1:350 Star Trek U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701

Way back in August 2020 I started working on this kit. I've actually had this kit for 5 years but never thought that I had the skill level to build it. I also have had the masking set from Orbital Drydock for the same amount of time. Turns out that letting vinyl masks sit that long aren't a good idea. More on that later.

First thing to do was fix the inaccuracy of the bridge module. As it comes it is too low and too far back to properly project a light onto the registry. So I sanded down the raised details of the windows and built them back up with styrene. I was then able to position it more forward so that the light will clear the edge below. 

Next up was inserting the brass window frame for the Observation Lounge. A little filing, a little putty, lots of patience. 

I used scotch tape to hold it in place from the outside then glued it from behind with white canopy glue. Once that was dry I puttied around the outside edges and sanded it all down as smooth as I could.

1:350 Star Trek Pre TOS era ship S.S. Columbia Finale

I got the painted styrene piece mounted to the base. Then I got to getting the decals applied. I designed the decals in Illustrator and Jack printed them for me on some decal paper. I also used some extra decals that had left over from various kits.

1:350 Star Trek Pre TOS era ship S.S. Columbia Pt 2

I am almost finished with this one! I just need the decal sheet from Jack and I'll be able to finish this up.

The paint job on the dome was a bit of tribulation, to say the least. the aztec pattern that I had originally planned wasn't working out at all. But I finally found my groove and got it to a place that I was happy with that still matched the rest of the ship.

 Once that was done I got to getting the lights installed in the domes. I painted the inside white and glued white styrene strips behind the windows. I put in the red and green Nav lights with 1mm fiber optics. Then I built an LED tower out of a cardboard tube by wrapping the LED tape around it in a spiral. It lights the whole inside of the ball evenly.

Once that was done I gloss coated the whole thing. This really brought the subtle aztec pattern out! I am really quite happy with the whole thing at this point.

1:350 Star Trek Pre TOS era ship S.S. Columbia

My friend Jack Holczer 3D printed a 1:350 scale Daedalus Class ship from the Star Trek universe and he sent me a kit. I have never been a big fan of this design but I wanted to build this up because its something that a friend created.
While developing the iconic look of the original USS Enterprise, Matt Jefferies came up with this preliminary design as well as many other variations. One of the ones that I like is the one with the engines down (upside-down from what we know as "correct"). That is the ship that I am going to build out of this kit. I was going to name it the USS Icarus (Son of Daedalus), But I decided to go with S.S. Columbia. This ship was mentioned in the original pilot episode of Star Trek starring Jeffry Hunter (The Cage). The S.S. Columbia survey vessel crashed on the planet Talos IV 18 years prior to this episode. It was never seen on screen, so I decided that this is what the Columbia looked like.

 Two things that I will change are the length of the hull and the length of the engines. I think both are way too long so I am cutting the hull in Half and cutting three sections off the engines.





3D printing with filament (vs resin) doesn't produce a very smooth surface. Lots of sanding was required to get this thing down to a sort of smooth painting surface. Even then I couldn't get all of the striations out as they run too deep. Its just an inherent part of the material.

So I decided that it was going to be an older, weathered ship. The paint scheme is very much influenced by the rough texture. I'm using Lou Dalmaso's trusty Aztec Dummy painting masks for the panel effects. I started with Tamiya XF-72 Brown, then XF-59 Desert Yellow, them XF-23 Light Blue. I went back over the panel lines with some more XF-72 Brown using a 0.2mm airbrush. Then I went over the whole thing with Flat white until the details were just barely visible.

Then it was time for some lights! I opted to put white styrene behind the windows rather than have them open and filled with something like Micro Krystal Klear. I think it looks much cleaner and more in line with the filming ship props from the 1960s.

One big 10mm Red LED flanked by two strobing RGB lights. It gives a nice effect that there is something going on behind the translucent red end caps. I haven't had much success adding video to this blog, but I'll give it a try for the next post.

I put all the lights into the body, but I didn't take any photos for some reason. So next up was the end cap for the back of the ship. I was going to need some blue lights for the impulse engines (big holes around the outside), Red, Yellow and Green for the optical landing system under the hangar door. Rather than run wires for two red, two yellow and a green LED, I filled the holes with Tamiya clear red, yellow and green paint, then lit behind with one white LED. I had some problems with the blue light leaking into the white so I came up with a compartment system as you can see below.

As the master of piss poor planning, the inside of the hull was crammed full of wires for the lighting strips that are illuminating the windows.
Some of the strips were too close to the edge to allow the end cap to go on. I also had inserted a very large lead fishing lure as a counter weight for to the Ball that will be on the front of the ship so there wasn't any room for all the shit I had added to the end cap for light blocking. I was really worried about shorting the electronics out if I shoved it in there and something touched something else. So I did a little rearranging and I got it to barely fit. I mean Snug. I was surprised that everything still worked when I was through!

 

 After all of that I wired up some blue lights for the ends of the engines and glued them into place. I almost went with pink but it was too much. Best to stay with a unified look.

I opted to not add running lights to the ends of the nacelles as there were none on the original USS Enterpise. As this is an earlier ship I figured they wouldn't have them either. Plus I was being lazy and didn't want to do all of that work. That's the real story. Ha!

Star Trek U.S.S. Excelsior Finale

Alright, she is finished! Flaws and all there she is, the Great Experiment. For all the problems and mistakes she came out okay. I am always trying to improve, so maybe next time will be better!

Star Trek U.S.S. Excelsior Part 6: How NOT to do decals

Well, I got to the decal phase finally. However, I don't think that I let the gloss coat sit long enough and my results suck ass. Im pretty sure that it wasn't fully cured even though I let it sit for as few days. It's been rainy here and I should have known to let it sit longer because of that.

When I applied the decal solution (Micro Set), I think it started to eat into the gloss coat and make pits where air got trapped. The results: Silvering under the decals which look like shit now.

When you take a step back and don't look so closely, it's not so bad but its there and it bugs me. Like Willy Nelson says "There's nothing I can do about it now."

This decal on the Hull didn't fit well at all. Lots of crinkling and folding going on. Even Micro Sol couldn't get it to sit smoothly. It looks a bit better with the dull coat on it as there is less reflectivity to catch the light on the edges. But next time I will paint these lines on.