2013 AMT USS Enterprise E
This kit should better for the price

This has definitely been a rollercoaster of a build. The fit was terrible when I started, especially for a 2013, although I don’t think it’s a new tool. When I first started I didn’t have a job, and I couldn’t afford shipping from a hobby store to get some decent primer. So I used some very crappy and old humbrol generic flat grey, and it was terrible. It was splotchy, it didn’t level itself, and didn’t behave like a good enamel paint would have, which isn’t very hard to find since I used testors enamels for years and they self leveled and look great. Right after, I landed a job at a tire shop, and spent all of my first pay check on good paints, a compressor, and all the tools that I needed badly. Needless to say it completely turned the build around for the better, and I’ve been using tamiya mark fit strong on the dozens of decals that I’ve applied and it works great. I picked up some xf-80 Royal light grey which is now Royal Navy grey, which I can’t find in stock anywhere, but it looks like the right colour in my opinion. The paint went on really well with the new China airbrush I purchased, but unfortunately I couldn’t get all of the splotchy “primer” off with sanding prior to painting the final colour. The rest and majority of this build has been months of applying overly thick and improperly shaped decals, but I’m near the end of that process. Unfortunately, while trying to paint over the final colour and do some detail painting with black Vallejo brush paint, I didn’t seal the tamiya masking tape properly, and it bled through. To make matters worse, the cheap China airbrush broke and since I had thinned paint in my airbrush cup, it dried when I tried to prevent it from going to waste. It was at that point that I realized that I had run out of xf-80, and I would have to apply decals until I could order a good brand name airbrush along with some more xf-80. You’ll see in one of the pictures some splatter on the black paint, where I realized that the airbrush went kaput. Like I said earlier, wheels and wings, the best hobby shop in my area, doesn’t sell tamiya paints on their online store, and I can’t find any other website that has it, that also sells a decently priced brand-name airbrush. Anyways, all that’s left to do is apply a couple more decals, paint the star fleet logo base, and apply a gloss coat. Right now I’m super excited to start on a tamiya celica gt-four that I recently picked up, as well as a brand new 2020 1:48 F-86E Sabre kit from Italeri. My choices for the f-86E decal and paint scheme are as follows: US Air Force Feb 1957, Canadian RAF squadron in England Dec 1952, Luftwaffe 1966, Italian Air Force 1957. If you’ve made it this far, which one should I pick? Anyways, I hope you enjoyed, and have a fantastic day!