Polar lights Enterprise 1701 Refit 1/350th Scale



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Time To Waffle A Bit About Warp Engines Dontchaknow!
And welcome back after a more than extended break updates wise.
Actually completed this whole turn out late last year but after backing everything up to do a HD clean and reload due to computer throwin' a fit...
Guess which bloody muppet went and mislaid the memory sticks and back up discs with this lot on it...
Aye, got it in one.

So mega muppetry aside, here we do go!

And so we begin this wee turn out.
Well at time of construction, I did hear a wee whisper from scale modeling scuttlebut.
Said whisper concerning that a mob going by the name Round 2 were going to be re-popping this bad motor scooter.
With that in mind and thinking I could possibly be picked on again to do this kit build...

Oh lordy...

I decided that maybe it was time to help meself out just a smidgen.

Now lightboxes for one thing are a pain to make over and over again so out with some filler and plasticard.
A shape made and slapped into the nacelles of the spare blue plastic chase kit and filled in with auto repair putty.
Pulled out, cleaned up then much fussing and casting later we get some shapes good for vac-forming.
This I then did...















Fits nicely with minimal trimming.
So with some careful hole cutting the LED's will be duly inserted and the wee devils fitted into the white plastic nacelles.
Sorted!
More on that later!
Now the next thing and a slight bugbear for the accuracy brigade, the front of the nacelles along with some other stuff but one thing at a time.
So first two things, the red line on the pic shows the forward angle on the kit piece and the green line shows the approximate correct angle.
In laymans terms, it needs a nose extention of about 3.1mm...there or thereabouts.
Also note the point indicated by the arrow.
There is a definate down step here which as far as I can tell, should not be there.
Well I for one cannot see it on the 'real deal' model, looks to my peepers like a flat line from the front to where it goeth across the...bit that sticks out on the side.
Sorry but all technical termed out right now.



So replacement parts simply made from some 2.5mm thick perspex and faired in with filler to get the shape at the ends.
Also casting candidates.

So then, to the nose job.
Well the rough details of angle and part comparison sorta come out like this...



Now it comes out that at rough placing, the angle is about 34 degrees off the verticle on the studio model.
Camera distortion and my less than educated guesstimates not withstanding you understand.
So then, all this taken into account and the ins and out mentally weighed up, time to lay on some Milliput.
The fine white stuff to be exact.
And there was much sanding, scraping, primering and gnashing of teeth with some scribing for the cutoff lines to be.







Now all this hoo-ha meant that the front grilles were now too far in...it just never bloody ends this...
So the inner detail was scraped and chiseled away and replacment parts made to fit in.
Which oddly enough look like this.



So far, so good.
Then the next bit crops up...

Now there are the long grilles down the side of each nacelle.
It is not them that be the sticking point.
It's where they meet the...Hang on and let me look it up...
Nope, can't find the correct name if they got 'em...
So i'll just call 'em the boxy things on the front sides or BTOTFS for short...
This bit.

With me so far?
Okedoke then, now where the side grilles meet the said BTOTFS on the kit looks like this.

Ok but just to add insult to injury, on the studio model they look like this...

Left and right are the same with the undercut sooooooooo
Out came the pieces of the spare blue nacelle and in went the saw.
Keeping the part the same dimensions is key so some stuff got chopped off and then put back.
Some grinding, filling and sanding later we get this.



Also destined for the RTV treatment as is it's opposite number...be damned if i'm doing this again.
And that's all from this page, the nacelle nonsense is carried on immediately on the next page so off ya go and go easy!!



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