SPA Modeler

Small but important design step. How do you fix a weak interior connection? Online videos were no help. My solution was to use three shaped sprue nurnies glued to firmly hold the pylon in position. I should patent this but this is only going to work on first version. All other versions including the repop have a different design. I don’t think that design is an improvement, either. For adhesive I used gel type Gorilla glue just because no one will see this and I wanted to uncharacteristically build up a lot of glue. Being around you folks has taught me to go sparingly on glue—


However I need to convince y’all to try Mr Just CA. Look at that bond, ladies and gentlemen.

One word about all this: Classic!

mostrich wrote:One word about all this: Classic!

Thanks, bud! I have been debating how to make those seam lines go away before I add any primer to the surface. I know from building this before that I need to add a fill line of either straight CA using a brush, or a line of Milliput wet sanded smooth plus a line of CA to add back the gloss as well as to fill in the porous putty. Here’s a piece of trivia:

That’s a great letter Bruce! Yeah, one of the “what if?” questions regarding the show. I can only imagine how many millions of that kit have been produced since 1967...

Thanks, Carlos! Online research (Google) suggests that the letter is the basis for a claim of at least 6 figure sales in the first three years. Drilling deeper into the internet did not yield any more details. I was curious, too, as well as hopeful that AMT released a total number of kits sold while the kit was in production. The only other kit made by AMT that sold as well was a rat rod, I believe.

I am pretty much going to build the 33 inch production version which was loaned out during the pre production of Phase II (which became Star Trek The Motion Picture) and never returned. Someone has it, though... just like the stolen ILM X-Wing which sold at auction a few years back. Somebody has it. It’s out there!

Wow, what a blast this Thread is to follow! I love the letter too. I'll be watching this with interest. I have a U.S.S. Enterprise A somewhere in the stash I may get to someday.

Duke! Duke! Duke!

I found 30-odd iphone 5 snaps of my E build from 2014—before I had the benefit of watching all of your work and the work of the other guys here—before I knew that my Dad's thirty year old enamels would be the basis for pretty much everything today for me. So here—under the magnification power of Lightroom—we see a flashback to 2014 of a work in progress where the nacelle seam and that mismatch inset ring are just eye popping close up. This was test fitting of a batch of resin upgrades (some of which I liked and will use for this project and some that were a waste of time) and the paint is all Tamiya rattlers which never really like the resin upgrades. I also never enjoyed that much resin clean up, but I had to learn to enjoy it because after all a hobby is supposed to be fun, right. Yes it is, and actually this was a lot of fun to build:

Nothing wrong with good old enamels.

What happened to this project?

Stikpusher wrote:Nothing wrong with good old enamels.

What happened to this project?

Nothing wrong with enamels, for sure. This one is part of Bryan’s collection. It was his old AMT kit I used to make it.

I agree; I sometimes get my best coverage from those old enamels.

Thanks for the flashback pics Bruce ! I love them!