USS Enterprise (TOS) Revell 1:600 build review

[Smiffy]

I did the review for this one a while ago, here. I've had some ideas for doing some in-expensive lighting and thought this was an ideal kit to try them out on. The windows are already opened up and there's plenty of room inside to run your wiring. Also, being a modern tooling, then there shouldn't be too many problems with the construction, so I reasoned that it should be a relatively quick build. The paint job is pretty straight forward too, so that shouldn't present any issues either. Of course, I can always be trusted to complicate things somewhere along the line and this build is no different. As it turns out, the prep work for this one has taken a lot longer than I originally estimated.

I started her around New Years, giving all the inside surfaces a coat of black aerosol paint, to provide my light blocking coat. When that was dry, several coats of white primer were then applied over the top of the black. This white layer disperses the light very effectively and gives you a nice even glow. I did some preliminary light testing, using some ultra bright white LED's.

This gave me a good idea of where the bulbs needed positioning inside. It also highlighted the fact that the white LED's have a distinct blue tinge to them, which didn't look authentic to the original model, so I swopped them out for some warm whites, instead. They give a much more pleasing, retro look to the model. So with that all clear in my mind, I could of just pressed ahead with construction at this point. However, that's not what I did, because something was bothering me.

In my review, I mentioned that the surface detail was a bit on the heavy side. Well, the more I looked at it, the less I liked it.

For the most part, the original studio model had a completely smooth surface. There are 3 concentric rings scribed into the underside of the saucer, but that is pretty much it, as far as surface detail went. Photos of the original model, (before restoration) show the upper saucer has a very feint penciled-in grid pattern drawn on to the surface, but the Revell model is far too exaggerated in this area. So, there was only one thing for it. I gave all the exterior surfaces a coat of automotive spray filler, which is a sand-able high build primer. I used this as a barrier coat for what was to follow.

So, starting with the upper saucer, I made a plastic card spatula and took a deep breath. Stand back peeps... I've got a big tube of filler and I'm not afraid to use it.

Now, just a word of warning here. If you planning to do something like this, then make sure you work in a well ventilated area, because this amount of car filler chucks off a fair amount of stink and it gets right up yer nostrils. Needlees to say, when you sand it, then make sure you use lots of water to cut down on all that dust, as well. Speaking of sanding, this 3M stuff is great and it sands beautifully, but don't kid yourself into thinking it's easy. It still takes elbow grease and your going to be doing a lot of repetitive fill, sand, prime, inspect and repeat.

You can see in the pic above that I ended up sanding off the raised bases for the left and right nav lights. As far as I can tell from reference shots, they aren't there on the big studio model, which is handy because they just get in the way when you're trying to sand all that filler down. Once I was generally happy with the surface finish, I stuck the bridge on and blended that in.

A coat of primer revealed that a little more work was needed, though.

I'm very happy with the upper saucer now, though. It's a pretty prominent area of the finished ship, so I wanted a very smooth, blemish free finish here. As it turned out, this was one of the easier parts to do. The underside of the saucer was trickier, because of the need to retain those 3 concentric rings.

I ended up masking the outermost ring and filling everything outboard of this. Then the masking was removed and the inner portions were done, one at a time, masking each ring as I went. Then the whole lot was sanded down.

Again, I had to go through more than a few cycles of filling, sanding, priming and inspecting, until I got an acceptable finish. I took a scriber and deepened the 3 rings, as the were getting filled with the continuing applications of spray filler. I used some Mr Surfacer around the rings, as well, to help tidy things up.

I got to a point where I got it looking about as good as I thought I could get it. So I laid on 2 or 3 more coats of the filler primer. This was then wet sanded with some 800 and 1200 wet and dry. This smooths the surface out and and gets rid of any last hint of those panel lines.

Then it was given a good coat of grey primer.

The Warp engines were a relatively easy job, but they still took about 4 rounds of filling and sanding.

I was concerned about obliterating the grille detail that features on the inside of each engine, with the repeated primer coats, so I wound up masking these grilles up, to protect them.

I thought that the secondary hull halves would be fairly easy, but they turned out to be quite tricky, as well. Initially, I masked either side of each panel line, and then applied my filler, to cut down on the amount of sanding that would be required.

I soon discovered a bit of an issue with the moulding here, though. After sanding down and then priming, I noticed that the surface of the ship, on either side of certain panel lines, was actually moulded to different heights. This gave the surface a stepped look, when you looked along it's length.

I wound up going very aggressive with my sanding grits, in order to smooth the surface out. After a few cycles though, she now looks a lot better and has a much smoother surface finish. You may also notice that I filled the rearmost stand hole, as well. I'm not going to be using the kit supplied stand, so the rear hole is now redundant.

So that brings me up to date. As I said, it's taken a bit longer than I originally estimated, but I think the work was worth it. It wasn't particularly difficult, just time consuming. I ended up doing most of the sanding work in the living room (remember, wet sanding over lots of old newspaper). I could plonk myself down with the telly on, or with some music playing and just get busy sanding. I just took my time, however long was needed and worked slowly and methodically. I know we all have a bit of a moan when we have to do a significant amount of filling and sanding, but in truth, I found this quite therapeutic and I hope I'll end up with a much better looking model now.

One other thing I'd like to mention. After doing a bit of research, I don't believe Revell have based their Enterprise kit on the original 11 ft studio model, built in the 60's. As with their Klingon Cruiser, I think this kit is based on the smaller (and more recent) Enterprise model that was built by Greg Jein for the DS9 "Trials and Tribble-ations" episode. His model features the grid line detail and also has the flat outer edge to the underside of the saucer, as the kit has. The markings on the underside of the secondary hull, also match the markings in the kit, with the white square on the decal sheet (whereas it is grey on the 11 ft model). I feel this goes a way to explain a number of issues that have been brought up with this kit. Maybe the issue is just simply what reference material Paramount made available to Revell, when they were designing the kit.

Anyhoo, next up is a bit of paint, installing the windows and then we can start getting the lighting fitted.

[prowler0000]

Stunning work here!!!

I was SOOoooooo tempted to get one of these, but the "Plastic Somme" on the saucer put me right off!!!

Having said that, & after seeing your mammoth putty expenditure, this could well change....

Another reason i hesitated at the checkout was the shape of the secondary/engineering hull. It just looks the wrong shape to me: kinda extruded,& the curve under the shuttlebay looks too sharp. I compared it to the Jein version & it looks pretty much spot on, Still, a county light-year better than the AMT kit....

So, is it gonna be "Mink Gray" like the filming miniature? Or while like the Dinky Toy version?!?!?

[Smiffy]

Thank you.

She's definitely gonna be grey.

[Caerbannog]

Nice! I was about to buy this kit but was set off by the treches - and I thought AMT was stupid to add the grid pattern but they did it at least in the old raised fashion ... What Revell did here reminds me strongly on their 1:48 B-1B kit :-(

Please keep on!

[Jas]

Boldly going there matey. Or is is going boldly?

[Caerbannog]

I can ask my sister Jas - she studied english and am english philology and I remember that there was a discussion (not in class but among the philologic) about what was special about the gramma concerning "To boldly go where no man has gone before" :-)

[JMChladek]

I've got one of these as I did a cross pond order for one when it came out (and reviewed it on Youtube). I don't know what references Revell used for this kit as it has a few "issues" shall we say. But all things considered, I think they did a decent stab at the subject. The way some of my fellow Yanks have been panning the kit though, you would think it was an Occidental Spitfire or something. Granted we now have the Round 2 Polar Lights 1/350 TOS Enterprise kit to build, but given it isn't sold in the UK and the price to get it shipped over is rather steep, the Revell kit makes a nice alternative for those who are more budget or display space conscious.

Personally, even with the issues this kit has, I like it. Sure it has some shape issues that make me scratch my head, but so does the AMT kit. As a buildable model, this one fits nice, has the pre-drilled holes for windows and seems perfect for lighting while the old AMT 18" kit needs a bit of work to light it. And, the best part is given that this kit is ever so slightly bigger than the old AMT kit, a lighting kit designed for the AMT kit should fit this one just fine. Heck, even some of the resin upgrades should fit as a few of the smaller parts are almost identical in size (such as the rear nacelle end-caps, meaning a pilot 2 version of the ship could be done with resin pieces). Even aftermarket decals designed for the 18" AMT kit should also work fine with this one.

BTW, you are doing an outstanding job with this model IMHO. I like it all nice and smooth. For mine, I think I'll leave the panel lines, although I plan to reduce them a little at least.

[Smiffy]

Cheers chaps. Appreciate the kind comments.

Haven't had much time to work on her, with one thing or another, but hopefully, I'll be able to get a bit more progress done this weekend. I've stocked up on some electrical bits n bobs this week and have now got everything I need, in stock.

Jay, I've seen your review on Youtube (and have been watching your 350 build, too). Funny you should mention aftermarket resin parts, as I did get a set of JT Graphics replacement intercoolers, for the warp engines. These are designed for the AMT kit, but they match up perfectly to the Revell kit. The mounting pegs are positioned in exactly the same place. You just need to enlarge the holes in the engine halves, to accept them. The kit ones are a bit skinny, so these should look much more appropriate.

I'm no Trek expert, so it looks enough like the original Enterprise to satisfy my requirements. What I'm trying to achieve with this, is to produce a nice looking display model, for the minimum amount of cost. It wont have the bells and whistles of one of the more expensive lighting kits, but I'm hoping that we should end up with quite a pleasing result.

Ohh and I have been toying with the idea of marking her up as the Defiant. We'll see, though.

[khimbar]

I bought this kit because of Jay's youtube review!

I plan to light her too so can't wait to see how your build gets on.

[Devilfish]

Looking very nice so far!

I did this filling and sanding job on AMTs Ent-A back at the the turn of the century (sounds more sci-fi thena saying 2000, lol) Spent months on detatchment in Kuwait filling and sanding, but got a pretty reasonable finish.

Trouble is, I never got round to actually putting it together....yet

[Mike]

Just played catch-up with this, and you're doing a grand job of it. You must be well endowed with patience for all that FSR

[Smiffy]

You must be well endowed with patience for all that FSR

Either that or OCD.

[Smiffy]

Well, I've decided to show the bad as well as the good. It's been a case of "one step forward, two steps back", this week. Didn't start off too badly. After priming up the sundry bits, I noticed that the deflector housing had a lot of unslightly sink marks running around the edge, so I took care of that with some more 3M spot putty.

After another coat of primer, that turned out okay. I mentioned previously that I'd ordered some replacement intercoolers from JT Graphics. They are designed for the old AMT kit, but because the scales are so close, they fit the Revell Enterprise perfectly.

Here you can see a comparison of the kit versus resin part.

As you can see, the kit ones aren't great. The JT versions are much more screen accurate and they were very easy to fit, as well. All I did was enlarge the location holes in the nacelles. The Resin part's locating pins are in the some position as the kit ones, but have a larger diameter pin. So that was easy peasy and a relatively cheap fix, too.

I'm trying something a bit different with this build, so next up was to get all the parts painted up. I know, I'm painting it before I've glued anything together ("What is he doing?. Amateur!"). There is method in my madness, bear with me . The exterior hull colour of the TOS Enterprise has been the subject of much debate over the years, but it now seems that Tamiya XF-12 (lightened with a small amount of white) is widely regarded as being a very good match. The big Polar Lights 350 scale kit recommends it, as do the people over at Culttvman's site. That's good enough for me. I bought myself 2 bottles and emptied both into a larger container, then added some Tamiya flat white and started spraying. Now I was doing this in the evening, so I only had my indoor lighting to go by, but straight away it looked distinctly too green, to my eyes. I decided to press on ahead, thinking it may just be a trick of the light. I started with the smaller stuff, like the deflector housing and warp pylons,then moving onto the engines and secondary hull halves, before getting to the saucer halves. That's when it all went Pete Tong. For whatever reason, the paint on the saucer came out really gritty, with a surface like sandpaper. So, I called it quits and left it all to dry overnight.

Examining it the next day revealed that the saucer would need sanding down, to get rid of that 'orrid surface finish. It also revealed that the colour was indeed, way too green for my liking. Now, strangely enough, if you look at the parts in direct daylight, it takes on a nice grey shade. Get it turned away from the light, though and it's more akin to the light green camo colour found on Israeli F-16's. It's a cool looking effect, but not right for this ship.

Peculiarly, the camera doesn't seem to pick up the green tinge either.

Anyway, I think what happened is, I probably lightened the paint a bit too much, so that meant ordering some more XF-12. While I waited for it to arrive, I went to work on the saucer halves, again. I used some 800 grit for the worst looking areas and then went over the whole lot with some 1200. Afterwards, I gave both halves a thorough cleaning and set them aside to air dry.

Thanks to some fast turn around from Models for Sale, my new paint arrived this afternoon, so I was all set for exterior hull painting:Take 2. One of the things I've been doing, is to mask up the inside of the windows and openings, to prevent overspray getting inside and marring my perfectly white interior finish (important for the lighting phase). While I was masking up the interior of the upper saucer, I had another mishap. I got the tape all installed, and set it to one side.

When I looked again, I noticed something wasn't quite right.

Bugger.

It seems I may have been a bit too vigorous when pressing the masking tape into place. I would like to announce that today's scheduled painting session has been postponed. In it's place, is another exciting round of gluing, filling and sanding.

Stay tooned for more exciting updates (or a small, 1:600 scale bonfire ).

[chadders]

Seeing the similarity in size of the JT 1:650th replacement items, I'm thinking about seeing how some of the Federation Models stuff will match up. I've got shed loads of their stuff to build 1st pilot/2nd pilot/series/Mirror Mirror. With some careful mix and matching maybe some other options may be possible

[Smiffy]

It's quite likely that you'll be able to do some mix n match. IIRC, Jay demonstrated in his video that some aftermarket endcaps for the AMT kit, fitted the Revell nacelles.

[JMChladek]

Yes, small bits like the rear nacelle endcaps, intercooler loops and deflector dishes should work just fine on the Revell kit with no problems. Only one that might cause a headache would be if you want to use a pilot style bridge dome as the Revell kit seems to have a noticeably larger diameter bridge compared to the AMT one. But, if you stick a shim ring on the tear drop (or a circular styrene plug on the bottom of the taller dome), I think it can work okay.

As for XF-12, in my experience for a 18" model I almost went with 25% white added to it before I got a color that looked okay to the eye. I tried it straight initially on my USS Constellation and it was WAY too dark. But even after applying my final mix, it still looked a bit funky UNTIL I got to the decal stage. Once those markings were added, the color started to look right as the red, yellow and black starfleet insignias just complimented the coloring perfectly and broke up the large surfaces so that you weren't just seeing the hull color. I admit, the hull color also looks a bit worse if you gloss coat it before decalling as it darkens things up a shade and accents the green tint. But once the final flat coats are applied... it looks fine.

[Smiffy]

Well, I did get her repainted today. I took a fresh 23ml bottle of XF-12 and dumped that into my mix. That evened it out quite nicely and I'm much happier with the paint shade now. Got a couple of little corrections to do and then things can proceed.

[Basosz]

*stands up and applauds the MASSIVE exercise in fill, sand, rinse, repeat*

Result is effing brilliant!

[Smiffy]

I've actually found a little time to work on the Enterprise and managed to get some odd little jobs checked off the "to do" list. Firstly, I've made an internal brace to mount the stand, nice and securely. I took a couple of pieces of thick plastic card and profiled them to the shape of the inside of the lower hull. I stuck each one to opposite ends of a length of the same thickness card and then filled in the space in-between with some J-B Weld, which is a steel reinforced epoxy. When dry, this was sanded level with a coarse sanding stick. I'll be using a length of hollow threaded nipple tube to mount the model, so a 10mm hole was drilled in the bottom of the secondary hull and through the internal brace.

I mentioned previously that I had painted all the parts with the exterior grey colour, before assembly. I've seen this done on a few online builds and wanted to try it out myself. The idea is that, you paint everything, add your clear window parts, then assemble the model. Once the joints are taken care of, it's just a simple matter of touching in the seams with the exterior colour again. This will give you very clean edges to all of your windows, without the need for masking. The problem is that with the amount of filler and primer coats the model has been through, the clear pieces do not fit that well and each window aperture would need a fair amount of clean up to allow the glass to fit. Even then, the clear pieces don't sit flush with the surface (they are slightly recessed in the holes). After fitting the 4 square windows that locate in the upper saucer surface, I soon decided to abandon that idea. I will be using Kristal Klear or Canopy glue to fill the windows in, instead.

After studying some reference pics, I marked the location of each window that was to be unlit. I took more thick plastic card sections and then blanked these windows off, from the inside. I sealed the edges in with CA and then hand painted a couple of thick coats of black paint, to prevent light leaks. When the black dried, I went back over with light grey, before brushing a couple of coats of white. I took some clear plastic packaging material and tinted it with some Tamiya Clear Red. Cut into small sections, I added them into the inside of the neck halves, to represent the little red windows on either side.

Regarding lighting the model, I have seen a few comments of people wanting to try it out, but not having the experience or maybe lacking confidence, they shy away from it. This got me to thinking about some easy ways to light this kit, without the use of an expensive lighting kit, or complicated circuits. With this in mind, I purchased several basic, battery powered Xmas LED string light sets, such as this one.

I chose 20, 25 and 30 string sets, in white and warm white. They were picked up from Ebay, each one around the 3 or 4 pound mark (which included postage). After some experimenting, I settled on the 30 LED, warm white set for this model. The use of Christmas lights is actually very in-keeping with the spirit of the modellers who built the original Enterprise model, as they used Xmas tree lights in the warp nacelles of the big 11ft miniature.

Now these LED lights could be left as battery operated, but I decided to convert mine to a mains supply, so once again, I returned to Ebay and purchased a power adaptor.This was also an inexpensive item, at under a fiver, with free postage. These are handy as they allow you to select the required voltage for your lighting set up. As the light strings are powered by 3 x 1.5v batteries, I set the adaptor to run at 4.5v. I picked up some small rolls of black and red 8amp cable, as well as an on-off rocker switch. I also purchased some DIN speaker plugs and chassis mount sockets. The battery box was removed from the light string and I soldered some cable extensions, leading to one of the speaker sockets. This socket will be mounted onto the side of the base, once it's completed. The adaptor had it's interchangeable output plug removed and it was replaced with one of the speaker plugs.

After running the lights for a couple of hours, just to make sure that there were no problems, I began planning out how and where the LED's would be positioned inside the ship. I used selotape to temporarily position the lights and I settled on 13 LED's in the saucer, leading to 3 in the neck and 6 in the secondary hull. This leaves me with 4 LED's to light the warp nacelles. I cemented the 2 internal bulkheads to the right hand half of the secondary hull. Then, using a cool melt hot glue gun, I fixed the LED's into position. I deliberately made sure that none of the LED's were placed directly behind any of the windows. I'm going for more of a scale look to the finished model and I want to create the effect of reflected, ambient light, rather than blazing floodlights beaming out from the window ports.

Before I glue the 2 halves of the hull together, I will remove the last 4 LED's in the string, for the warp engines.I will solder in more cable extensions and these will be run up through the pylons. Speaking of which, after some test fitting, I decided to reinforce the pylons, to avoid drooping or sagging over time. I took some rectangular brass tube and cut 2 lengths. I drilled and filed out openings in the bottom edge of the warp pylon assembly, to pass the brass tubes through. These were then fixed into place, once again using J-B Weld. These will not only give added strength to the pylons, but they also serve as handy conduits for running the cables to the LED's in the engines.

That brings me up to date. I have painted some of the smaller pieces, like the red and green nav lights and they have been fixed into place on the upper saucer. I also painted the deflector dish and housing, using Tamiya Copper. I then hand brushed 2 thin coats of Klear over the top, just to give the finish a slight sheen.

Next up, I will be doing some experimenting for the bussard engine lighting.