41" excelsior by lunar models

looking to get one, whats the usual pricing on one of these, been trying to find one for awhile now. I know the work that needs to be done to it, i want to challenge myself. lol

I bought mine at least a decade ago, and paid a pretty penny for it. I was so disappointed by the lack of detail, I never got very far with construction past the "neck" section. I haven't seen one offered for sale in years.

Rumor had it that The Collective, may be putting out their vacuformed 41" Excelsior again, with reworked resin detail parts and pulled in thicker styrene. No word if and when it will happen. I know I paid $100 for this kit about 7 years ago. I sold it for $150 on ebay.

Scott

41" Excelsior?? Are there any pics of it? I had no idea such a thing existed.

I had a deposit on the Collective's kit over at Federation Models, and then didn't manage to get a copy before they decided to stop making them due to the poor quality. When I tried to use the deposit toward another item, the gave me the runaround. i might be interested in the Collective's kit, but not unless I can buy it through another vendor. I won't waste my time dealing with Federation Models again.

Some photos of the kit I found on the web...




















With the ERTL Enterprise for siize comparison.

Oh yeah. I remember that one. Looks good too.

I thought I saw a thread a little while ago about an upcoming 1-350 excelsior build.

ohhhh, I want one.
Figures it would be rare by the time i want it, and it even sounds like a decent price. I would be OK with the $100-150 range for something that size.

Ive had one since 1994 and never completed it. The secondary hull is so horribly shaped and the sensor dish area is almost 50% larger than it should be. YIKES. The neck area is totally off too. The nacelles are horribly proportioned and skinny.

I cant wait for someone like REL to make an ACCURATE Excelsior. I wanted his Ent-E, but Excelsior is a passion for me. This ship had me in love when Star Trek 3 came out. I stared at a photo in a magazine for weeks of Enterprise entering spacedock with the Excelsior docked bathed in blue light. I'm sure you guys have seen the photo.

Anyway, I have completely resculpted my secondary hull and I'm not happy with it. I compare photos all the time of the Ertl model and this Lunar model with the screen version of the ship, and damn, nothing comes close.

Help us model-builders of the RPF, you're our only hope.

Here are some photos for reference. I posted these on the RPF about two years ago. Sorry for the low quality.






Here it is next to the Ertl, from a front view. I could tell you just from loving the design of this ship that the Ertl was wrong when I first saw it.




Here is the Greg Jein model that was used in the Voyager Episode Flashback and plenty of DS9 episodes where the Excelsior inexplicably has glowing nacelles from shot to shot and then doesn't have them when they intercut the footage from The Undiscovered Country. Not to mention the ship looks like it went on a diet when they show his model.




I'm sure I come of in an elitist fashion and very critical of any models other than the studio model, but I LOVE this ship and I have yet to see a faithful representation. Even the CGI versions of the ship did not capture the secondary hull/sensor dish area properly. I was horrified when I saw the Enterprise B version of the Excelsior because they ruined most of the design for me. I absolutely hated the secondary hull mods around the deflector dish for Enterprise B. They obscured what I thought was the best feature about the Excelsior.

Now you have these pics from Thomas Models and here we can make another comparison.

This next shot is the Lunar above the Studio model. It's a two-fold problem when the secondary hull is so shallow and small and improperly shaped and curved at the forward end, and THEN you greatly increase the size of the sensor dish beyond what it should be, and you get a very odd looking secondary hull from a front view. Also, in this shot you can see that the Lunar kit has what I call a Giraffe neck compared to the real model. I wish I had more photos to make comparisons.

You're right about the neck. When I started building the one I just sold to Kevin ( ), the angle of the neck was the first thing I made changes to. All in all, the Lunar kit has a lot of good things about it, but to make it accurate requires a commitment to a fair amount of scratchbuilding and modification to make it look its best.

Thats exactly right. It is MUCH better than scrach building a model from nothing. It just requires some serious decisions about how accurate you want or need it to be. If you can deal with minor things like usses with nacelle length and proportion, or the fact that the underside of the saucer doesnt have the little trench ring, then you leave those parts as they are. Everything else you see a larger issue with, you can take it a step in the right direction with some scratch building. I rebuilt my neck and secondary hull entirely. I had a guy helping me with the model years ago that screwed up my saucer section majorly. I still havent figured out how to fix what he did. I have a long way to go on mine but it will get there someday. I just wish someone rebuilt this kit from the ground up and made it perfect. I'm not the best scratch builder, and this was my first and only attempt. I just know how this ship SHOULD look.
Even with all that said, I wont sell my Lunar model until something better comes along.

Josh

Sounds like I should keep lookin' for one as it seems like it would work for me. I like the ship but I don't worry about it being super accurate, as long as it "looks like the ship to me" (and from what I see it does) then I am good.

Interesting. Greg Jein's model looks more like the Lunar model than the studio model. I never noticed that before. . .

I drew fairly accurate plans for the Excelsior for a friend's studio-scale build. These were based only on photos at the time, but looked pretty good. He got so far as making the primary hull, but that was it. It's still on my list of subjects to build. I'm slowly making construction patterns for it as I have time.

I'm sure REL will beat me to the punch. And when he gets it done the results will be awesome. Can't wait to see what he comes up with.

Charles

:thumbsup "My friends the great experiment, Excelsior"

REL stated in the Stargazer conversion thread that he was planning on doing an Excelsior 1/350 I believe

I bought one of these 41" Lunar Models' kits a few years ago. I looked at the pieces and stuck it in my closet in a box, never have built it. I have always loved the Excelsior, and thought this would be the cat's meow. I should say its at my Father's house in his closet about 800 miles from where I live now, but I'll probably have him bring it down to me in a few weeks when he comes to visit me. I'd be willing to part with it

I have been on the lookout for one of those. E-mail sent your way garver76 :thumbsup

star-art said:

I'm sure REL will beat me to the punch. And when he gets it done the results will be awesome. Can't wait to see what he comes up with!

Charles

Click to expand...

Thank you Charles that means a lot coming from you. Of course mine would be 1/350, I would like to make it studio scale but it would be a goliath.

Even at 1/350 scale it's going to be a BEAST of a model.