Puttering in the Study

Bandai U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 kit

A couple of weeks ago I finally built the 1/850 scale prepainted and pre-lit starship Enterprise by Bandai that I bought about four years ago, and I can't say enough good things about it.  Although it is snap-together, it is an amazingly accurate model of the movie Enterprise, and the lighting is spectacular.  I couldn't find any of the various photos of the model from the box art (which are of the model itself), but the box art on the left should give you an idea of what it looks like.  Since the first movie came out in December of 1979 I have wanted a shelf-sized lit Enterprise (and I still plan of finishing the monster-size 1/350 kit at some point) and this is exactly the thing.  The fit was excellent with the exception of the secondary hull, where something (probably a wire) kept the hull sides and bottom from fitting together tightly, so the seams are evident from a couple of feet away - and are open enough to allow some light leakage.  If properly fitted there would be no light leaks and the seams themselves wouldn't be visible until you got closer than a foot in normal light.  In low lighting, so as to see the lights you dson't see a properly fitted seam at all, and when the lights are on it's the last thing you're looking at.  This really is an extraordinary piece of model engineering.  It has a base that contains the batteries and light switch, and which provides a solid mount for the model.

Here are some pictures of the model on the shelf above the Star Trek books in the study (where's it's away from little hands and isn't part of the door into the workshop).  I have an even smaller TOS die-cast Enterprise by Corgi on the shelf below, so this completes my (current) Enterprise collection. 

Polar Lights Enterprise - part 3 - arboretum

Second step in the Enterprise construction is assembly of the arboretum in the secondary hull.  It's one diorama piece, seven trees, and a clear plastic ceiling with sky decals.  When complete it sits down low in the secondary hull, and the cargo bay sits partially over it.  Next step in the process is assembly of the warp engines, but since I don't have all the paints I need for that yet, I may skip ahead to step 8a and start assembling the secondary hull and warp engine pylons.

Polar Lights Starship Enterprise - part 2 - shuttlecraft bay

Part 1 of the construction of the Polar Lights Enterprise is the shuttlecraft bay and cargo deck.  I knew the old Enterprise hangar deck well - in fact while in high school I built a TOS Enterprise kit for someone (for money, seriously) and included a fully detailed shutlecraft bay, with glow-in-the-dark paint in the light recesses so it'd have a light source.  But the refitted Enterprise largely gutted the secondary hull to triple the size of the space by adding an enormous cargo bay (as shown in the above pictures, probably from ST:TMP.  (I have always thought that extended bay was to copy the dramatic view up the landing bay from Battlestar Galactica, but that's just a guess).

Anyway, here's my version.  The plans called for painting the walls "off white" a mix of white and light gray, and the storage doors and deck neutral gray (which will be the most commonyl used accent color on the exterior, I can already tell), so I sprayed that and then glosscoated it so the decals would stick.  The decals were great, except that the little bit of extra on the storage door decals made them not fit in the recesses.  If I'd had some decal set solution it'd have helped them snug down better, but I'll worry about that when they're someplace where they'll show.  (I would also have sprayed them with dullcoat after applying if they were where they'd be seen - and will spray to aft end later on, but for the moment I'm just getting used to the idea of applying decals again.  It's very possible I haven't done this in about fourteen years). 

The ceiling of the bay is extremely detailed, as you can see, and included two large clear plastic lighting sections - clearly this kit was built to be lit from the inside.  The whole thing fit together into a solid plastic tunnel, ready to be installed into the secondary hull when it's done.

Polar Lights Starship Enterprise - part 1 - overview

One of the oldest items on my to-do list dates from December of 1979, and it is to build a decent model of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  I bought several of the old AMT/Ertl model, and read everything I could find, but the research was always conflicting and inadequate, and the modeling skills required to do the "aztec" pattern that covered the ship in a mosaic of slightly different-colored tiles was always way beyond my modeling skills.  Not to mention the numerous changes that the inaccurate AMT kit required.
But a couple of years ago Polar Lights came out with - for under $50 - a monster-sized 1/350 accurate model of NCC-1701 (which can also be modeled as the nearly identical 1701-A from ST:V and VI).  And after market companies came out with friskets for the aztec design all over the ship.  And - on top of that - the kit provides detailed painting instructions, including an A-U painting guide that gives ModelMaster equivalents for all the necessary colors (or mixing instructions, where necessary).  The ship included dozens of clear markets and is fully capable of being internally lit - thus illuminating the several interior areas (lounges, rec areas and a cavernous hangar/cargo bay).  I'm not going there for this model, but if an aftermarket company comes out with a lighting kit - which I expect - if I ever build it again, I might.
Anyway, the one thing stopping me has always been my airbrushing skills, which are nil.  After over twenty years with two Badger brushes I couldn't ever get to work, the very helpful staff at King Hobby in Austin recommended a Paasche as foolproof (or was it idiot-proof - either applies) and I have started using it extensively this weekend on this and several other projects.  While I'm still having a lot of problems using it well, at least it works, and I'm getting comfortable mixing up the necessary paints, and painting what's needed, as it's needed.
So finally, this weekend, I started on the model.