Constitution Class Refit USS Eagle NCC-956 1/1000 Polar Lights - UPDATE# 1

Greetings!!

So this is a build I am doing concurrently with my ongoing 1/350 USS Olympia build.  Why you may ask?  Isn't it the same ship but only smaller?  Well that may be true, but the reason for me to do this build at the same time is to test some paint colours before committing to a larger model and therefore wasting a lot of time and materials on a more expensive kit I've been working on for about a year now.

Why USS Eagle?

I have built and still plan to build a number of Constitution Class both Refit, Phase II and TOS versions.  It would be very boring naming them all 'Enterprise'.  In fact at some point I do plan on building a 1/350 studio accurate refit USS Enterprise as seen in Star Trek The Motion Picture, but I feel my skills aren't there just yet.  Again, expensive and time consuming build.  So each Constitution Class ship I've been giving them a unique name, one that is in the Star Trek canon.  I have a tiny 1/1600 scale USS Farragut NCC-1647, a 1/1600 USS Constellation NCC-1017, etc.  The USS Eagle was never actually shown on screen, but appeared in a planned 'Operation Retrieve' from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, in which a task force rescue Kirk &  McCoy by force.  Also in the novels, a young Commander James Kirk was first officer (Number 1) aboard this ship before taking command of the Enterprise.  It just seems somewhat fitting.  It is also a reference to the LM from Apollo 11.  A great name nonetheless.  Also on the geek end, I think it would be visually interesting to see a 3 digit vs. standard 4 digit registry, much like my Olympia is a 5 digit vs. 4 digit registry.  Now onto the build!

I won't be super detailing each step in this, it is going to be a static model - no lights.  This is pretty straight forward stuff.  Let's get started!

POL820 - 1/1000 USS Enterprise - Refit NCC-1701

Here's the model kit!

And this is what you should get when you open it, 4 bags (these pictures are from my blog on my 1701-A build - btw).

OK, 4 bags from this kit, not problem.

OK, here's the full layout I like to take pictures of for the purposes of documenting what comes out of the box, and for the blog.  From 1701-A build.

Here's the layout of main parts (not including the base, clear parts and decals).  Anything missing?

I noticed I got duplicates of something, which I was saying to myself, 'Cool!' when I noticed an extra secondary hull section.  This is golden for kit bashing!  I will come back to this...

I bought for this build and my 1/1000 1701-A build a supplemental decal sheet.  I do a lot of custom decals for all of my builds.  Actually, every build I've done in this blog and a few personal ones as well, I've blogged about it since 2010 when I got back into building models again.  The only build I didn't end up using my custom decals was my Avro Arrow build because I found a great source for professional decals, made in Canada.  Although, I made decals for the base so that counts, a repurposed Round 2 dome base.  ;)  Wonder where I got that...

At first glance, these are real nice decals.

I like the fact they give you the NX prefix and -A, -B, -C to make your own registries.  The nitpicker in me will say this, the NX should have the long dash, and the -A, -B, - C should have the short dash. I have seen this mistake many times.

This is what a registry with -A should look like...

Custom decals I tested out for my 1/1000 builds of Enterprise-A and Brattain

OK, now the remaining marking decals.  I like them, but on closer inspection there is a glaring typo, can you spot it?

"NCC-1371  NITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS"

NITED??? 

Someone dropped the 'U'.  Could you imagine if this were markings for, a modern day ship and it said 'NITED STATES OF AMERICA'?   Poor job Round2!!!

The rest look good though.

I like the fact they give you alternate colours for the strong back.  This detail got repainted on the studio model as it had battle damage applied to it during Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan.

Also they give you the window decals both in black and white.  Nice touch.

One thing that is missing are all the pendant decals.  In the middle of each pendant is: 

STARSHIP U.S.S. (ship's name) - UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS.

My decals for USS Olympia

The USS Reliant aztec decals take care of this oversight by providing all of the names in the pendant decals.

The new USS Excelsior Aztec decals also provide full names for the Hood, Melbourne and Valley Forge.  I digress, let's build a model!

Assembly

This is very straight forward.  It is a snap together kit, snap together are for kids.  A solid model should be glued and glued it shall be.

I next turned my attention to the pylons.  Minimal fuss here.

Next the saucer.  Even though this is small, I find a good saucer needs to have even pressure to minimize the seam.

Once everything was dry, I snapped together the secondary hull, trapping the pylons.  Then I snapped on the neck and saucer getting ready to prime it grey to look for faults and then I asked myself, 'where are the nacelles? Where are the nacelles??'  Then I remember this:

As it turned out, I got an extra secondary hull in place of the warp engines...oops.  Well, Round 2 has an amazing replacement program when there is something wrong with the parts.  I went on their website and made my request to get my nacelles for this kit.

In the interim, I turned my focus to the clear parts.  I used product made by Rust-oleum called 'Mirror-Effect' to coat the backside of most of the clear parts.

This will allow me to tint the front, giving it an 'illuminating effect'.

I next turned my attention to filling the windows on the secondary hull and neck.

The decals have window marking in them and from experience, the window decals don't exactly line up with the markings on the hull.

My second pass at filling in the window demarcations.

Then I started work on the saucer.  I'm filling in the RCS inscribed lines as they are too deep.  In fact so are the gridlines on the ship too.

Taping off around the RCS thrusters is one way to prevent getting red putty in the gridlines.

Under wraps on the left is the saucer of USS Olympia

I also filled in the opening at the front of where the bridge attaches to the saucer.  The bridge part was designed to snap into place.  I left the back opening in place to align the bridge once I'm ready to glue it into place.

That wraps up this entry.  I hope everyone is enjoying their holidays, for those who celebrate!

Happy Model Building!


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