AMT-ERTL U.S.S. Enterprise B - Generations

[Mark Szeman]

Hey All!

 

Just got finished up with a car build and was longing to jump into another build, had this knocking around for years and thought I'd knock it out.

 

Lessons learned and skills coming back after being away for so long. I want to do a nice job of this and take my time.

 

I've been searching for aztec templates for the painting and have found some but just not sure if they are the most accurate, I found this :

http://www.startrekpropauthority.com/2008/06/detailed-photostudy-of-enterprise-b-7.html

 

and this

 

 

It has a bunch of nice photos and if this is legit this was one of the models used in filming so it is supposedly the most screen accurate if true. If there are any other trekkies out there with confirmation or other good resources I would love to see.

Ive also been watching way too much , https://www.youtube.com/user/TrekWorks , he has a wealth of stuff and makes amazing models. 

 

So this is my beginning, more to come. If anyone has some advice / resources anything would be massively appreciated.  Thanks for looking. 

 

 

 

 

The top and bottom halves of the saucer section had massive gaps so allot of filler and sanding later its starting to look ok.  Forgot to take before and after pictures but Ill try and remember next time  

 

 

 

 

Used Tamiya X-27 clear red on these, I'm REALLY loving the Tamiya paints super easy to airbrush and the finish is amazing every time, definitely something I'm going to get more of. 

Tried my best to replicate the look found on the supposedly screen used models secondary impulse engines, would go for the primary impulse engines too but these are just miniscule on this model and my hands aren't that steady yet

 

You can see here what i mean, trying to get the impulse engines as accurate as possible. 

[John_W]

Believe the Enterprise B was a modification of the Excelsior studio model from one if the original films. Extra sections were added to the forward hull so damage could be added without changing the original model.

[Mark Szeman]

I found the same info so far, just wondering if they had multiple models, with perhaps different aztecing or was it just straight up the excelsior with a few mods.  Im probably just going to go with the excelsior aztecing.  Taking the template to my friend who has a printing studio to get masking templates vinyl cut soon, but I still have time to decide on that. 

 

One other thing, i finally got some clear blue and was going to launch into painting the warp nacelle clear parts, but... there's always a big hairy but.. the parts have these annoying little circles in the dead center of what would be visible in the clear parts. 

They are the indents from where the molded part is pushed out of the mold.  Was wondering if anyone had any tips on sanding them out without overly hazing the plastic.  Is it just a matter of going up the grits to something silly high, or does anyone have a tried and tested method for sanding/buffing these clear plastic parts ?  Would love to hear others input before i start to clean them up to paint them.  Its highly annoying these push out are right in the middle where its visible.. 

 

 

[SteveR]

Those secondary impulse engines look fantastic! Very nicely done. I briefly looked at a similar effect when doing my Enterprise NCC1701 but in the end just went with a plain red, next time I'd love to get it looking as good as yours  Looks forward to seeing more of your build!

[Julien]

For sanding the clear parts just go progressively to a higher grit, may take some time but you wont stuff it up.

 

Julien

[Mark Szeman]

Thanks Steve, taking my time on this one, I want to see just how detailed i can get it, bit of a challenge to see just how rusty Iam  Still contemplating lights where i could still get them in, like the nacelles, the saucer is out now seeing as ive closed it up already. 

 

Thanks Julien, i was thinking of just going the sandpaper route as it isnt a completely clear part, it is slightly hazy anyway.

 

I took a look at some plastic polishing compounds primarily used for polishing up cars headlights and such, has anyone used those on things like dinged up canopies or other clear parts with any success ? 

[Mark Szeman]

@Julien Thanks for plain sanding pointer. A few hours of elbow grease from 2500 to 3000,and finally some buffing with a dremel cotton pad its completely clear. Just need to rinse and repeat on the rest

 

 

before on the right after on the left.  I actually removed all the factory haze, very happy with the result. 

[Julien]

Looks good, well worth the effort I would say.

[Mark Szeman]

Hi Guys !   I'm getting on with build, and am at the point where id like to assemble the main fuselage, but, I would like to add a little detail to the shuttle bay.  Its a single piece drop in part, and the instructions un-imaginatively say its a homogeneous grey.  I for the life of me cant find any reference for the shuttle bay interior on this particular model of enterprise/excelsior.  There is a fair amount of area that would lend itself to detailing, I don't really just want to go off and wing it, trying to keep to the overall theme but make it up as i go along.  If any one has any ideas or reference it would be mega welcome.  I'am deviating from the screen used somewhat as I don't really like the turquoise colours used there, I'm going to be replacing those with a variation of standard light and medium tamiya blues (XF-18 and XF-23) 

 

 

 

simple drop in part, just a bit boring on its own .. 

 

      

 

Some ideas on sprucing it up, possibly staying with the variations on blues, high lighting panel lines with gold (as on other areas of the design) or maybe gun metal, and differentiating panels on the control room area in different grey's, finally giving it a slight dry brush of aluminium or silvers. 

 

I think it would give it an added focal point, but i don't want to overdo it. 

 

As on the image of the screen used model below, there is blue on the lower fuselage, wrapping up to the area where the shuttle bay is, I'm thinking that would lend itself to taking the blues into the bay. 

 

 

Thanks for looking

[Mark Szeman]

Went with this as a paint scheme, Im going to use the same blues around the ship instead of the turquoise, which is a bit bright for my taste. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mark Szeman]

As we explore the Alpha quadrant ..  3 days of filling, sanding, priming, sanding rinse and repeat later I may have a fuselage that will be straight smooth and gap-less, i bet the guys assembling this in the dry dock in orbit didn't have this many problems with it !!

 

 

This area wasn't terrible just unsightly seams ...

 

 

The area to the aft of the ship where the torpedo launcher will end up was atrocious, that thick grey area , yes, all filler. There was in some areas an almost 2mm gap... I was trying to figure out what might be wrong, the only thing i could think of, was that the kit was made to be "universal" between the Enterprise and Excelsior versions, the alternate part for the Excelsior might fit differently... But I'll never know, just lots of putty. 

 

 

More putty, more sanding, hopefully something space worthy will come out of it ..  i guess this is what comes of being stored in a bad place for 10+ years, -20 C to 40 C differences from winter to summer over and over... Warped, and not a course laid in by ensign Crusher... 

Edited March 13, 2019 by Mark Szeman

[Mark Szeman]

I was contemplating adding the small detail at the front of the deflector dish shroud, between the shroud and the fuselage, as in the pic below, which is on the screen used version. 

 

 

And after pacing back and forth on it i broke the dremel out, carved out the area and smoothed everything out with more putty and sanding.  happy with the result just need to finish sand it all and define the sharp edges better. 

 

 

 

[John_W]

Just discovered all the Star Trek movies are currently free on Amazon Prime and been having a binge watch. Coming along nicely. 

[Mark Szeman]

Thanks John I have them all on itunes been planning to make a marathon of it over the weekend   Just flipping between Flory's videos and re-watching TNG while building this. 

I keep going further down the wormhole .. I noticed that as well as the indent at the end of the deflector shroud i already added, I think .. there is also a bead around edge of that opening on the lower half.  May just be my eyes playing tricks on me,  but its not even black and blue or white and gold ...

 

 

I tried making a unique use of my dremel drill stand.  I thought Id give it a go and replicate it with a 1mm styrene rod, but id have to "cut" a section out to get it flat on the surface and run it around the edge of the deflector dish opening.

 

 

I cut a groove into some balsa to hold the styrene rod . 

 

 

super glued a length of rod into the groove and tried running the dremel back again, but to no avail ... it just chewed up the rod even though I lowered it to the slowest speed and came through very slowly.  it was barely touching the rod, as I was only trying to cut away a quarter of the rod to make 2 flat surfaces to lay on the body.. I may be over complicating it, but i couldn't think of any other way to cut out such a small section of 1mm rod safely... May give it another go tomorrow.

[Mark Szeman]

I've been waiting for some tools to come in the post so i can continue with the saucer section, as I have to rescribe allot of it.  In the meantime I thought I would try out some aztecing. 

 

1st layer of many, on many pieces  Good thing there are 13 of the movies to watch while doing it  

 

    

[Mark Szeman]

I must be mad, round about the voyage home.. I think I'm going to have to dip into all the series too..

 

 

 

 

1 down , 1 to go..

[John_W]

I have built the Revell TOS Enterprise from the Anniversary box set. Masking the Aztec is putting me off building the In to Darkness version

[Mark Szeman]

I can feel your pain without a mind meld   I just got through the first layer on these .

 

I'm only hand cutting the aztecs for the smaller tricky parts. I have found the decal sheets for the aztecs, and although they aren't good enough quality to print as decals, I'm using inkscape to draw them out, I'll take those to my local print shop and ask them to cut them out of vinyl masking. (Knew I should have bought that cameo Silhouette III) 

 

http://www.starshipmodeler.com/  has some excellent resources, i found all the aztecing I needed here.

 

@John_W https://starshipmodeler.biz/shop/index.cfm/product/8349_51/1500-kelvin-era-enterprise-aztec--markings-decals-for-revell.html  these are the ones you mean ?

 

If I could get ahold of guy that runs it I would talk to him about getting rights to use their media and print decals / cut vinyl to sell in Europe. I do see a need, however small.  It was the big thing holding me back to but I'm finding it to be quite peaceful applying the stuff   I'll report back on how I feel about aztecs when I'm done

 

 

1st layer on these. 

 

 

Went ahead with the 2nd layer on this as a test.  It's the same grey just thinned more and sprayed thinner. Im going to use the same thing all over, just add more dark grey to each subsequent layer.  The last layer will be a pearl clear in aztecing to give it further depth. 

 

Also would love to hear what the thoughts are on Revell plasto, I had some of it lift out of a small detail on one the nacelle fins when taking up this masking. Not a major disaster just disappointing.  Looking for an alternative filler, I have some 3m green putty kicking around somewhere but it seems excessive to use auto body grade (and price  ) putty here. 

[John_W]

The decals look nice, but have been out of stock for a while. Not seen the multicoloured ones before. Watching the film again, there are not just colour variations, but gloss/matt/satin variations too.

Filler wise, I like Squadron fine white, or milliput. Perfect plastic putty is good, but shrinks a little. Being water soluble it is good for wing roots, apply and wipe away the excess, and it will shrink and leave a subtle panel line.

[Tomjw]

Just found this build. Your aztec masking is impressive. Insane and imoressive at the same time. Can't wait to see more.

 

Cheers,

 

Tom

[Mark Szeman]

@Tomjw  Thanks  I decided to go another route though. I sanded back what i had painted on already, seeing as I wanted to get rid of the raised lines all over the nacelle.  Aaand, seeing as having spent time as a freelance graphics designer for a while years back, illustrator still seems to come in handy even in this hobby

 

   

 

I take a picture of the part with rulers to scale to, take that to illustrator and size it to actual size, overlay the picture of the decal and size that to it accordingly and carry on as below. 

 

 

Im redrawing all the masking from the original decals, and I'll have them cut at the print shop into masking vinyl.  Ill get the best result like this and instead of taking 3 hours to mask a nacelle I just peel and stick a layer in no more than 5-10 minutes. The ones above are the saucer sections large aztecing. 

 

   

 

These are the decals for the nacelles broken down to the 2 layers. 

 

The rest are similar, its basically the same pattern repeating over and over confined to different shapes on the fuselage. 

 

If this works out ok, as in the vinyl cutter can actually cut out such small shapes well, I may offer the files or get sets cut up and have them available, but that's for another forum section when i get there  

[Mark Szeman]

I went back to the drawing board on how I was making the aztec masking and finally came to something i like.  But I was wondering if anyone out there has a Cameo silhouette 3, as I'm planning on getting one to make these masks and others in the future, my only gripe is I cant find much info on what the minimum size of piece the blades will cut.

I'm going to get my local print shop to cut some out in the meantime as I'd like to be getting on with the build.  

But on the silhouette I'm planning on cutting it from 3D vinyl which is used to wrap cars, its thinner than the standard at 80 microns and can wrap around all tight curves. 

But the masking has some shapes that get down to 1mm x 0.8mm size, if anyone knows if the silhouette can actually handle that ? I know the rest will come down to the actual vinyl, if it will crease up or get pulled by the knife trying to make those tiny shapes, just interested to hear some input from someone that has one. I'm also putting the feelers out on some airbrushing forums where people use that machine to cut masks, just curious to hear from more peeps. 

 

This is the completed mask for the bottom half of the saucer section, just the bulk aztecs.  The red lines are just guides, from outside in : outer ring, slight space as there is a step down and small curve to the indented ring, inner saucer section.

I've printed this on paper and cut it out to do fittings over and over and this is the final result, I'll move on and do the same on the top of the saucer section next. 

 

[Mark Szeman]

Hi chaps, 

 

made a little progress with this, got myself a new table and a few other goodies including an Ikea extractor fan "spray booth"   working wonders so far.

 

I gave everything that needed it 4 coats of insignia white, then a coat of XF-86 flat clear, before going in for some detailing with the home brew mix of silver, all Tamiya lacquer paints so far. 

 

 

5 thin coats of lacquer later

 

 

All demasked

 

 

 

I masked all the indents around the center of the saucer individually before masking the bulk, I had a little overspray where i wasn't diligent enough with the tape, but I'm not mad, that area is going to be another grey anyway. 

 

 

Im just biding my time doing little bits and bobs on it until my masks are cut for the aztecs, plus i actually found a set of decals for it on ebay, so those are winging their way to me too. 

 

Not much but just enough for now  thanks for looking. 

[Mark Szeman]

Hi all,

 

Got a little further down the road with this, I finally managed to source an aftermarket decal set which is winging its way to me, I hope at Warp 9...   In the meantime I got the masking of some "pre-shading" of sorts done, I hope I don't dream of masking tape and latex .. Not a particularly nice mix

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Going to sleep on the colour mix for this, I'm a little frustrated by the lack of plain "grey" in Tamiyas line up, so I'll make some home brew of what I have.

 

I did a test spray of a selection I was planning on using, some are ok straight up, but I'm not happy with the selection overall.

 

 

That's all for now  Thanks for looking.

[Mark Szeman]

Swiftly moving on, I laid down the paint and pulled all that masking off, this is the first of 5 base layers, it is quite a stark contrast to the white, but it will get a misting of insignia white, and a grey AK filter eventually so it won't be quite so stark. 

 

 

 

 

 

Putting it on hold for a little from here , just waiting for a decal set i ordered from ebay to come in, and get the masks for the tiny panelling details laser cut.