The poor crewman in the red shirt

I decided to throw an update since I feel it will be a long time until my next one as I suspect there will be a lot of sanding and gap filling in my future (oh, I love the smell of super glue in the morning!!!!).

The end of nacelles is made up 2 clear pieces. Polar Lights has you paint the inside one red and then a clear cover go over the top. I made an executive decision and it will either look cool or go down in spectacular flames. I painted the interior part clear yellow and the outside one will be painted clear red. I am hoping that you will able to see the yellow part through the top red cover. The studio model indicates that the outside piece is pure red but has a light behind it. Since I am not lighting the kit, I am trying to create the illusion of light behind it (we will see how it works? I can already feel the flames).

I also did some work on the saucer. Again the studio model had lights coming out of the top and bottom of the saucer. I have seen several modelers who light their kit and it looks pretty cool (see Starship Modeler for examples of modelers who know what they are doing). So I am faking it – I cut up white card stock and glued on the backside of the lenses. It looks OK.

In addition, there are four colored lights, 2 on bottom and 2 on top, which need to be inserted prior to gluing the saucer halves together. I decided this would be a pain to paint around them and also covered the holes with card stock. After the model is painted, I will cut the lenses in half and insert them from the top (getting that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach…something is going wrong here).

That is all for now…keep on Trekin’ (very bad joke).

Matt (or the unknown guy in the red shirt going on the away mission...this can't go well)

Ho Hum

Didn’t get much done on the Enterprise this weekend. Spent most of my free time working on the Dragon Tiger Tank. This is very detailed model and has a ton of parts but in the long run it will look neat (if I don’t screw it up).

Anyway, I worked on the seam on the U support beam. There is a large gap between the two parts that needs to filled and sanded smooth. Used super glue to fill initially and sanded it down then put down a coating of Mr. Surfacer 1000 to smooth over the pitted areas. I also added some of the pieces to the nacelles.

Nacelles Shmnacelles......

Spent most of the weekend working on a Tiger Tank and a Corsair, so very little work got done on the Enterprise. But I did work on the nacelles and the support beams. In all the reviews that I read this one of the biggest issues with the kit.

The support beam is made up of two parts, a top and bottom piece. The instructions have you put the top and bottom pieces together and then put into a slot inside the nacelle. I played with it and played with it but could not get it to work right. I could not get the nacelle to sit correctly – it always ended up turned slightly. All my references indicated the nacelles are straight.

So I continued to play with different methods and just like a puzzle the solution came to me later. First I took the top support beam and placed it inside the nacelle by itself. This work perfectly and the nacelle sits perfectly straight. So I glued the top beam into place.

The bottom support will now not work as designed. I had to trim off the tab and sand to fit to the nacelle. This took awhile because I wanted the closest fit as possible and would only remove alittle at a time.

With both nacelles glued into place as described, it is a strong bond and there is very little that I will break them off (but then again if there is a way I will do it).

Now back to my Dragon Tiger Tank where are all the parts fit (I might do a WIP on it also – haven’t made up my mind).

Oh the humanity....

I made the mistake of looking for pictures of the actual Enterprise model used in the show. Just the typical research to compare against the kit and accuracy against the “real thing”. First thing I notice was the thickness of the support beams for nacelles. The Polar Lights kit has 2 parts (number 12 and 13) that are supposed to glued together to form the support the beam for the nacelles.

This is a picture of the studio model that I found off a website:

The first picture is with both support beams in place:

The next picture is with just the top support in place, which will work but there are huge gap issues (more than normal).

As you can see the single support beam is more accurate compared to the studio model. Since I am lazy I will likely go with the two supports as there less issues with the gaps, both on the main hull and the nacelles. In addition, the two support beams will hold the nacelles better and there is a less chance of my ham fists knocking them off.

But I may try to work around it by using some kid of filler or plastic card. I hate being indecisive.

This entry is Trademarked

The very first thing you will notice on the Polar Lights kit is that the Trademark information is on the outside hull (it should say “Do not try this model unless your prescription is Paxil is full”).

Anyway, after several minutes of scraping and sanding it was removed. I went crazy with my handy dandy X-Acto blade and put a few pits in the hull. A little bit touch up with super glue and it is good as new.

Next I will tackle the dreaded nacelles.

Space, the final frontier

… to boldly go where no man has gone before. Well not quite. I am working on various models at the same time and after finishing the Roden Fokker DR.I, I decided to do something simple. I was going through my stash and the 1/1000 Polar Lights USS Enterprise struck my fancy. Plus I always thought that the USS Enterprise was a cool looking starship.

It is a shame that Polar Lights is now out of business. Their kits definitely have their building issues but they filled a niche and I don’t see any other company stepping forward to replace them. What is nice about the 1/1000 kits (Enterprise TOS, Enterprise NX-01 and Klingon Battlecruiser) is that they are small compared to the AMT/ERTL kits and the detail is great for the scale.

The box states that there is over 50 pieces but that is only a misnomer as you will only use about half of the parts to complete the kit. The kit allows you build 3 different versions – Enterprise from the Original TV Series, from the 1^st and 2^nd TV pilot. In addition they provide 4 decal options for the Enterprise from the Original TV Series version – USS Enterprise, Constellation, Defiant and Exeter. They also supplied stickers for the kids. So you can easily build more than one and with a retail price of $10 to $15 it is a good bargain.

After deciding the version you want to build you will need to decide if you want to build this kit at as snap together kit or a standard build. The snap together version will build quickly but there will huge gap and fit issues. But, there is always a but, the standard build will also have significant gaps and require a ton of filler to make look great. As with all Polar Kits make sure you test fit everything and exercise patience.

I have decided build the USS Enterprise from Original TV series. Below is all the major parts that I will need (except the clear parts) to complete kit. It is amazing that such a few number of parts will cause frustration (yes, I have tried a couple of Polar Lights Kits in the past and somewhat know what to expect).