and TMP era versions of the model and parts, along with ship models including Klingon and Romulan style transport containers.

Zip Files

Zip files are included in the following google drive locations:

• starfleet-handbook-klingons-2_ship-stls.zip – Contains the combined, ready to print, ship files.
• starfleet-handbook-klingons-2_parts-stls.zip – Contains all of the individual part STL files used to create the combined ship files.
• starfleet-handbook-klingons-2_blender_files.zip – Contains the source blender files used to generate the parts, as well as files with the parts assembled as used to generate the combined ship files.

Notes on scaling and working with Blender

My target scale for all source files and output STL files is 1:1000, However, I generally recommend 1:2500 or smaller given the detail level of the model. Although these files have not been extensively tested through printing, they are intended to be resized to match common modelling and miniatures scales.

Target scale - Scale STL files to: - Notes

- 1/3900 - 0.25641026 - FASA miniature scale

- 1/3788 - 0.26399155 - ADB Starline 2400 scale

- 1/3125 - 0.32 - ADB Starline 2500 scale

- 1/2500 - 0.4 - The Trek modelers "Golden scale"
- 1/1600 - 0.625 - TOS 3-Ship Set scale

- 1/1400 - 0.714285714 - Common resin model scale

- 1/650 - 1.538461538 - Modelling scale

- 1/537 - 1.862197393 - Common scale for TMP models

- 1/350 - 2.857142857 - Large scale

Blender

Blender is free, which to be honest was the primary factor in my decision to learn it. There are many fine video and text tutorials available online if you're interested in learning more. For a basic tutorial on moving and ing objects in Blender(which should be the minimum you need to know when working with these parts), see this instructables tutorial.

You can use File -> Import -> Stl (.stl) and File -> Export -> Stl (.stl) to load or save STL files in blender.

Note: This kit was built using Blender 3.1.

Post-processing STL output

Although all of the STL files included have been tested as valid watertight meshes, ing the parts together and exporting new STL files can introduce small errors that may cause issues with slicing programs. I recommend any STL files you create are checked using a program like Netfabb Basic free edition. Doing a simple "Close All Holes" repair has fixed most of the issues I've run into so far. If you do run into issues with mesh quality, please let me know.

File manifest

Parts

The starfleet-handbook-klingons-2_parts-stls.zip file contains all of the part STL model files listed below. Note that part files are not meant to be printed on their own, but instead they are meant to be combined to create new ship designs that can then be output as ed files and printed.

Part - Description

- es-a2-tmp-command-module.stl - Command module with K’t’inga style detailing.

- es-a2-tmp-main-hull.stl - Main hull with K’t’inga style detailing.

- es-a2-tmp-nacelle.stl - Center warp nacelle with K’t’inga style detailing.

- es-a2-tmp-neck.stl - Neck with K’t’inga style detailing.

- es-a2-tos-command-module-mk1.stl - Non-standard TOS command module based on original artwork.

- es-a2-tos-command-module-mk2.stl - Traditional TOS style command module style detailing.

- es-a2-tos-main-hull-mk1.stl - Mk I main hull with TOS style detailing.

- es-a2-tos-main-hull-mk2.stl - Mk II main hull with TOS style detailing.

- es-a2-tos-nacelle.stl - Center warp nacelle with TOS style detailing.

- es-a2-tos-neck.stl - Neck with TOS style detailing.

- hasparath-command-module.stl - Command module.

- hasparath-main-hull-thick.stl - Rear hull / drive section (thickened for small scale prints).
- hasparath-main-hull.stl - Rear hull / drive section.

- hasparath-module-port.stl - Port side cargo module.

- hasparath-module-starboard.stl - Starboard side cargo module.

- hasparath-neck-thick.stl - Neck (thickened for small scale prints).

- hasparath-neck.stl - Neck.

- n5-command-module-tmp.stl - Command module with K’t’inga style detailing.

- n5-command-module-tos.stl - Command module with TOS style detailing.

- n5-main-hull-tmp.stl - Main hull with K’t’inga style detailing.

- n5-main-hull-tos.stl - Main hull with TOS style detailing.

- n5-nacelle-port-tmp.stl - Port warp nacelle with K’t’inga style detailing.

- n5-nacelle-port-tos.stl - Port warp nacelle with TOS style detailing.

- n5-nacelle-starboard-tmp.stl - Starboard warp nacelle with K’t’inga style detailing.

- n5-nacelle-starboard-tos.stl - Starboard warp nacelle with TOS style detailing.

- n5-neck-tmp.stl - Neck with K’t’inga style detailing.

- n5-neck-tos.stl - Neck with TOS style detailing.

- n5-transport-container.stl - Klingon style transport container.

- n6-command-module-tmp.stl - Command module with K’t’inga style detailing.

- n6-command-module-tos.stl - Command module with TOS style detailing.

- n6-main-hull-tmp.stl - Main hull with K’t’inga style detailing.

- n6-main-hull-tos.stl - Main hull with TOS style detailing.

- n6-nacelle-port-tmp.stl - Port warp nacelle with K’t’inga style detailing.

- n6-nacelle-port-tos.stl - Port warp nacelle with TOS style detailing.

- n6-nacelle-starboard-tmp.stl - Starboard warp nacelle with K’t’inga style detailing.

- n6-nacelle-starboard-tos.stl - Starboard warp nacelle with TOS style detailing.

- n6-neck-tmp.stl - Neck with K’t’inga style detailing.

- n6-neck-tos.stl - Neck with TOS style detailing.

- n6-transport-container.stl - Klingon style transport container.

- q4-command-module-tmp.stl - Command module with K’t’inga style detailing.

- q4-command-module-tos.stl - Command module with TOS style detailing.

- q4-main-hull-tmp.stl - Main hull with K’t’inga style detailing.

- q4-main-hull-tos.stl - Main hull with TOS style detailing.

- q4-nacelle-tmp.stl - Warp nacelle with K’t’inga style detailing.

- q4-nacelle-tos.stl - Warp nacelle with TOS style detailing.

- q4-neck-tmp.stl - Neck with K’t’inga style detailing.

- q4-neck-tos.stl - Neck with TOS style detailing.

Combined ship STLs

The
starfleet-handbook-klingons-2_ship-stls.zip
file provides the printable ships created using the parts included in this kit.

Part - Description

- ship-es-a2-tmp.stl - ES-A2/ED-S1 with K’t’inga stylings.

- ship-es-a2-tos-mk1.stl - ES-A2/ED-S1 with TOS stylings and original command module.

- ship-es-a2-tos-mk2.stl - ES-A2/ED-S1 with TOS stylings and standard style command module.

- ship-hasparath-thick.stl - Hasparath thickened for small scale printing.

- ship-hasparath.stl - Hasparath transport.

- ship-n5-tmp.stl - Standalone N-5 with K’t’inga style details.

- ship-n5-tos.stl - Standalone N-5 with TOS style details.

- ship-n5-with-container-tmp.stl - N-5 with K’t’inga style details carrying a standard Klingon transport module.
- ship-n5-with-container-tos.stl - N-5 with TOS style details carrying a standard Klingon transport module.

- ship-n5-with-romulan-container-tmp.stl - N-5 with K’t’inga style details carrying a standard Romulan transport module.
- ship-n5-with-romulan-container-tos.stl - N-5 with TOS style details carrying a standard Romulan transport module.

- ship-n6-tmp.stl - Standalone N-6 with K’t’inga style details.

- ship-n6-tos.stl - Standalone N-6 with TOS style details.

- ship-n6-with-container-tmp.stl - N-6 with K’t’inga style details carrying a standard Klingon transport modules.
- ship-n6-with-container-tos.stl - N-6 with TOS style details carrying a standard Klingon transport modules.

- ship-n6-with-romulan-container-tmp.stl - N-6 with K’t’inga style details carrying a standard Romulan transport modules.
- ship-n6-with-romulan-container-tos.stl - N-6 with TOS style details carrying a standard Romulan transport modules.

- ship-q4-tmp.stl - Q-4 / C-2 with K’t’inga style details.

- ship-q4-tos.stl - Q-4 / C-2 with TOS style details.

Blender files

The starfleet-handbook-klingons-2_blender_files.zip file contains parts files, containing the STL parts arranged as used in the sample ship designs, and parts source files, containing the raw blender objects used to create the parts.

License

I'm releasing this under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. You're free to distribute and modify these files (even for commercial use), provided you attribute the creator and distribute your contributions under the same license.