1/1000 AMT USS Enterprise-B Review/Preview

The link doens't work.

2/6/13 now it does

Should work now

Cool review! Shame about it not coming with aztecing decals - or at least a mask of some sort. Maybe an aftermarket one?

One thing I noticed when you popped the box was that a lot of the parts look identical to the Excelsior kit from several years back. I know they are virtually the same ship (modded saucer and secondary hull) but its a little surprising that AMT didn't come up with new tooling. The kit had great fit, but painting was a royal pain.

I'm building the little 2500 scale three Enterprise "pack" and they are just about wrapped in decals. They look pretty good but you better be prepared with a ton of micro sol...

Thank you for the heads up on the kit! :-)

You can get the aztecing decals 3rd party as well as enhancement/correction parts.  CultTVMan and Starship Modeler both have them in their catalogs.  I'll be diving into this kit when I finish my 1/1000 Enterprise TOS and Enterprise A.

I've built the whole fleet of Enterprise variants in 1/2500, and the decals provided with those kits were tremendous.  PL includes the aztecing for the Enterprise A in that kit.  I agree it's too bad that AMT didn't follow suit.

I've seen notes on the web that the B variant is undersized, based mostly on the bridge.  I measured out the kit compared to the Star Trek reference manuals, and though the bridge may appear undersized, the kit is spot on for 1/1000 scale...

is 2500 scale the only scale you can get every ship in?

the only constant scale.  You can get TOS, A, and B in 1/1000.  You can get C and D in 1/1400.  I don't know if there is still an available version of E in 1/1400.  If you want them all in the same scale, though, and if you want to add many other ships from the Star Trek universe in the same scale, 1/2500 is the only way you can go right now.  Personally, I'd love to see the B and even the D in 1/350 to go with my TOS and A from PL, not that I'd have any room to put the D.  I think it would be about six feet long in 1/350...

I built a display set of all the Enterprises using the original releases of the starships that did not have the aztec decals. Lot's of fun with masking, airbrushing and using fine tip magic markers to get the surface details. Finishing the starship set was easy thanks to a Japanese-made NX-01 that came pre-painted with the surface details. All I had to do with that one was add the lighted surface effects for the engines. The two aircraft carriers were built from white metal kits in 1/2400 scale, but since the starships are all fictional I think a 4% size variance is close enough.