Revell 1:600 USS Enterprise NCC-1701 from the first Star Trek TV series

[NellyV]

I watched the original series of Star Trek in B&W when it first aired on BBC TV in the UK in the late 1960s. The USS Enterprise immediately became an object of desire, but back in the pre-interweb dark ages there was no way of me knowing if it was possible even to buy a model replica, so I built my own based on GA drawings sketched out from glimpses of the studio model in each episode. No recording to wind back and freeze frame back then either! ½” diameter dowel rods for the warp nacelles, with carved balsa stock for the saucer and main nacelle, doped and then painted in Humbrol Neutral gra(e)y. I really wish I’d kept good care of her now, but like most things you acquire early in life it proved to be an ephemera.

In 2013, my partner bought me the Revell kit as a bit of a jokey Christmas present. It sat in the stash for several years, not because of any disinterest, but because I really wanted to light it up and am a lousy electrician. I finally committed to building it in mid 2020 after buying a supposed lighting 'kit' through ebay, which ended up being a bunch of LEDs, resistors, wire and rather sketchy instructions. Despite my lack of soldering skill it does light up if somewhat unevenly, but believe me the spaghetti of wiring and resistors I ended up with under the skin wouldn’t meet IEEE safety regs. Nearly all the Revell window transparencies have gas bubbles in them, so I have no doubts the larger scale Polar Lights kit can produce a much better model in skilled hands.

The original large scale studio model was restored in 2016 and is now on display at the Smithsonian NASM in Washington. The main museum in down town Washington has such iconic aviation items as the Wright Flyer, Apollo 11 command module, Spirit of St Louis, etc. and should you have a few hours to spare before your flight out of Dulles IA, the NASM Udvar-Hazy Centre is a short taxi ride away, so also well worth a visit. I took one of my old bosses there once before our flight back to Blighty after a business trip to DC. He fired me shortly thereafter. Perhaps the extra taxi bill was an expense claim too far?

Accuracy is always a scale modellers main focus, but when it comes to building a model of a sci-fi subject that only ever existed in model form, what do you do? Model the studio model, or model what the studio model is supposed to represent on screen? Although the Revell model does appear to be a fairly accurate portrayal of the original studio model, it does have some trench like panel lines which were only drawn pencil lines on the studio model. I could have spent hours filling in the panel lines to better represent the finish of the “original”. Here’s the thing though, only the starboard side of the studio model was ever fully detailed and there is a dirty great wiring loom for the lighting rig projecting out of the main nacelle on the port side. I believe this is the reason why you only ever really see a shot of the ship’s starboard side and on the rare occasions where it passes from right to left, I suspect they used a flipped mirror image sequence. So, should the modeller seeking accuracy recreate the studio model with its wiring loom, and if not, can they really claim superiority of finish over a slacker like me, who decided to accept the panel lines as an attempt to add a degree of “truthiness” to an otherwise rather flat and bland surface finish?

Other things I would do differently if I built it again? Well, I sprayed inside the Bussard collectors on the warp nacelles with Tamiya clear red, before realising that these were probably red only in the pilot episode. By the time the series launched, they had also lost their aerospikes and appeared to have a frosted colourless finish, relying on Christmas tree lights fitted inside to provide the changing colour effects (lost in B&W). If only I’d done my research thoroughly before ploughing on. On a more positive note, I think I hit on a good paint mix for the slightly greenish hue of the overall grey finish and its definitely an improvement on the Humbrol Neutral Grey finish of my long-lost childhood scratch build.

One of the pics below shows Enterprise “flying” over a same scale Airfix 1920s era Battlecruiser HMS Hood (861ft in length). (See more pics of the Hood build here). Interesting to note that Space-X’s Starship and Superheavy booster combo will be about half the length of Hood (400ft in length). Who knows - with Space-X’s promised heavy lift capability, perhaps we will see an actual spacecraft assembled in orbit on the scale of these two ships in the next few years? Now that will be something.

[NellyV]

Oops, forgot to insert the link to Hood before posting

[whitestar12chris]

Lovely build Nelly, well done. Re your query about panel lines the Revell offering is not based on TOS Enterprise but rather the reimagined Enterprise used for an episode of Deep Space Nine called Trial and Tribbleations, which is how Revell got the license as AMT still holds it for TOS Enterpise.

 

All the best Chris

[NellyV]

4 hours ago, whitestar12chris said:

Lovely build Nelly, well done. Re your query about panel lines the Revell offering is not based on TOS Enterprise but rather the reimagined Enterprise used for an episode of Deep Space Nine called Trial and Tribbleations, which is how Revell got the license as AMT still holds it for TOS Enterpise.

 

All the best Chris

Great info Chris. Didn't know that. I'll definitely look that up.

[Bertie McBoatface]

That's very smart work.