USS Enterprise (2009) (Revell) review and build

thorst · May 10, 2013

Hi all,

After 2 years of silently following threads of this forum I now registered to show you my next project:
The new Revell Enterprise from the 2009 movie. It arrived 2 hours ago and I couldn't wait to examine the sprues.
Here are some pictures (new line for each sprue):

(The ruler measures cm)

My first impressions are:
> quite big for my standards (l=588 mm)
+ overall very nice surface detail
+ many windows and other parts in clear plastic
+ well cast except for a few tiny sink marks
+ extensive decal sheet
- some windows, impulse engines and some other details not in clear plastic

I'm really not a Star Trek expert nor have I built many Sci-Fi models before. But I want the model to be as accurate to the 2009 movie as possible, and I really need your help. Both in catching inaccuracies as well as in helping with method tips, especially for lighting it up properly. I watched a lot of Steve Neills fantastic videos and already bought clear dental acrylic which I will use here for my first time.

So in the beginning, I'm looking for references of the "original", to see where I have to modify the kit with drilling out windows and making corrections. I already found some nice screenshots and have the DVD, but if someone can help me further, it would be appreciated a lot!

Cheers,
Thorsten

thorst · May 10, 2013

So before I start cutting and glueing, I want to list all neccessary modifications. This was a good excuse to whatch the movie again and taking more screenshots afterwards. After some hours staring at the monitor, this is what I came up with:

In red you see all modifications which require more than a simple drill, green are permanent lights and light blue are beacons. Not sure if I found everything. Now I have to say that I'm really pleased with the kit, it seems to be fairly accurate, and there are only a hand full of windows which need to be added. Until now, I found only two inaccuracies: two small details on the underside of the saucer are molded a bit too far towards the center, and on each side of the primary hull a recessed area is missing. The last one will require a bit of work. Otherwise the shape and details seem to match the CGI model quite well (that said by only looking at the parts on the sprues, we will see if it changes during assembly).

If you see anything that I missed, please let me know!

Cheers,
Thorsten

Bryancd · May 10, 2013

Very cool!

Orbital Drydock · May 10, 2013

Welcome to the RPF!
I think your the first builder of this kit here!
Nice work on the discovery so far, the most challenging thing with this ship will be accuracy. Having no studio model to reference is going to make it tough.
Keep posting I'm excited about this one!

Mike J. · May 10, 2013

Attached is a nice, large pic you may or may not have. I hope it helps.

Best of luck with the model!

-Mike J.

thorst · May 10, 2013

Thank you! I hope I will do the ship justice!

Mike J: Thanks for the picture, it surely helps!

Thorsten

Wes R · May 10, 2013

I already like that the nacelle pylons are molded to the kit instead of the old school having to cuss at them and hope they didn't shift at some point.

Aries2 · May 11, 2013

I would suggest that you check the QMX display that was released after the 2009 movie. It is bristling with detail that might help you out. Thanks for posting the photos of your unboxing as it has answered some of my concerns and I am now very happy. I'll collect my kit from Comet Miniatures in London on Saturday the 18th. I can't wait to get my hands on it

. Happy modelling Thorsten.

Cheers.

Mark (Aries2)

DanielB · May 11, 2013

Here are the best references avaliable of the ILM model. It's on the Star Trek 2009 Blu Ray special features. Check it out...

Star Trek USS Enterprise (NCC 1701) Interactive Inspection 2009 Movie - YouTube

thorst · May 11, 2013

Wow you are correct, this is a great ressource! Thank you for posting it!

Now I have some questions to those who have experience with building models with light:

The spotlights on the ship, especially on the saucer, seem to be impossible to recreate realisticly. I remember having read something about lighting the areas from behind which are illuminated by the spots. Is there a guide on what to keep in mind when doing this? I have really no experience. Or do you see another possibility to achieve the same look as given by the original model? I'd be really happy to know what you think, I have no experience on my own yet.

The other question is if there is an easy electronic circuit for the blinking lights. This Enterprise has two sets which blink alternating in the order

o-o---------------- (bright beacons at the saucer's circumfence)
------------o------ (dimmer beacons in the middle)

Can this be reprodueced somehow without spending money by buying a lightning set? I'm willing to solder!

Today I already made some experiments with the dental acrylic and bought little bottles and pipettes to work with. Except from some air bubbles everything worked well.

Cheers,
Thorsten

thorst · May 12, 2013

Yesterday night I made the first dry fit of the big subassemblys. The fit turned out good, but due to the seperation lines a bit of filling and sanding will be necessary. What is really nice is the layout of the connections between the saucer and the primary hull and between the pylons and the warp nacelles:

The connection here is very strong, it fixes the full saucer without any glue. The backside is that it can't be taken off easily. I had to use ethyl acetate to reattach the foremost pins as they broke up then, due to small claws. I cut these claws down then to prevent this happening in the future again. The seam under the saucer is very small and may not need any filler.

The pylons are formed from the primary hull side parts and an extra part for the top. They are hollow inside with guiding strips at the upper ends for plugs of the warp nacelles. Very nice that there are already holes for wires. Fit is good again and it fixes the nacelles in place already without any glue:

But I wonder if it is necessary to build in some metal former here, avoiding the pylons to sag and turn under the weight...

Here is a shot of the only inaccurate area I found until now. On the primary hull the areas under the torpedo launcher should be more recessed and lead to windows (?) facing backwards.

Thorsten

JMChladek · May 12, 2013

I would say once the pylons are glued together properly, they likely won't droop UNLESS the plastic is a bit flexible. But Revell typically uses a somewhat stiff compound and you will likely be fine as long as there aren't any things that will make the pylons more tail heavy than they already are.

portland182 · May 12, 2013

thorst said:
If you see anything that I missed, please let me know!

Mild Spoiler Below

There are 2 versions of the Enterprise in 'Into Darkness'.

After the 'refit', the most obvious change is that the impulse engines are huge. About 1/8 of the diameter of the primary hull.

Jim

DanielB · May 12, 2013

I suppose if one were to put lighting in this thing, we'd want to add support to the pylons for the extra weight of lights in the nacelles.

thorst · May 12, 2013

Jim: I will watch Into Darkness on Tuesday and am really looking forward to it! But I avoid reading anything about it. Have to control myself.

JMChladek and DanielB: The plastic isn't bad, but the shape of the pylons makes them not very strong. I fear that torsion could happen over time. I don't know yet how far I will go with detailing the Bussard collectors. Afaik, there are spinning rotor blades inside? Electric motors are quite heavy...

Today I did some research on electronics for the beacons. After some hours fiddling around I came up with a satisfactory result with components I had at home for another project. Here is the schematic:

(It's a preliminary circuit for just two red LEDs for testing, for white ones the resistors had to be altered).
As the 4017 successively gives each output a HI of the same length and the beacons which blink twice have to be connected with two pins, what makes the whole sequence not 100% accurate. But it's close and close enough for me. I'm not an expert, so there might be a bug in the circuit. If so, don't hesitate to tell it!

Tomorrow after work I will buy some more white LEDs and fiber optics so I can start soldering soon.

Best regards,
Thorsten

BlueJay · May 14, 2013

Hi there, I also recently acquired this beautiful model.

My experience with revell is, that they don't always get the color quite right, hopefully this time.
How do you plan on painting the model? Airbrush oder regular? Do you use a primer?

This time I plan on using electronics, but honestly have no idea how to do that ;-) Is there a guide how to start?

Kind regards,
Jay

Orbital Drydock · May 14, 2013

thorst said:
Jim: I will watch Into Darkness on Tuesday and am really looking forward to it! But I avoid reading anything about it. Have to control myself.

JMChladek and DanielB: The plastic isn't bad, but the shape of the pylons makes them not very strong. I fear that torsion could happen over time. I don't know yet how far I will go with detailing the Bussard collectors. Afaik, there are spinning rotor blades inside? Electric motors are quite heavy...

Today I did some research on electronics for the beacons. After some hours fiddling around I came up with a satisfactory result with components I had at home for another project. Here is the schematic:
View attachment 183319

(It's a preliminary circuit for just two red LEDs for testing, for white ones the resistors had to be altered).
As the 4017 successively gives each output a HI of the same length and the beacons which blink twice have to be connected with two pins, what makes the whole sequence not 100% accurate. But it's close and close enough for me. I'm not an expert, so there might be a bug in the circuit. If so, don't hesitate to tell it!

Tomorrow after work I will buy some more white LEDs and fiber optics so I can start soldering soon.

Best regards,
Thorsten

Hi Thorsten,
skip the 555 & 4017. you will never be able to set the timings properly & have to use 2 chips. Instead use a 556 it's 2 555's on one die. use one side for the nav & the other for strobe. since the strobe is off longer than on, reverse the leads on the led so it lights when the output sinks to ground. you can use the same circuit layout you have there for the 555 just hook the led to the output instead of the 4017. Always put a .01uf capacitor between the pos & neg terminals to make the circuit stable.
OD

thorst · May 14, 2013

Hello,

I'm back from the cinema, watched Into Darkness. But I don't want to spoil here, so I won't say anything about the plot or the spacecraft. First watch it yourself!

Orbital Drydock: I don't understand how I should get the same sequence with two 555's. A 555 is just a flip-flop and even if I connect two, I'm not able to think of a combination which makes one LED blink once per cycle and the other one blink shifted T/2 but twice (let's say a cycle has the time t, then LED1 would blink at t=0 and the other at t=(T/2)-(very small time interval) and at t=(T/2)+(very small time interval)). With the 555's it would be an overlay of two frequencies which is not enough in my eye. But as I said, I'm not an expert, so if I'm wrong please tell me more about how you mean!

BlueJay: I never followed the painting guide on any Revell model, so I won't rely on that here too. I'll try to base the color on screenshots. It will be sprayed on with an airbrush. And yes it will be lighted, how this will be done is still to be worked out. But it looks like a mixture of back lighting and fiber optics. It will be my first lighted model too.

Thorsten

wannab · May 14, 2013

thorst said:
Wow you are correct, this is a great ressource! Thank you for posting it!

Now I have some questions to those who have experience with building models with light:

The spotlights on the ship, especially on the saucer, seem to be impossible to recreate realisticly. I remember having read something about lighting the areas from behind which are illuminated by the spots. Is there a guide on what to keep in mind when doing this? I have really no experience. Or do you see another possibility to achieve the same look as given by the original model? I'd be really happy to know what you think, I have no experience on my own yet.

The other question is if there is an easy electronic circuit for the blinking lights. This Enterprise has two sets which blink alternating in the order

o-o---------------- (bright beacons at the saucer's circumfence)
------------o------ (dimmer beacons in the middle)

Can this be reprodueced somehow without spending money by buying a lightning set? I'm willing to solder!

Today I already made some experiments with the dental acrylic and bought little bottles and pipettes to work with. Except from some air bubbles everything worked well.

Cheers,
Thorsten

The lighting from the inside is called the raytheon lighting method. It is really hard to get it to look right. Trekworks (real name Boyd) did it very well on his 1:350 refit nacelles. Check his youtube channel and sign up over at his forum Sci-fi model action. SciFi Model Action - Index
He is very helpful and a very skilled modeller.

Doug

Orbital Drydock · May 14, 2013

thorst said:
Hello,

I'm back from the cinema, watched Into Darkness. But I don't want to spoil here, so I won't say anything about the plot or the spacecraft. First watch it yourself!

Orbital Drydock: I don't understand how I should get the same sequence with two 555's. A 555 is just a flip-flop and even if I connect two, I'm not able to think of a combination which makes one LED blink once per cycle and the other one blink shifted T/2 but twice (let's say a cycle has the time t, then LED1 would blink at t=0 and the other at t=(T/2)-(very small time interval) and at t=(T/2)+(very small time interval)). With the 555's it would be an overlay of two frequencies which is not enough in my eye. But as I said, I'm not an expert, so if I'm wrong please tell me more about how you mean!

BlueJay: I never followed the painting guide on any Revell model, so I won't rely on that here too. I'll try to base the color on screenshots. It will be sprayed on with an airbrush. And yes it will be lighted, how this will be done is still to be worked out. But it looks like a mixture of back lighting and fiber optics. It will be my first lighted model too.

Thorsten

This is what I get for posting right after waking up.
Your absolutely right. I'm still stuck in TOS/Refit land & completely forgot they went with the aviation standard double blink for the strobes & a fading beacon.
Use your same circuit, but since the single blink w/fade beacon is active longer & fades in/out. Hook it to Q5, 6, & 7 for the extended time, run a either a large capacitor (in parallel), or smaller cap to the base of a transistor (in series) with the led & it should give you the longer on time with a fade in/out.

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