Behold, my disasterpiece: a project that started almost four years ago and was abandoned several times due to colossal mistakes on my part... but one that I have now finished, at long last.
Coming in at nearly three feet long, it's one of the biggest commercially available models I've ever seen--and it's certainly the biggest model I've ever built.
Sadly, size isn't everything. As anyone who's built this kit can tell you, it has a *lot* of problems. First and foremost, a lot of the pieces simply don't fit together properly without some modifications.
Another is the seams. It was apparently Polar Lights' goal to make lighting this thing as hard as possible, because an absurd number of important spots that need to be lit are also the meeting place of three to four different pieces, making light leaks like this one a constant problem.
Fortunately, there's a solution: Gasket Maker! Seriously, this stuff is magic.
I have no clue how to wire something this complex, and I wanted to do it justice, so I ended up buying the TrekModeler lighting kit. It's expensive, but totally worth it. It's easy to plug together (though a bit less easy to actually squeeze into the model), and their customer service is excellent.
...I'm very glad I didn't have to figure this out on my own.
The TrekModeler lighting kit requires this special support if you want to keep all the wires hidden. It's thicker than the one the kit comes with though, so you'll have to drill some big holes in both the stand and the kit and then use epoxy to make things stay where they need to.
The 1/350 Enterprise Refit comes with three interior areas that you can build if you choose to. If you get the Paragrafix photoetched parts set (which I highly recommend), you get a fourth...
...namely, the Recreation Deck. It's little more than a box, and it's difficult to see through the tiny windows in the saucer, but it's a fun bonus.
Next, there's the Officer's Lounge, located just aft of the bridge. (I repainted this one later to make it less messy, but I forgot to take a picture of it before installing it so here you go.)
Third, there's the Arboretum--the room behind the large rectangular windows in the secondary hull. We never actually see it in the movies. Fun fact: those "rocks" are actually kitty litter!
Last and certainly not least, there's the Shuttlebay. This big boy takes up pretty much all of the secondary hull aft of the Arboretum, and squeezing it in there can be quite tricky. If you want, however, the kit does come with a closed set of Shuttlebay doors, so this whole thing is entirely optional.
The TrekModeler lighting kit has two modes: Standby and Warp. In Standby Mode, the deflector dish is yellow, the impulse engines are on, and spotlights on the nacelles, secondary hull, neck, and upper and lower saucer illuminate various parts of the kit.
In Warp Mode, the deflector dish turns blue (my camera makes it look more purple than it really is), the spotlights and impulse engines go dark, and the inboard warp nacelle grills light up. The torpedo tubes, RCS thrusters, interior lights, and warp core are illuminated the same in both modes.
With something this big, I can't help but show it off a little. ;)
...and that's it. Four years, hundreds of hours, and even more hundreds of dollars, and it's finally done. Under close inspection, virtually every single part of it is a mess of uneven lighting, sloppy paint jobs, cracked decals, and chipped paint--like I said, it's a disaster--but it's MY disaster. And it's done.
My 1/1000 USS Enterprise model process. I had a ton of fun doing this. My dad and I put together a couple Star Trek models when I was a kid (he did most of the work). When I was a teen those models became unimportant if not embarrassing so they ended up trashed. I really wish I still had them but this is as close as I can get. The next one I do will be about twice this size (same as the ones Smith and I did) and have lights and sound. Oh, the nerdery!
