TOS Enterprise-1/1000 kit by Polar Lights

trekriffic

Hi everyone! These are some in-progress shots on my 1/1000 scale build of the Polar Lights kit.
This will be the production series version of this kit and is being constructed as part of the Group Build over on The Tholian Web forum.


Just so you all know, this image taken from the 2010 SOTL calendar is kind of what I'm shooting for.
As much as possible anyway given the limitations of this kit.


Shown here are various parts scavenged from booklights I found at the local Dollar Tree store.
Four of the 1.5V batteries, wiring, metal contacts (one with and one without a spring), and slide switch will be used to construct an internal battery pack so the finished model will not need an external power source. Each nacelle will have a reflector behind the LED in each bussard.
The lights will be static which should look nice for photographing.


The finished battery pack made from the booklight parts and Evergreen and clear acrylic tubing is wired up and attached with CA to the back of the deflector housing.
I won't go into details about all the material I had to remove from the inside of the secondary hull to accomodate all the battery parts and wiring but, believe me, it was a lot!
Brass tabs at the front of the battery pack mate to slots cut into the secondary hull and the housing turns to lock into place.


A high brightness white LED is wired between the upper and lower sensor domes in the primary hull.
This LED will later be painted with fluoresent white acrylic paint so it spreads it's glow evenly around the interior much like an incandescent light bulb would.



Wires are soldered to the LEDs in each nacelle.
The LEDs are painted with white fluoresent and orange acrylic paint.



A wire cage or "spider" is constructed using 30 gauge solid wire and a clear styrene disk.
This will be inserted into the lower saucer sensor dome to give it the "pie slice" look seen in several fan made images which I have come to admire.


The cage after insertion into the lower dome. The insides of the sensor domes are painted with white fluorescent acrylic so they will have a nice even glow with the light on. Fiber strands are run to the lower running lights.



I didn't care for the look of the kit molded "nipple" on the lower saucer dome so I used the other dome in the kit (the one provided for use in building the pilot versions) and drilled out a small hole in the center. Then I turned some aluminum bar stock at high speed on my dremel and made a tiny round bead with a tiny shaft using my scribing tool. Then I glued it into the hole in the center of the lower sensor dome. This is the location of the ion pod in my opinion. Some may disagree but, for the sake of this build, it's the ion pod!



Upper port and lower starboard running lights were turned on my dremel using red and clear acrylic rod. Looking at some great still shots of the studio model I left them as globes rather than hemisphers sitting up slightly above the surface of the model.




Work on the bussards involved making a brass template for use in cutting strips of adhesive-backed aluminum foil to make the fan blades to stick to the dome inserts. The template will allow me to make each fan blade identical to the other. The inserts have had about 1/8" removed from the backside to accomodate the LED reflector. The ridges for the fan blades were also sanded flat as the fit was too tight otherwise; I have cracked a few bussard domes in the past so I knew this going in.


Light test after painting the interior of the bussard insert with transparent turn-signal amber enamel followed by red acrylic paint thinned with alcohol and allowed to pool in the center. The outer bussard domes were previously frosted on the inside with Floquil clear flat.



The stern beacon over the shuttle bay doors was the wrong shape and you could see the square slot in the kit part for mounting to the tab on the hull so I made a new one from scratch. Then I took brass tubing and ground a bevelled edge with the dremel before slicing it on my mini-cutoff saw. Much better in my opinion.



Then I sliced the acrylic rod off below the metal collar using a miter saw, hollowed out the inside with a round router bit, and painted it with white fluorescent paint tinted with just a hint of blue. My fingers almost cramped up from holding this tiny piece as I worked on it.




So, as of this writing, all hull seams have been filled and scraped and puttied and the majority of the sanding is complete. I did fill in the kit scribed lines in the front of the dorsal and on the front undersides of the nacelles with red putty. These areas will eventually be masked off and painted a slightly darker, greener shade of the hull color. Left to attach are the bussard domes, hangar bay beacon, intercoolers and reactor loops, and end caps on the nacelles. The deflector dish will be attached last and may be left removeable after the rest of the ship is finished.
It should be ready for priming with gray rattle can Tamiya primer tomorrow.
With any luck I should be finished by New Years.

Thanks for reading ! Comments welcome!

JMChladek

Very nice work! The lighting tweaks should make it really shine. In my case, while I like lighted projects, I never have been able to work up the nerve to do that with a model as small as the 1/1000 model. But I have seen some excellent projects done from it, INCLUDING this one.


The ion pod location makes sense, although remastered Trek established it as being one of the exposed dome lighted areas on the back of the secondary hull near the shuttle bay (they did a tight shot on it in the new effects shots). Still, since TOS never fleshed out exactly where it was, it could be in the sensor dome. Or, the dome could also contain the photon launcher.

What is this Tholian Web forum of which you speak? I'd be curious to see some of the other GB projects as well.

glorbes

Looking forward to seeing this come together. Your previous work would indicate that this'll be another finished masterpiece. Its already looking great.

trekriffic

Here's a link to the Group Build finished pics. So far 3 ships have been completed and posted in the finished thread:
The Tholian Web • View topic - Original Constitution Classes

This link details the rules and signup list for the Group Build:
The Tholian Web • View topic - Original 12 Starships

I'm signed up to build the Enterprise and the Defiant.

Underdog

Nice work. I took an easy way out to do the neck, engineering hull and upper and lower primary hull.... I just cut big sections out laid clear package tape over the areas, to conform to the shape and filled with clear, sanded, masked, opaqued, painted, unmasked and so on... A lot of work for such a small kit.... Still, can't wait to see more.

trekriffic

Today I did some more work on the front of the secondary hull and the deflector housing. Used a small miter saw to slice off the inner half of the rectangular tabs on each side at the front of the secondary hull and glued those pieces to the sides of the deflector housing; these would be at the 3 and 9 o'clock positions on the perimeter of the housing. I needed to do this as the tabs are designed to lock onto the tapered housing and lock it in place which meant they had to be pried apart every time I pulled out the battery pack. Then I cut a round piece of thin styrene sheet with a hole in the center to match the diameter of the battery pack front collar and glued it to the front of the secondary hull so when the deflector housing is twisted and locked into position I get a nice tight fit with no gaps. Turned out well. Using AVES I puttied around the tabs and all around the ring behind the deflector housing. Tomorrow I'll sand any rough spots.

I also repainted the inside of the little stern hangar bay beacon using a big rattle can of Krylon "Celery" lacquer I bought for half off at Michaels. This is a light bluish green color and looks very close to the color of the lit dome on the studio model. This is also a good color to use when painting the command pod, boom, and lower engineering hull surfaces on the Klingon D-7 battlecruiser but, boy, is it runny! Will definitely need a light primer coat underneath it when the time comes to build the reissued D-7.

I also glued the bussards to the front of each nacelle. They look AWESOME lit up!

The last thing I did was fix a rattle I was hearing from inside the sealed saucer. I'm anal about things rattling around inside my models; I just can't stand it!
My assumption was it was the small clear piece I had glued in front of the LED to hold the ends of the fiber strands from the lower running lights; it had come loose once before prior to sealing up the hull but how to fix the rattle without breaking open the saucer? Simple. I drilled a hole in the top of the saucer as close as I could estimate where this piece was and squeezed in a liberal amount of Super Thin CA thru the hole and tilted the hull from one side to another to spread it around inside the model. That did the trick as whatever was rattling around stuck to the glue and NO MORE RATTLE! The hole was sealed with AVES and once it dries I will sand it flush with the hull.

So I figure tomorrow will be the day for priming and maybe the first coat of the basecoat. I have a new quart of ACE Hardware "Shady Cove" oil-based enamel to try out. It comes closest to "concrete" on the gray scale (at least according to Paul Newitt) with just a hint of olive to it. I figured it was cheaper to buy it premixed rather than try mixing it up using those relatively expensive little bottles of Model Master paints; a quart of "Shady Cove" ran me 9 bucks at the hardware store and I figure it'll last me forever considering the size of the models I build.

Next post I'll have some pics I promise!

trekriffic

Sounds like an ingenious way to build a lightable kit without having to drill out all the tiny windows on this small kit! Extraordinarily inventive on your part sir. Cudos!

trekriffic

I'm honored you think so!

Underdog

Awwww Shucks..... Try it, it works. You can use the stickers to mask off all of the windows and use a drill bit the same size as the round windows to just touch the kit after it's all painted and sealed. Makes for a very interesting conversation piece. People will wonder and ask.... How did you get all of those holes in exactly the right place... How did you do that?

Underdog

Another thing I did was to paint the existing running lights with transparent paint, for the red and green and leave the white as they are and all you need is one small bright white led hooked up to a basic flasher and you can run the running lights and anti collision lights all with one LED for the two circuits each and a little fiber-optic, which I can see you are already using. Bam! You've got an easy, less complicated circuit and in the right lighting it will look as good as a 22", or 32.46" ship.

Tremas

That's going to be sweet!

trekriffic

Yes. I had thought of something similar but decided on this piece just being a static display. After I finish this one though I plan on building the Defiant as seen in the Enterprise episode "In a Mirror, Darkly." For that one I'll be using the vinyl aztecing masks I bought online to give her the full aztec treatment (it will be very subtle). I will also be using the CultTVMan nacelle lighting kit I bought years ago. It has a chaser circuit board for each engine wired to a disc with 12 red surface mount LEDs that simulate the turbine spin. I also will be using a 555 flasher board for the running lights a friend of mine built for me; he's since passed away so I plan on making a diagram showing how he wired this board so in future I can replicate it myslef. So that ship will be fully tricked out.

Underdog

Coolbeans, they both sound like they're going to be awesome builds. Can't wait to see more. Believe it or not, I designed a circuit like the one that Steve sells and discussed it at length over at Starship Builder years ago, but all references have been scrubbed from the net. I wonder if I can find that by using the wayback machine? At any rate, you're doing a fine job, looking forward to updates.

trekriffic

Update with pics!

I glued the bussards in place and lit her up. These pics are a tad overexposed but you get the idea...





Pics from today...

I made a round headed post to fit inside the flight deck control beacon,drilled a countersunk hole into the upper cowling directly above the door control booth,inserted the mounting post into the hole and glued it with CA,glued the beacon dome to the mounting post with crystal clear craft glue, then puttied around the base of the metal collar with AVES. I'm going to start calling it the flight deck rather than the hangar bay since someone pointed out that the hangar is where craft are stored prior to being moved to the flight deck. In this case the Enterprise's hangar is below the flight deck.



Basically ready for priming. Still need to mask the stern beacon and the running lights. The deflector housing will be unlocked, masked and left dangling for priming separate from the rest of the ship. The horizontal inner nacelle grills were painted and masked. I used gunmetal metalizer as a base then brushed on aluminum metalizer. I didn't think to snap a photo but the aluminum over the dark gunmetal looks fantastic!







Paint for the main hull color...


There are a few other lights I might add after the first primer coat but I'll leave what those might be to your imagination.

Thanks for reading. Comments welcome!

Underdog

Woohoo, can't wait to see this done.

trekriffic

Thanks Underdog. I didn't plan it but that ready for primer bow shot under the saucer is almost the same exact pose as Drexler's image from the calendar! Funny...

Underdog

" I love it when a plan comes together..."

trekriffic

Pics from this weekend...

Masked and ready for the first coat of primer:



I wasn't satisfied with just using a decal for the impulse engine vents so I cut a piece of thin styrene sheet using an impulse engine from another 1/1000 kit as a template to trace the outline. Then I and cut out the rectangles with an exacto thin chisel blade and drilled the tiny center hole before gluing it to the face of the kit part. This is a nice improvement in my opinion and really defines the vent openings:



After priming I noticed several spots that needed more sanding so I dobbed on red putty as needed and sanded and sanded until I was satisfied everything was uber smooth. Based on the photos below, I'm quite satisfied that no seams are visible. After a quick go over with 600 grit to ensure absolute smoothness she'll be ready for the initial basecoat:











Thanks for reading!

Underdog

It looks good, but I'm sorry.... at this scale, it's really hard to come up with good detail.

trekriffic

True. Showing much detail is rather a challenge at this scale. Conversely, one could also argue that, as elegant and iconic as Matt Jeffery's creation is, there really isn't a wealth of detail to show with this ship. And that's just fine with me.

trekriffic

So I was checking for light bleed last night and noticed some minor leakage around the rim of the bussards.
I should be able to sort that out by applying some more Mr Surfacer with a brush. This will be followed by some light sanding with 600 grit paper and even finer grit polishing pads. Then I'll shoot the entire model with a coat of Testors flat black before airbrushing the first basecoat of Shady Cove enamel.
Using the airbrush should allow me the control I need to have some of the black showing thru to leave faint weathering streaks.
After the initial coat dries I'll be using Alan Sinclair's blueprint of the upper saucer to draw the gridlines using a mechanical pencil.
I printed the drawing off onto 8.5 x 11 inch paper and then zoomed out to 124% on the copier at work to match the 5" diameter of the kit.
I'll cut it out and lay it down on the model then make tick marks along the rim of the saucer where the gridlines terminate.
I'll do the same thing along the perimeter of the B-C deck housing then use a piece of styrene strip to draw the radial lines.
The tick marks will be erased before more paint is applied.
The circular lines will be drawn with a compass.
I don't want the compass needle to mar the upper sensor dome so I'll cut a short length of tubing to fit snugly around the perimeter of the bridge (with a slot cut out where the turbolift is) and glue a round, flat piece of styrene to the top of the tubing with a hole dead center for the compass needle to rest in.
The tubing will need to fit snugly enough around the bridge deck without gluing of course.
The compass needle will thus rest just above the level of the dome without touching it.
Once the gridlies are drawn I'll seal with a light spray of Dullcote and use them as a guide to mask off and paint the rust ring with Testors Rust and lightly scribe lines where the four rectangular upward facing saucer window decals will go.
Then I'll mask off and paint the front of the dorsal and the area under the front of each nacelle behind the three flux constrictors with a mix of the hull color and Intermediate Blue.
The rust ring, gridlines, and weathering streaks will then be muted down to be very subtle after another thinned down layer of the basecoat.

As far as the nacelle encaps, the rear retangles on each side of the nacelles, and the impulse engine vent assembly and accelerator on the back of the upper saucer, I plan on painting those a 50/50 mix of Testors Medium Gray and Euro Grey as Medium Gray seems too light and Euro Gray seems a little too dark.
The slot on the inside of the nacelles will probably be painted Medium Gray as they appear to be a shade lighter than the rest.
These will be painted after the second basecoat has been applied to the rest of the ship.

I'll allow 2-3 days for the paint to cure before hitting her with Glosscote, then apply decals, wait a day and spray with more Glosscote, and then finally 3-4 coats of Dullcote. Then I'll unmask the clear bits, clean up any "holidays" (hopefully there won't be any) and call her done!
Well, all except for the base which will be a resin U.S.S. Enterprise base I bought from The Model Base Guy years ago for this build.
Here's a pic:



Comments on my color choices are welcome! Thanks for reading!

JMChladek

This is looking VERY good. I think your detailing is coming out quite well IMHO. Indeed Matt's design isn't detail heavy, but there are some nice subtleties in it (some of which can't be seen except on a large model). But once it gets painted and decalled, I think everything is going to pop quite nicely at that point as while you can't see the subtleties, enough hints will be present to make it appear as though it is there.

trekriffic

Updates from last night...

So after work last night I skipped (errrr... make that strided purposefully) out to the garage and spent about an hour on the old girl.

First thing I wanted to do before spraying her with Testors black enamel was to drill holes for the lights on the spine over the shuttle bay and the tops of the bussard collars.
I figured it would be easier to see what I was drilling against a gray exterior as opposed to one painted black.

For the spine lights, I drew a line down the center of a piece of Tamiya masking tape and using my drafting calipers took measurements off Alan Sinclair's blueprint (which I had previously blown up to match the size of the model) and transferred the location of the three tiny lights onto the tape using the front edge of the stern beacon as my reference point.
After that I laid the tape down as close to the centerline of the secondary hull as I could using my drafting calipers to measure where the pencil line was centering it from the front edge of the hangar beacon, between the nacelle struts, and up to the centerline of the dorsal.
Then I took my straight pointed dental pick and pressed it thru the tape where I'd marked where the lights should be leaving indents for drilling into the model...




I removed the tape and drilled with my pinvise.
The center hole of the three spine lights is about 33% larger than the other two.
The holes on the bussard collars are the same size as the middle hole of the spine lights...



Here she is after the black paint had dried...



And after giving her a light sanding to smooth everything out.
Of course, she'll need dusting off after this.
Sanding really attracts any crap floating around in the air doesn't it?



So tomorrow it'll be time for the basecoat to be airbrushed.
Before I do that, though, I'll mask off the areas I want left black such as the ridged baffles behind the bussard collars and the impulse engine vents.

Once I'm done with the painting I'll turn clear green and red acrylic rod in my dremel and insert them into the holes I drilled out last night.
I figure I'll just glue on the tiny teardrop shaped lights on the edge of the saucer outboard of the running lights.
I'm not sure yet if I'll just use the decals for the blinkers on the sides of the shuttle bay or if I need to drill more holes and make those out of clear rod.
If I do that I might as well turn some brass tubing for the metal collars around those lights.
You can see them here...



I'll probably make the bulbs for these as they don't sit flush to the surface like a decal would and I'm really trying to be a stickler for details on this build if you hadn't guessed that already!

Anyway, as always, thanks for reading along!

robn1

Really looking nice! At that scale, the side dome lights could be done with a drop of clear epoxy.

trekriffic

I turned the first of the side strobe lights on my dremel last night using a piece of .060 clear acrylic rod. I had to get it down to about .040 diameter.
I also made a beveled collar from 1/16" diameter brass tubing using a round needle file to enlarge the inner diameter slightly for the "bulb" to poke through.
The finished strobe is about the size of a grain of rice.
Once I finish the second one, I'll try to take a picture of them next to something recognizable (perhaps a pencil tip) so you can get a sense of the scale.
It's about the limit of smallness for me to be able to manipulate, even using my finest tweezers.
I'll need to go even smaller though for the other lights.