Sci-Fi Wednesdays - The USS Enterprise E

Manufacture: Polar Lights
Scale: 1/1400th
Kit: # 853

Build Series: Sci-Fi Wednesdays - 1/1400 scale Enterprise E (Completed)

Background

Here is a rhetorical question for you, how iconic is the name USS Enterprise? Amongst all of the sci-fi ship names out there, there are few rivals that carry the same level of admiration or nostalgia as the name Enterprise. Whether you are talking about the TOS Enterprise or the latest TNG Enterprise, each one is iconic in their own right and they all hold a special place in my heart. For my second season of Sci-Fi Wednesdays, I opted to finally build one of these awesome ships and decided on the E variant. I have heard that it can be a challenging kit, but my focus was to build it up and try to paint my own version of azteking! Oh boy, was that an adventure. Let's get into it... 

The Kit

First off, let me just say that I had a blast with this kit. Sure, the parts didn't fit together very well, there were gaps and misalignments around the lower hull and the nacelles, I couldn't get the bussard collectors to fit, and the saucer connection was difficult at best, but there was an allure to this kit and I really wanted to build it. It turned out to be a venerable modeling adventure and since it was my very first Star Trek ship to be on my bench, it holds a very special place in my display case. 

I found that this kit required a great deal more patience and focus then my previous Sci-Fi build, the Moebius Viper Mk. 7. The kit demanded a lot more dry fitting and studying for each part and subassembly and major attention needed to be paid to each and every step of assembly. It was a lot of work and for my very basic modeling skills, it was a trail by fire.

My troubles first started with the nacelles, specifically the clear parts for the bussard collectors. I just couldn't get them to fit! I tried to flip parts around, sand and file anything and everything, but I just couldn't get them to work. Since I wasn't going to light this ship, I opted to just blank them off and paint them instead. It would have been nice if I had gotten them to fit, but more than likely, it was user error. I got it sorted eventually, so no biggie.

The fit on the hull was difficult in places. I had to use a lot of styrene strips, at multiple locations, to not only coverup areas that were terrible or inaccurate, but also to fill gaps in the plastic and to stiffen up certain connections. It was a ton of work, but I was eventually able to get everything together, especially with a good deal of Mr. Surfacer putty to fill in some of the smaller gaps.

Once the putty and styrene was sanded and prepared around the secondary hull and rear shuttle bay, it was painted with an off-white paint by Vallejo. I did this to both prime and provide a base color get for my attempt at azteking. 

Painting and finishing this beast was not easy. It required multiple layers of paint, as well as numerous layers of azteking and masking. The azteking process was basically a lot of very small rectangular strips of Tamiya tape, cut by x-acto knife and positioned by hand, in various combinations around the hull. It was not for the faint of heart, but it did work to a certain extent. I then had to alternate layers of paint and azteking masks, so that it gave the ship a general appearance of having armored plates and layered details. Like I said, it wasn't at all accurate to the movie or studio model, but it was an interesting process to work with and it gave a very different look.

After all of that was done, I added more layers of paint, detail painted the different areas of the kit, sealed it with Future, and attempted to add all of the decals. Those went on just fine and didn't have any major issues durring application. I then sealed it all with Future and got ready for weathering.

Weathering was kept at a minimum, mostly because I had no idea how to really weather a star ship. I used a sludge wash to help darken certain areas of the kit, but it didn't really come across as well as I had envisioned.

For the base, I used the kit supplied parts and added in a photograph of a sunrise over a planet, that I found online somewhere. I edited it and cut it to fit inside the Star Trek emblem and called it a day!  

Conclusion

Even with all of it's troubles, I can't say that this kit is entirely without merit. This is a great version of the Enterprise E and it is very capable of being a real showstopper. If a person can get past the fit issues and some of the lesser detailed areas, this kit will please almost any sci-fi modeler out there. If they have the skills to light the interior of a starship, this one would look fantastic! Since I am not at that level yet, I thought I would just build the model as best as I could and try my hand at painting my own versions of the iconic aztek markings. I can't say that it is accurate, but I accomplished what I set out to do and it was a HUGE learning experience for me. I absolutely love the look of the Enterprise E and this version, although not screen accurate, was a joy to build.

Feel free to checkout my completed USS Enterprise E build over on my YouTube channel!

Thanks for joining me today, stay safe, and happy modeling.