Shaw's Enterprise also looks really good as well with its small Enterprise studio model appearance. BTW Shaw, how big is your model? And by full size, do you mean you plan to tackle another 33 inch inspired model or are you going to try doing an 11 footer?
Thanks!
I'm hoping to work towards as accurate a match to the 33 inch model (including size) as possible as my skills improve and I gain experience.
The first one (pictured above) is about 22.5 inches long (two thirds the length of the near 33.75 inches of the original), as will be the second one that I'm currently working on. The size was picked because I found that when I printed out my plans at 66.6% I could make use of many of the 22 inch cutaway kit's parts and third party parts and decals, cutting down on the amount of scratch building I would have to do (in both the first and second attempts the primary hull and dorsal are completely scratch built).
The other aspect of the first build was that it let me cross check my plans against the original model while building it by doing image comparisons. I was able to find a number of errors/omissions in my first draft of the plans and will be releasing a second draft based on what I learned while building the first model.
When I started the second model I had put serious consideration into attempting a
one-to-one scale (33 inch) build, but when I realized that I didn't have any place in my apartment where I could roll out the full scale plans, I decided to take another attempt at a smaller scale while fixing concessions I had made during the first build. The concessions were made because when I had started the project seemed overwhelming and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to finish if I attempted to do everything on that attempt (being the first model in a long time and extensively scratch built at that).
I'll throw together a thread on my current build (I'm about a month into it), which uses the same techniques as the first one... only better executed. It should look a lot more like the original model than my first attempt.
I haven't nailed down a method for a full size build yet. Honestly, I would love to have a
one-to-one build made of the exact same materials as the original model (a kiln-dried sugar pine), but that type of thing would require more resources than I have available at this time (or can see having in the immediate future). But I think it would be nice to have at least one historically accurate version of the lost model around (though it would be even better if someone found the lost model itself).
While I absolutely love the feel of the 33 inch Enterprise, it is sort of nice in that because everyone else is obsessed with the 11 foot model no one has spent any time on this one. It is sorta like being the first person to attempt
K2 while everyone else is racing to be the first atop
Everest. It seems like I got this mountain to myself.