Welcome back intrepid readers.
Over the years there have been many different versions of the Enterprise, from the original Enterprise from 1967 to Picard's Enterprise, Bakula's Enterprise and even JJ Abrams' "re-envisioned" Enterprise from the latest Star Trek movie. Out of all these designs the Enterprise introduced in Star Trek: The Motion Picture remains my perfect version of the Enterprise.
Apparently the guys over at Polar Lights/ Round 2 agree and this Enterprise has gotten a lot of love of the last few years. They originally released a 1/1350 scale Enterprise a few years back. This monster of a kit is about a yard long. (And I have one sitting on my shelf just waiting to be built) They have also just released a 1/1000 scale version of the same ship. This small model (Maybe 10 inches long) is a great reproduction of the ship and is designed to either be snapped together or more traditionally glued and painted. It also includes several decal sheets to reproduce the detailed "Aztecing" paint scheme of the original filming model.
Assembly of the model is very simple and logical. The potential weak spot of the design, the pylons holding the engines up, is well designed and should support the engines without any type of "sagging". Detail is excellent for such a small scale model.
I start out be building the 4 major sub assemblies of the ship. This breaks down as the 2 warp engines, the Saucer section and the Secondary hull.
Construction was simple with the kit literally falling together. Seam lines cleverly fall along natural panel lines hiding them nicely. There were a few gaps here and there but the ship required very little putty and sanding work.
Once I had completed the 4 major assemblies I attached them to some handy sticks to make painting a little easier.
The building of this model would not be challenging thanks to the clever engineering of this kit, the model would succeed or fail on the strength of the paint job and decals. The pressure is on!
The base color of this Enterprise is to be white and white is not a very forgiving color to work with. any minor imperfection in painting stands out like a sore thumb. To make sure I had a good base coat i decided not to use the two dollar white spray paint from The Home Depot.
A couple of trips to the hobby store and I had stocked up on some Tamiya White fine primer, White Pearl and Clear Pearl.
Here is a closer shot of the Secondary hull after a coat of White Primer and some sanding.
(Click image for closer look)
Close-up shot of the top of an engine nacelle. A couple of coats of primer and some sanding with 900 grit sandpaper. a couple more coats and some more sanding and then the pearl paint.
(Click for larger image)
So there you have it so far. Enjoy and look for more updates soon!
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