Die Cast Lighted 1/350th TOS Enterprise (TOMY crowd funded)

I’m curious to hear from a US backer who received the item directly from Tomy. To this date, I’ve seen two people who got theirs and posted about it and both are from resellers outside the US. I backed the CF and have yet to receive the “confirm your shipping address” email from Tomy. Which, to me, seems very odd. Maybe someone can educate me about how this (a reseller receives and then ships to the end customer who receives before we see any US backer post even a shipping notification here) is a normal thing?

From the Tomy FAQ: “This offering is available only to residents of the contiguous United States. All other countries and regions are not eligible.”
 
Just for your reference, these were the pages from my Australian Retailer:

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Looking at it nearly the whole thing will need to be repainted and decaled to bring up to original expectations, I didn't realize the bottom of the saucer had so many plugs. There is a lot of filler work to do and you can't save much of the original paint job, the weathering streaks on the saucer in dark regular intervals is absurd. They should not have let them do any weathering at all if they can't do it right.
 
CessnaDriver said:
Looking at it nearly the whole thing will need to be repainted and decaled to bring up to original expectations, I didn't realize the bottom of the saucer had so many plugs. There is a lot of filler work to do and you can't save much of the original paint job, the weathering streaks on the saucer in dark regular intervals is absurd. They should not have let them do any weathering at all if they can't do it right.
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As for the weathering, it's not a much a big deal to me. Polar lights was not very well received either. I just think it's a hard thing to produce accurately at a mass produced scale..
 
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I would expect Kerr, like any consultant, has no say in what the factory ultimately delivers. That's more on TOMY and project team and the factory itself.
No doubt all hamstrung by the lower budget as a result of the much lowered threshold to make this a go.

It funny that it often takes more effort to deliver a bad paint job, than it would have had they applied the correct, more discrete amount of weathering.
 
Gregatron said:
That’s a bold statement.
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Ok a bit harsh. Lol But he let his name be used on this project. Or did they really consult him??? Cause all I'm seeing is comments on the inaccuracy of this thing. What information did Gary contribute that they could not have gotten elsewhere??? Does this resemble the studio model.......a model that was supposed to be the Ultimate in Accuracy. The comments here would suggest NO. I'm surprised he was associated with it though the whole process. The plug hole placement was an easy thing to comment on early in the process but no, they were put on the wrong side of the ship. The weathering according to everyone here is wrong. The two things Gary would have pointed out. So either he gave them his blessing or he walked away in disgust. I don't know...
 
The thing that really depresses me is looking at the design of the base that they were crowdfunding on.
It was already well bigger than anything that was ever needed for a styrene kit, but I was willing to accept it because- die-cast.
And it was still, in it's way, sleek.

Had I suspected that that element would become the overbearing necessity it had to, I doubt I would have bought in- even at $600.
As an overall display piece, what is getting delivered is substantially different than what was originally advertised- and not just because of seams and weathering, that can be patched or painted over.

I could have possibly fudged the space for it as originally presented. As it is now,the base just kills it aesthetically. It commands as much attention as the actual ship does-

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Miles Kendig said:
The thing that really depresses me is looking at the design of the base that they were crowdfunding on.
It was already well bigger than anything that was ever needed for a styrene kit, but I was willing to accept it because- die-cast.

Had I suspected that that element would become the overbearing necessity it had to, I doubt I would have bought in- even at $600.
As an overall display piece, what is getting delivered is substantially different than what was originally advertised- and not just because of seams and weathering, that can be patched or painted over.

I could have possibly fudged the space for it as originally presented. As it is now, I'll probably never have the space needed to devote to this thing.View attachment 1741024
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But is the addition of a thicker base under the engineering section and the saucer support really going to take up anymore space???
I'm more disappointed in the seams and plugs then anything else. I would not even attempt to correct the weathering or plugs/seams. It would be easier just to buy a polar lights kit and do that. Plus the fact that this is a limited item...warts and all there are people that still want this. Those who are not model makers and just want a nice representation of the ship in metal.
 
Alot of great points mentioned here. Nothing gets underscored as far as folks being disappointed, or simply happy they got their Enterprise. Agreed many may try to unload their Enterprise on Ebay and will most likely get bought by others. However as one member pointed out a skilled set of hands and vision can make this even better than what it already is. Fill in the screw holes fill in the seams etc etc. All hard work and takes time, but the results will be EPIC! In the grand scheme of things it's your Enterprise do with it what you will. Other than the seams here and there / screw hole covers. You have something not many people had to opportunity to buy. Also consider no one has 10 or 20k laying around to buy a professionally made piece of history. Unless you have very deep pockets who knows. On other side of the coin sooner, or later some fellow members with serious skillset may venture into creating a new base for the ship and saucer sections. Or think of some new affordable additions to add more zest to this Enterprise. Time will tell obviously :) The Aussys!! rock for sharing info and pictures MUCH APPRECIATED!!
 
JiminSTLouis said:
Per customer service, shipping will start on October 9th. He knew of no 3rd party retailers getting them yet and said nothing has shipped from their warehouse.
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Fizzbin said:
At least the overseas customers got theirs first!
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I'm just thinking that the production pieces probably left the factory in China all at the same time, and we here in Australia just got it first just because we're geographically closer.

I can imagine that the slow boat from China is still in transit to the US west coast.
 
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I took those screenshots when I made my preorder on the 17th of September of last year. But I'm not totally sure how long I sat on it before ordering. It could've been hours, days or weeks later?
 
I don't think a newly designed base will ever be able to get around having to support the saucer independently in some way.
It's a heavy metal piece with a relatively slender connection point at the outer rim.

There were pics early on of the saucer sagging that I pointed out (don't know if it was here) and was reassured by everyone that "they know what they're doing, They know when they engineer it to account for that."

They found the solution alright, though it's not a very attractive one to me.
 
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