Trek modeler noob! Questions about scale!

The recent Polar Light's original series kits were 1/1000 scale. They were about 10" long, I think.

FSM did a review of the  PL Enterprise when it came out a few years back, it might be in the review archive.

Good Luck - CJ

I'm not sure of the scale, but my original Enterprise kits are about 18 inches.  Most of the kits from the different movies are of different scales and the large polar lights kits are 1/350th.  That would make the engine nacelle form the Enterprise A about the length of a Tamiya battleship.

Here's that link:

http://www.finescale.com/fsm/default.aspx?c=a&id=1329&cc=DA3qqe

and another:

http://www.finescale.com/fsm/default.aspx?c=a&id=1619&cc=DA3qqe

 - JC

For the Refit, to give you an example of the sizes of these models, you get the following lengths, based off of 305m for the "real" Refit:

1/350 - 34.31" / 87.14cm

 1/1000 - 12.01" / 30.5cm

1/2500 -  4.8" / 12.2cm

For the most part, I'd argue that it depends on several things, but the foremost for the majority of folks it's display space versus the different ships you'd want to have on the shelf.  If you only want one or two models that look impressive and have the display space, go with the 1/350, as you can pack a boatload of detail in one of those babies.

If you want to allow for more than one StarFleet ship, for instance, that has a very nice amount of detail, go with the 1/1000 scale.  You can have a decent sized number of ships on your shelves at this scale. 

If you want to have a fleet of ships and/or just show off as many of the canon and/or non-canon ships as you can put on a shelf - and don't have issues of Male Inadequacy -  then 1/2500 scale is a great choice.  There are a large number of different model kits in this scale right now.  You can have an insance number of ships on your shelves, showing off entire fleets at one time. 

From what it sounds like, tho, you'll want 1/1000 or even 1/1400 scale for your Trek ships.

 

The AMT 18" TOS Enterprise is approximately 1/640 scale.   Charles Casimiro's superb technical drawings are drawn to the same size as this kit, and give an exact scale of 1/641.   

http://home.earthlink.net/~casimiro/18_01.jpg

More here: http://home.earthlink.net/~casimiro/blueprints.html

The AMT 18" Enterprise is inaccurate when compared to either of the two studio models, but it is THE classic Enterprise model kit.  The kit is over 40 years old now and seems immortal; AMT is re-releasing it later this year to coincide with the new ST movie.  

HTH
Dave

And if I remember correctly, 1:1400 has the largest variety for the larger scales. Nothing beats 1:2500 for the shear plethora of ships.

Yeah, but a 4 1/2 to 5 inch starship just doesn't grab me.  I mainly paint Warhammer and Warhammer 40k figurines in 28mm (1-2 inches tall) or Flames of War miniatures 15mm.  I want some detail, and some larger surfaces!  10-18 inches seems like a nice size, can hang or display several of those in my office, no problem.

You are right though, I can get a federation garbage scow or a postal delivery ship in 2500!

I had actually thought there were still some affordable kits for trek out there somewhere.....what WAS I thinking?  Oh well, gotta spend that tax refund somehow!

Thanks again!

Chris

Killjoy wrote:

I want some detail, and some larger surfaces!  10-18 inches seems like a nice size, can hang or display several of those in my office, no problem.   I had actually thought there were still some affordable kits for trek out there somewhere.....what WAS I thinking?  Oh well, gotta spend that tax refund somehow!

Well, if 10-18 inches is what you're going for, might I suggest ships in 1/1400 scale?  these are the ships that AMT/ERTL put out & there are plenty out there.  They're all about 18" in size & include the Enterprise C, D & E.  The Excelsior kit is 1/1000, but totals out to be about 18".  there's also the Defiant from DS9 & though it's a small ship, it was produced in a larger scale (650?) & totals out to about the same size.  Voyager is also about 20" & there's even DS9 itself in 1/3300 (IIRC) & measures out to about 16" in diameter.  All of these are relatively affordable as there was boatloads produced.  Check out evilBay or some LHSs even still have some in stock.

 

Resin is a whole other subject entirely!