This kit has caused me a lot of anger and hatred, to be honest, but I did finally complete the SOB.
I made so many mistakes while building this dog.
- The little rings that are located on the nacelles right behind the bussard collectors are backward, which necessitated removing some plastic from the plates along the underside of the nacelles that cover over a portion of the rings.
- The lighting kit was dog doo, but came with a bunch of clear parts that I didn't inspect fully before installing the standard gray plastic bridge. There is a great decal of a Klingon warship on the viewscreen, as well as other displays, that would have been back-lit had I just paid closer attention to the parts before I dove into this thing last summer. Consequently the bridge is dark, big miss on my part.
Fit was not great on this turkey. The clear bussard collector covers did not slide fully into place. I didn't want to put too much pressure on them in fear of snapping the nacelles off the hull. The neck didn't want to slide all the way into position, but that might be due to all the wiring running through this thing.
As I said, the lighting kit was not good. I ended up using only some of the colored parts for the bussard collectors. I did not use any of the lights, although I did use some of the wiring. The lights are a mish-mash of different LED lights - individual bulbs that light the interior of the nacelles, the bulb on the underside of the saucer section, and those red / blue lights on the top of the saucer. Everything else is LED light strips with connectors, all wired together and run out the bottom of the hull into the metal rod and to the stand. The stand did not come with a switch, but I had a spare switch sitting around that I was able to install into the base.
I know the TV series Enterprise did not feature the blue lighting inside the nacelles, but I did read that was always the intent, but they ran out of money in building the model and that is what they cut. I liked the look of it from later Enterprise variants, and the kit does give that option. I should have frosted all those windows, as the LED light strips are rather bright.
But to be honest, this kit was a beating on me, and I just wanted to dang thing done. I don't think it looks great - big seam line along the saucer section, ugh, that resisted all my efforts with putty, scraping, and sanding to make it disappear. The paint job also leaves something to be desired. It is Tamiya aircraft gray overall, with some neutral gray and brass as well.
This thing took me half a year to build. I didn't work on it every day, but most kits take at most 1 month when I actually have time or good conditions to work with. Summer here in the SE Texas area was brutally hot, so that limited my bench time just out of self preservation.
Now I'm taking time away from the bench for a while to do some wood working projects. When I get back to my bench, I'll be doing a 1/48 F-89C Scorpion, a Cold War aircraft I've never previously built.