Polar lights Enterprise 1701 Refit 1/350th Scale


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And just when you thought i was done with the PL refit grind...
GUESS AGAIN !
Ok you goodly folks, this time around it's a commission job so we'll most likely be grabbing a few stops and pulling the buggers right out. To get a few things out the way first, the paint job WILL BE DIFFERENT so i expect no comments on the "You got that colour wrong" sorta thing because this is to customer specifications.

That is to say the contrast will be upped somewhat and mega subtle tones are pretty much the exception rather than the rule. The lighting will be slightly different as the spec for this is the refit Wrath Of Kahn style without the battle damage. Some after market parts and extra electronics will be in this as that's what has been asked for.

Where appropriate and possible, physical corrections to certain parts to make it even closer to the filming miniature will be done without ending up with a totally scratch built item and we'll get to those in turn. Overall, the customer says how things should be so here we do go.

Now this kit is a nice piece of work done straight from the box but, it does have some accuracy issues. Done as is, she really, seriously does look good. From my perspective that's ok for me, but this model isn't for me so that be that.
I did the potted kit review on the last build so i'm not going to bother you with that thing here. The reference pics i use are printed off from Phil Broads' site and a whole stack of ref pics, all of which taken by a very decent soul (nice one Karl) of the hero Enterprise A in the Christies auction house just 'fore it was sold to persons unknown.

Reference pics of the Enterprise and Enterprise A are copyright of Phil Broad and Karl Tate, used here by kind permission of both gentlemen.

Phil Broads' site can be found at Cloudster.com(have a look, it's a brilliant reference photo site!) And Karl Tates' site is right about here, so enjoy folks!

Right then, where were we?...oh yeah...shall we?
I'd Hate To Be The One On Window Cleaning Duty
Ok then, first part of the build and first problem. The windows on the saucer section are all there but the ones on the saucer edge are too big and the B/C deck ones are oversize and in the wrong place.
This is how they should look.







And this is how the raw kit parts look.



I think you can see there's a little bit of a difference there, but some of the problems accuracy wise are due to moulding and engineering considerations so i'm not going to dwell on something like that. To my way of thinking, this is how it be so get over it.

So first things first. A wee bit of assembly, namely sticking the saucer side window parts in place. First they were just tacked into place then glued proper and secured to the saucer top.



I know, what's with the toothpicks under the tape.

These sort out two problems in one go. First they keep the tape clear of any glued seams and/or glue overspill while curing and also help push the parts in so there's no large lip at the top where it meets the saucer top rim by the side parts sticking out. Simple but effective. The saucer bottom was taped on to ensure the fit was as correct as possible while the joins set solid.

Once all that was happily settled, onto the problem of window size. Now, to easier set up the lighting, all the interior moulding from around the edge was removed and cleaned up then the plastic given a goodly scrub down. Each window was filled with some epoxy putty pushed through it and given an approximate smooth off before fully cured then left alone to do just that.





Mucho clean up of the putty then a goodly dose of smoothing down the exterior, just a wee dab of Squadron green putty for filling in small holes and a final light sanding down and polish up.

Onto the drilling and cleaning out. There are probably many different ways to sort this if your the sort to go find 'em but this is my way of tackling the problem. The molded on detail in the inset on the B/C deck parts was removed during the process and will be replaced later, this will assist in the painting and also give sharper details in this area. Some of the surface detail is a bit 'soft' in places so this will only help to improve the look.







Now this is a fair amount of mucking about i grant you but smaller windows do serve to fool the eye slightly in giving a sense of scale and this ship is supposed to be no small lass i think you'll agree so anything that works to it's advantage is fair game in my opinion

This will be done to all windows that require it with a few exceptions but we'll get round to that as we go on.
Well that's all that i wanna cram into this page, so get thee hence to page 2 should you feel so inclined me modeling muckas !


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