SFB: Converting Lyran Tugs Into Lyran Tugs

A little ways back I ordered a Lyran Cougar transport tug and a light cruiser with intentions of performing conversions on both models.  These are metal versions of the miniatures from ADB's Starline 2400 series.

The Cougar is basically a Heavy Cruiser hull with the addition of two plain, very low profile cargo pallets. I plan to run my Cougars as Battle Tugs most of the time, and decided that I would modify one of the pallets into a Battle pallet.  After receipt of the model, I conducted a search for depictions of the Lyran BT, and using that as inspiration, I decided to scratch-build a new pallet for the Battle tug.

Lyran Cougar Tug as received from ADB, with two cargo pallets.

I started of by cutting off the base mounting lug on the underside of the hull, and adding some structure to the underside of the hull, such that the pallet wouldn't interfere with the impulse engines.

I estimated dimensions for the Battle Pallet, and shaped the "U" shaped pallet from styrene sheet.  Detailing was added using the SSD as a guide with respect to weapons and other features.

My scratch-built battle pallet, next to the original cargo pallet.

The battle pallet attached to the ship, a hole was drill in the underside of the pallet to receive the mounting post from the base.

I'm pretty happy with the finished model, a reasonable interpretation/representation, I think.

I then converted a Light Cruiser into a Puma using the same process, first modifying the underside of the hull, and then adding a simpler scratch-built cargo pallet, resulting in the following model.

And a comparison shot of the two.