Ultimate 66 inch Enterprise, RShanko

[RShanko]

Stardate 081207,
Hello...
Fiberglass TOS Starship Update;
The first 66 inch USS Enterprise starship I molded is done, and on her maiden voyage. A five year mission.
Her build took nearly a month, but from laying her keel, (conception to birth) took almost a year.
So it is my pleasure to introduce her.

-Ron

 

[JoblessPunk]

looks awesome dude!
but you should invest in a better camera to make her shine in all her glory

 

[micdavis]

Impressive.

 

[Tony42]

:thumbsup Great stuff.

 

[Forsaken]

Fantastic looking.
Makes me envious.

Al

 

[Tripper]

Absolutely spectacular!

 

[Tatooine_Todd]

Absolutely amazing!

 

[cobywan]

The model looks awesome.

The camera you're using isn't doing it any justice though.

 

[Smiling Demon]

:eek

Oh man, tha's nice!!!!:eek

 

[RShanko]

Thank you very much. It's been fun project.
A group effort can be the best...it's so much fun to have fellow modelers working together on a project that they care about getting right..
That was the best part, it was easy for all of us to do our part, and make a part of the kit.
Many individuals contributed from afar..online, to the design of this kit, or alot of you guys just helped with interesting comments, I'm sure were meant to steer the project's course true. "Do it right" was the main concern, and I felt that was of utmost importance myself.
Everyone helped, and everyone's input made a difference.
Considerable effort was put into the design by certain guys in the starship owners club, who got their own starships for doing their part.
A pretty cool deal.
These guys really made the starships what they are today.
Parts they made include,
Warp domes, buffed, drilled, sandblasted, and the fans applied to orange tinted inners by P. Schmitz.
Warp engine light design and fan motor selection by T.M. (His electronics knowlege helped in all ships systems).
Decals, laser printed, water transfer bold, bright and accurate, were designed and printed by A. Walker, (Tripper, WalkerStudios.com).
Shuttle Craft designed and built by Elvis Ardos in the correct scale.
In the beginning T.M. helped immensly by giving me the same plans Greg Jein used for his 66" starships.
Kevin Jones provided documentation pix of the 11 at the Smithsonian on a disc I printed out all the good veiws to use for direct research.
The IDIC.com Enterprise pages, became my second home while making the masters, and William McCullars graciously answered our questions.
With everyone's help it turned out much better than I could do by myself.
So it really has been a pleasure building starships with you all.
Thank you,
-Ron

 

[houdiniguy]

amazing!lovethumbsup

 

[mr.predicta]

Damn impressive model for the money!

 

[RShanko]

Thanks Mike, I'm glad you got your gigantic starship kit box. I pack them pretty good, and insure them for 500.
By the way, I enjoyed looking at your television builds on your site, your really a cool guy.
I like the "retro Jetson" look of your TV creations.

I carefully align, and epoxy the starship hull shells together, then run the electrical systems to light it up.
You can pull wires anywhere inside the hull and engines when the starship is built..
Anyway, I hope you enjoy building your starship as much as I have building mine, and please do post some building pix.

I am building another starship right now, and have the entire center section painted with the decals on. Next I'll join the saucer and warp drive nacelles. I'm building a few to offer built.

These starships are so big that the usual reaction when someone visits your home and walks up to it, is... sheer amazment.
My boss walked in, and stood there in front of mine and said... "Oh my God".
:lol
I'll be looking forward to seeing just how far you go with this kit.
I like your idea of building internal engineering, medical and sciences sections in a lighted starship. I'm adding phasers and a moving turbolift going up and down the main dorsal, like Scotty's running up to the bridge and back down. The warp effect is excellent in this size.
You can do anything.

-Ron

 

[AnsonJames]

Does anyone have any photos of their kits?
I'm going to get one of these beauties and I'd like as many images as possible!
I have to say puting one of these together would be a dream come true for me although I think my girlfriend will be a tad upset when she realises how big it is!
I'm already preparing a Stormtrooper on a mannequin for the reception area of my house and a Dalek for the living room.
I think I may be single again soon...

 

[RShanko]

There is pix of the kit parts, and links to tons of pix in my Villiagephoto alblum in that thread "6ft Enterprise".

I'll bump it up.

Look for it.
Also, starship owners get into the private starship club at Kev's Propfixs, and have more pix and info about everything involved in the design and building these giant starships.
Your girl will be excited for you, and admire your wise hobby decisions...
I hope.
:confused

-Ron

 

[temponaut]

Fantastic work, Rshanko!

And I love that you donned the uniform, complete with phaser, for the photos.

 

[RShanko]

Thank you. I have fun.

I think it's wonderful that we have today TOS Enterprise models from very accurate plans, 66" and 33" models can be found now, and really for the first time, MR did it right with the studio scale starship model they made completely assembled, and being of high quality, accurate and with working warp engines, and details like pencil gridlines. They listened, built them, and made their starships available en mass.
On the larger size 66" starships, you have the ability to build one from a kit, or have someone build one for you.

Those 66 inch kits are rare and expensive to produce.

I decided to make just the starship shells to keep the big starship dream within reach, and leaving it up to the individual "Captain" to dress out his ship anyway he saw best.
Some guys want christmas lights. I did, then changed to leds, still not sure...
Anyway, I knew about Jim's excellent 66" starship when I was designing my "Ultimate Enterprise" and... (being a WW2 fighter plane R/C flyer who flys scale helped)
...so I figured that I'd mold all the steel plates.
*There is rust on the hull, (so it is a welded steel hull... that the USS Enterprise is made of), so.. I molded them exactly like the Enterprise looks today. You add the mascara as you wish, but just like all big ships, there are facets and platelines. Some guys want to sand them away.

I hoped that properly weathered, the steel plates on my model would give it the distinction of being the Ultimate Enterprise.

My starship has more detail.
Shell kits require a skilled modeler, parts need to be found and often modified to finish a build. It is a challenge and a test of courage to cut into and work your fiberglass model, but remember, anything can be fixed.
So drill away.
How many starships did Greg Jein build? $10,000.00 each, I think he built 4.
How many starship kits did Jim mold?
I dont know, I only molded 8 starships to date, and those were all for guys in the 6ft starship club, therefore my buddies who worked on the project.
So even a kit of a 66inch starship is super rare.

Knowing this,...I figured some might want a finished 66" starship,..
So I'm building a couple finished starships ready to run, to offer built.
I'll make starships for Paramount if they need starships, and just fiberglass shells if they want those.

Thanks for considering my Starfleet thoughts.
I welcome any comments, and all opinions.

-Ron

 

[RShanko]

Starfleet is based in San Francisco, so I think it is very fitting that the USS Enterprise towed in the partially completed starship hull of the next ship(rumored to be the "USS Lexington") into the fleet base today.

Using her tractor beam, the starship brought in the 50,000 ton secondary hull and pylons to the Starfleet base starship cradle to begin fitting out. Her engines and saucer are being built now.

Having no engines or life support, the hull is built by men in gravity suits, welding bulkheads even as they were underway.

Shuttle craft help move men and parts like tugs, providing the support.

Later this week the mighty warp engines and the saucer section will be joined to the center section.

 

[modeler1964]

Very nice indeed. So the Lady Lex is the next starship. VERY NICE BUILD!

 

[Chaka]

Mr. Shanko,

I might be interested in some form of trade for a built-up 1701.

Are you taking offers?

Thanks.

T.