Polar Lights Star Trek U.S.S Enterprise Refit

William O.
After a 1 year hiatus from modelling, I finally decided to crack this bad boy open again. From what I can say, after a kwick going over, is that I looks like it's going to be a ton of fun to build. The decals scare me a bit, but better then painting all the "aztecing", especially at this scale. The instructions look to be especially nice, simple and large format drawings, should help make assembly a breeze. All in all I cant wait to start cracking at it.
Willy

Starbase101
Grabbing the first chair.😎

Torsten
I'll take a seat and will watch your project 🙂

William O.
Thank you Mike and Tor. I'm eager to get rolling on it. I'll have to borrow some putty and glue from my pro modeller brother😉.

JD
Engage Captain...Make it so.

William O.
Ay Ay Captain!

Starbase101
But remember, control thrusters only while in spacedock!

William O.
More dry fitting, testing out the second stage, it's going to be a real challenge. Wherever 2 pieces meet, there's a seam line to fill and sand😉. But they are thin seams, so filling/sanding shouldn't be "to" difficult. I guess I have to put work on hold, while I pickup/order in the necessary supplies.

Ken Kolenovsky
Set phasers to "FUN"! Will boldly go where all these others have gone....to another chair for viewing!

Black Baron
Following

Dave Flitton
My warp nacelles did not want to attach at the proper angle - be careful!

playtime 222
Me too. Got 2 of the TOS ones.

William O.
Thank you for joining the fun Ken, BB, Dave, and playtime. Ok, thank you for the heads up, i'll be watching out for that. Were they angling in, or out? Outward is easy to deal with, just get a bunch of rubber bands to hold it at the right angle while the glue sets. Inward, I don't know what I could do to push them back out, ideas?

Starbase101
If the tabs are angled wrong, they could be re-aligned with a little heat. For setting the nacelles, position the ship upside-down with a spacer between the nacelles. This will keep them aligned and straight while drying.

William O.
Ok, thank you for the tips Mike. I'll be watching out for that closely, thank you fellers.

William O.
Well, took another crack at her last night, and this evening. Had to put it on hold while I picked up some supplies and tools from town yesterday. Cracked it open @ 1am, and started sanding and fitting, sanding fitting, sanding and fitting, you get my line😉. I cut the locking tabs and a few of the locating pins off. They were one of the main reasons the 2 saucer halves wouldn't flush up. After bout 1 hour work throughout the day, on and off, I got them to fit as good as you can get, for this kit anyway. Nothing difficult, just took a little patience, and we made it through. Now she's waiting for a black slop coat on the inside of the halves, so no bare plastic shows through the clear glass pieces. Get those painted up, then mount the clear pieces, and glue her all up. No need to paint the clear parts, i'm not showing her lighted up, that would be too much work painting, for my limited skills right now. Probably the next one of these I build, will be shown all lighted up. And in the future a fully lighted version. But that's getting way ahead of myself😉. So far i'm really enjoying building this kit, you can make it as easy, or as hard as you want to, whatever amount of time/work you want to put into it.

playtime 222
A clear wash on the inside of some of the clear pieces does improve them especially caps on the front of the warp engines.

William O.
That sounds great playtime, I guess i'll do a basic wash with Tamiya flat black. I have supplies coming in for it now, should be only a couple of days till I start working again.

William O.
Slowly chugging along, real learning process in proper techniques. And I officially don't enjoy black priming, to say the least! Gets everywhere and makes a pain to cleanup. I figure tamiya acrylics thinned with alcohol (even with retarder added), doesn't work well for washes/priming, at least in my case. I think black oils slathered on would work better, at least for cleanup. Oh well, i'm learning, and having a blast at the same time! Other then dealing with the press fit parts, all the issues I've been having are my fault. Live and learn, and have a ton of fun doing it! 🙂

Starbase101
Nice job on the primary hull seam. Why prime the inside with black?

William O.
Thank you Mike! I thought it would be a good idea to prime it to make sure no white spots show through the clear parts. That was before I realised I only need to paint the back sides of the clear parts black, not the whole thing. Live and learn 🙂. When I build one again, that's what i'll do. Thank you for your encouragement! I am now gluing the engine pilons together, going really well! Fit is excellent on then, with hardly a wiff of a seam 🙂. Cheers!

William O.
Quick progress update. Things are moving slowly, but steadily. Have the primary hull, deflector dish shroud, hanger bay back insert, and neck glued up. Cleaned up most of the glue seams, and spent 4 hours 2 nights ago sanding, sanding, sanding. Worked on getting all the seam lines to flush up, they all perty much did, just a lot of sanding. The fit between the hull and neck is bad, had to do a pile of sanding just to get it to semi-fit the curve of the hull. And after all that, as you can see, still didn't flush up at all. Same story with the hanger bay insert. Now i'm spending the time masking and filler puttying the seams, tedious work, but slowly coming together. This kit was definitely not engineered for good fits, it's good for a snap kit, but not great otherwise. At least it's not hard work, like I said, just tedious. It's starting to look good, pretty soon i'll be ready to start priming and painting. Back to the desk now, see ya 🙂.

Starbase101
It's beginning to look like a starship! I'm not surprised the cheaper smaller kits have such bad fits, that price point is probably targeting folks who don't care as much. I've heard the same isn't true about the 1:350 kits but I cannot verify because mine are all still boxed.

William O.
Thank you Mike 🙂. I think you hit the nail on the head, next time i'll stick with there non-snap kits. Still is a fun build! It's a great learning platform, especially filling and sanding. Much better to practice on, then one of these ultra-modern, 1,000+ piece kits 😄. If something doesn't go right, much less to cry in the beer about😉. After I posted yestertiddy, I dealt with the neck/hull gap. Filling went quite well, i'm pleased to report 🙂. The first round of masking didn't work out, and filler was too thick. Second round, I thinned down the bondo, and removed most of the masking, except from the areas I needed to preserve details on. Went much much better. I have it sanded down to almost where I was wanting to get it, still have 1 spot to touch up. After that i'll get that last gap on the saucer dome filled and sanded. Then start scraping seems on the engines. Steady as she goes!

Ken Kolenovsky
Aye aye, Captain!

William O.
Making progress on the Enterprise. Glued, test fitted, sanded glue seams, and test fitted again the warp engines. Built up quite well, I'm happy to report 🙂. There probably the best part of the whole kit, fit wise anyway. Took a little work with the sanding sticks to get the glue seams knocked out, but done. I see i'm going to have to do some work to get the engines at there proper angle, lots of play in the mounts. But they're easily mounted and taken off, so I probably won't do anything with them, probably after I get all the painting done, and maybe decaling, same story with the saucer. Happy to report all gap filling is done. Just some finish sanding too do, and ready for primer. Then i'll catch any sanding I missed. Other then that, steady as she goes!

Starbase101
So all the remaining space was indeed the final frontier.

William O.
Lol! I guess so😉