Polar Lights 1:350 Star Trek USS Enterprise
Recently Polar Lights changed the mold on the kit, and made the saucer (primary) hull smooth, eleminating the fine engraved lines. This one I have here was the first issue of the kit, the one that could be preordered (and then it was available about a year later).
The upper bridge is about the size of a US quarter. The overall length of the model when finished is around 32.5 inches long.
It's not a difficult kit to build. I chose not to add lighting, but it has all the channels and holes molded into the kit to run wires iif you choose to do that.
The front bussard collectors on the two warp nacelles are molded in clear plastic. I went old school, and painted them gold to match the front dish. Like the old AMT Enterprise box art used to be. I think it worked out well. Othwerwise, the clear domes look kind of funky and un-realistic if un-painted. Very distracting to look at.
All the joints are tight, and hold well. There's no sagging parts on this ship. Once assembled, it has some weight to it because of it's size. I painted it Tamiya White to look like it does on TV (I'm replicating the way it looks, not that actual model used off camera).
If you didn't paint the kit, you could assemble it in a day or two easily.
The windows install on the inside, so you have to add those, then glue the parts together, then mask them off, then putty, primer, and paint. That's all a little tricky.
Overall, it's a very good kit. Worth every penny. It's quite impressive in size when done.
An interesting project. I see a lot of this range at shows and am always impressed with the size of the models.
Nice to see some SyFy here.
Nice! I always liked this kit, but it is sooooo big. Great job! I love that Polar Lights/Moebius is doing these large kits, I am building the 1/32 Flying Sub, it is huge!
I have the Flying Sub, how's that going? Its a bit down on my list a bit to be built right now. Currently I'm working on the large Moebius Seaview. Finished up working out the lights for it this past sunday, and I'm happy they all worked ok. So soon I'll be buttoning up the sub for the finished look. 🙂
Going well so far, typical Sci Fi, plenty of clean up though not too bad really, pretty good detail and fit. I am painting the interior parts now.
"...the bridge is the size of a quarter..."? Impressive detailing, Bruce - I like it. 🙂
Thanks Craig. You can actually see the bridge through the clear dome on top of the saucer section. 🙂
brings back memories...
Thanks everyone for the kind compliments. To be honest, the airplanes I see on iModlers far surpase anything I did here LOL. (I don't build to many airplanes). I loaded one more image I forgot I had that shows me holding the ship, just to give you an idea of the size.
Beam me up Scotty. nice work! Might have to try one, maybe a smaller scale though.