Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
It made gluing the top half on a bit more difficult but with a little help from all my friends I got a good bond The saucer preshading was a tough decision. I'm not a big fan of the grid atop the saucer, mainly because I never saw it in the show and felt models that accentuate it don't look accurate to me. Each of the lines on the side of the saucer match up with one of the gridlines atop the saucer. So would it look weird having the lines on the side and not the top? I felt the side looked too "plain" without it and plowed ahead as you saw above.
I'll fill in the gaps, but otherwise let it be since it's not too noticeable. Next time around I'll cut that tab off.
CURRENT ISSUE
The Bussard collectors have individual plastic bulbs. These are clear in the base kit and need to be painted to match the orange glow of the real thing. The lighting set provides colored bulbs. While taking the Enterprise pictures, it occurred to me that it's going to be hard to take good RFI pictures since I'm set up for 1/72 fighters, not 1/1000 starships!
I sprayed the deflector dish and the front part of the secondary hull gold. Somehow forgot to get a picture of the secondary hull before masking, but here's the dish:I neglected a note in the light set and painted part of the outside of the clear parts for the shuttle bay. So, light doesn’t transfer as well as it should and the bay is a tad dark. Moving on... Had to mask for the "medium gray", which I used RAF medium sea gray for. When I do this again, I will paint sub assemblies before final assembly -- this was quite a pain! I haven't been able to post (or even log in and read other people's threads!) since this last week has been fairly busy. I actually finished these last tuesday! The weekend before last, I put all the decals on the Enterprise, which really isn't worth showing. Once that was finished, I applied a semi-gloss clear coat and then removed all the masking. I was really excited about how great the Bussard collector inserts look!
The RFI is going to be a couple of days because I have to get a replacement lamp since one of mine decided to stop working entirely. The basic kit is beautifully engineered, and the sturdy locating pins simplify construction. The kit accepts the lighting set with mounting pins and locators for wiring and LEDs. Major components have a tongue-and-groove join to prevent light leaks.Today I put a marble coat on both ships. For the Botany Bay, I made the contrast more dramatic since it is suppose to have a couple of hundred years of "wear" Polar Lights answered the call with a 1/350 kit, and it’s pulled out all the stops to create a model that builds well and looks awesome — the finished ship is 32" long. As if that’s not enough, the company has several aftermarket sets to finish your starship as you like. I added the lighting set.
I dry fit the saucer a few times and figured out what needed to be removed to allow it to close all the wayAlthough the instructions state this kit can be built with a snap-assembly or glue, I recommend gluing at least the internal parts even if you only snap the main parts together. Also, there was a terrible step in the end-cap piece where I assume the two mold halves came together. It was about a millimeter step, which took some careful sanding and a little CA to get looking right. Forgot to take a picture before the fix, but here it is after:
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