# AMT TOS Enterprise



## marcus welby (Sep 2, 2007)

:waveI also posted this over at Thomas Models)
May be a stupid question but would anyone know of an "accurizing" list for the old AMT 1/650 Enterprise kit. 

Obviously the aftermarket parts available from DLM and Federation Models, along with the Starfleet Assembly Manual (Vol 1-3: thank you CultTVMan), the Agatha Chamberlain Diagrams and the David Merriman build (WOW and thanks again CultTVMan) provide a basis. Not to mention Thomas' remake, scrap that – rebuild from ground up. (Pretty damn impressive stuff).

I'm kinda looking for something further without going “overboard” on extreme detail, nor, I think, on lighting (Bit beyond me at the moment).

I see a lot about the AMT Enterprise Refit and Polar Lights 1/350 (what a beauty!), which I'll also do sometime in the future, but nothing about the old TOS-E. Except completed builds.

I'm thinking about doing a series production build with my TOS-E kit. So on that basis the aftermarket parts I'll be purchasing include:
Control Reactor Loops
Flux Constrictors
Intercoolers
Flux Chillers
Bussard Collectors (RED)
End Caps
Impulse Deck
Navigation Deflector
Bridge or Saucer including bridge (haven't quite decided on this yet)

Some of the more obvious adjustments required would be:
Homing Beacon
Cosmic Ray Shield
Hanger bay Doors
Connecting Neck
Ion Pod
PNT or JT Graphics decals for the Windows
PNT or JT Graphics decals for the standards & lettering.


So, what do you say? Anybody got a basic list of needed adjustments for the AMT kit to bring it up to “production” standard? Or is this a reinvent the wheel scenario and lets add to my little list.

Along the same lines is the Custom Replicas 66” TOS Enterprise. http://www.customreplicas.com/Enterprise.htm. 

Would anyone have purchased the Photo CD documenting the recreation and be willing to provide a review?


----------



## Captain April (May 1, 2004)

One thing that might cut down on some of the work is to start off with a model from before 1976, i.e., a long box version. The nacelle struts will be a pain in the keister, but there are fewer inaccuracies to correct.

So long as you're not trying to get one with a lighting kit, you should be able to get one relatively cheap on eBay.


----------



## marcus welby (Sep 2, 2007)

Thanks Captain April,

I have the AMT kit #6676 so I'm going to work with that. So the nacelle strut are a bit of a problem hmm. 

Oh well, at least no-one said it would be easy.


----------



## WarpCore Breach (Apr 27, 2005)

As much as I love this old kit, it can never be truly made into a studio miniature accurate model. You'd end up replacing every part of it!

Still, there's lots you can do to improve the base kit and it looks like you're getting there quite nicely! 

I have a rebuilt ship "in dock" awaiting additional repairs. She was a wreck I obtained some years ago online. After sorting through my spare parts pile, I was able to get enough parts to get her back in service. I bought a bunch of resin parts to replace missing engine pieces and decided to add a few extra pieces.... resin Bridge, lower saucer sensor, replacement Nav dish. I also added phaser emplacements left over from a McDaniel resin detailing set.

Once I get her cleaned up a bit more, I'll take some pics and post them.


----------



## DL Matthys (May 8, 2004)

I would not wish the old AMT kits troubles to a monkey sitting on a rock.

Just my opinion mind you... but I thought fixing and tweaking parts for the AMT/ERTL 22 inch cut-away gimmick TOS Enterprise was a far easier build than them 'ol 18 inchers of which I did 4 of them befor. Only one of them left I have survives... buildt and lit the Newitt SFAM #3 way.

Like the Klingon XO said at the bar at the Deep Space Station K-7 bar: "It should be hauled away as garbage." 

Some like Mr Scott could disagree...But I say build it out of the box back like you where a kid...Have fun at it!

There are and will be, better models of it for more serius building.

DLM


----------



## Captain April (May 1, 2004)

A while back, I came to the conclusion that the AMT 18"er actually represents the class of starship just prior to the Constitution (most notably represented by the USS Constellation NCC-1017) and thus any further builds of that kit will be members of that class. Fewer headaches that way.

Managed to salvage the Constellation from the eviction heap, minus the deflector dish, and one day plan on building the Republic, the Valiant, and the Yamato (to cover that NCC-1305-E registry Riker reads out for the Galaxy class version). Of course, I'll need to track down a couple more older kits for those last two.

Meanwhile, I seem to recall Thomas Sasser at one time selling resin replacements for both the saucer and engineering hulls, so that all you'd need were the nacelles. Probably discontinued production for legal reasons, but it'd be interesting to do a side-by-side...


----------



## DL Matthys (May 8, 2004)

Here is what I know availble for Aftermarket parts ....good 'ol TOS kit

www.FederationModels.com has a lot of exterior small parts from deflector dishes to end caps...Sold as the labled Accurate Parts Ist and 2nd pilot episode options to.

www.dlmparts.com (me) has clear upper decks and bridge sections. Also an electronics lighting kit for operating lights and warp engines... It's the WWB warp board circuit discs resized to fit...it is a soldure yourself kit.

Sparkchaser may have a ready to go assembled unit for engine lighting.

JT Graphics and PNT has it all covered when it comes to detail decals and markings.

Model Masters Light Goast Gray is the best shade of hull paint work with from that shade. Mix shades of it to your tast accordingly...

Yup... one could throw a lot of money and work upon it. But I am done monkeying around with that kit. :wave:

DLM


----------



## USS Atlantis (Feb 23, 2008)

DL Matthys said:


> Yup... one could throw a lot of money and work upon it. But I am done monkeying around with that kit. :wave:
> 
> DLM


Oh come on, Don, don't you want to get the Intercoolers accurate?

Atlantis - running for cover


----------



## enterprise_fan (May 23, 2004)

I dug through my stash of built models and came upon my TOS Enterprise. I don't to restore it to an accurate model. I just want to restored it. I know the base color of the ship is a light ghost gray. Without going off the deep end like they did to the orginal studio model what are the colors of the rest of the ship? 

(I may or may not use the "rust ring".)


----------



## WarpCore Breach (Apr 27, 2005)

Captain April said:


> I seem to recall Thomas Sasser at one time selling resin replacements for both the saucer and engineering hulls, so that all you'd need were the nacelles. Probably discontinued production for legal reasons, but it'd be interesting to do a side-by-side...


Some years ago, through an online but still roundabout way, I obtained a collection of parts for the 18" TOS E which included a resin "seconds" saucer and a couple of "seconds" secondary hulls. I've been doing a fair bit of work on these resin hulls, filling in voids, smoothing seams... slowly, like all of my projects.  

I was told back then that these were "probably" castings Thomas did... it wasn't until that I recently explored the gallery of Thomas' 'Accurate' build that I was able to bump that "probably" to "virtually dead certain" that these are his parts! FWIW, I don't know if Thomas ever offered these castings for sale. You still need engines and even though the kit engines still lack some taper (the kit engines have them, but it's subtle) they are servicable.

The biggest pluses (plusses?) of the 18" kit is it's ease of assembly. It falls down on a lot of detailing and accuracy issues and the kit supplied decal sheet is hopeless. Except maybe for the hull pennants, unless those are the wrong shade of red.... BUT! In some ways, the Cutaway really isn't a lot better. It takes considerable effort to eliminate the "cutaway" features... production shortcuts on the detailing is a problem here, as well as the 18"er... the DLM resin parts (EXCELLENT!) go a LONG way to fix the Cutaway, but some areas remain with the individual modeler to fix. The Cutaway is better suited for lighting and I think it would look frigging AWESOME, done right! Really, if you want a TOS E showpiece, use Don's parts on your Cutaway.

Now, since we're actually talking about the 18"er... Don pretty much has it covered with aftermarket sources for parts and decals. I've just ordered up a saucer replacement from Fed Mods because I want to see how good it is, how it will look.

My only real issue is that I want to do the Tech Manual Fleet... currently, most of those decals aren't available. JTGraphics offers names and numbers for the "canon" version only. I once asked Jeff if he would offer the Tech Manual numbers.... and I recall (after careful thought about that email) that he had no plans to do them. I almost said that he wouldn't do them.. but that could be easily wrong. Unfortunately, that email was lost (along with many others) in a HD crash many moons ago. If Jeff reads this and wishes to clarify, I'd certainly be grateful to have my memory set straight. I don't recall if I pursued the possibility of markings on the TM numbering... my feeling tells me that it wasn't that strong a possibility. And to be fair on the PNT side of things.... I haven't asked. I still want to do a TM fleet. It's what I grew to accept! :wave:


----------



## Captain April (May 1, 2004)

I'm still interested in snagging one o' them saucers and secondary hulls. Any recommendations?


----------



## WarpCore Breach (Apr 27, 2005)

Might be tough, Capt.... until I received the "seconds", I had never seen any. However, I do have another secondary hull... just gotta find it. 

The main differences are that the areas around the forward sec. hull have been built up that makes the "insets" along the sides and bottom more deeper; the dorsal connector has been slightly reshaped and I think that the trailing edge extended out as the dorsal rear should extend onto the saucer (and under the impulse engine) a little bit... finally, the shuttlebay has been extended a little (1/4"?) to increase the underbay "cove" length....

Finally, the resin secondary hull has no rings on the front, although the outer housing is present. Once I get myself organized, I'll take some pics of the resin hulls and post them.


----------



## WarpCore Breach (Apr 27, 2005)

Well, this isn't the progress I had hoped to show, but this picture shows the resin hulls I obtained. The engines are kit engines, just in the early stages of being assembled and I removed the rear side details, to be replaced by Accurate Parts pieces. In fact, all of the engine detail parts need to be replaced- I got a kit that lacked those parts utterly (I knew what I was getting into) so getting the resin bits was a perfect opportunity.

Barely seen on the rear of the secondary hull is a small bubble that prevented the resin from fully forming the "shroud"; there's a slightly bigger void unseen in this picture on the other side. The rest of the casting was simply beautiful, with only minor molding seams needing to be attended to. I have yet to fix those small voids and I will not be attaching the hull together until I've fixed that. Much easier to handle that way.  It's a matter of carving out some shapes to fit and blending it in. Nothing really challenging, but I do need to concentrate on that for at least half an hour.

Finally, the saucer. Most of the upper saucer was tended to, except for an annoying spot I had trouble with.. but that was an error I made. The odd primer splotching was due to spraying during a rather cold day and the primer didn't spray as nicely as it should have. I've never had that happen before. I will give the faded areas a light sanding for the next priming session. It is expected to be rather nice this upcoming weekend!

Remember, these are "seconds" parts. If these parts were cast with the intent of being sold, neither one is truly representative of the quality of TM kits I've both seen and have. I have reason to believe that these were _never offered for sale by the original manfacturer_. 

Nothing on the saucer was that bad to repair - just some bubbles in the surface and some pitting -but bringing the saucer too acceptable condition wasn't too bad.

Once I get the basic hull assembly accomplished, I'll take a picture of this ship plus a nearly OOB build with it, to show the differences. Those will still be WIP pictures, of course!


----------



## marcus welby (Sep 2, 2007)

WarpCore Breach,
That Saucer doesn't look like it's too bad - just a bit a pit filling and sanding eh! These kits really seem to turn into a labour of love for those of us that have them.

So let me get this right: you have an old 18"er and replaced the kit saucer and hull with the "seconds" parts, aftermarket parts for the engines. Any others your'e going to use?

I can't say I've a seen a lot of comparison shots between the OOB and detailed versions, will be good to see the difference.

Great work too.


----------



## WarpCore Breach (Apr 27, 2005)

marcus welby said:


> WarpCore Breach,
> That Saucer doesn't look like it's too bad - just a bit a pit filling and sanding eh! These kits really seem to turn into a labour of love for those of us that have them.
> 
> So let me get this right: you have an old 18"er and replaced the kit saucer and hull with the "seconds" parts, aftermarket parts for the engines. Any others your'e going to use?
> ...



Marcus, the intial areas needing work were quite obvious and those were -and still are - being tended to. The really small holes are often the toughest to deal with! Still, it's not looking too bad. Since that pic (taken last month), I've inspected the surface and found more areas needing filling, which have been done but not sanded. But you are right - these sort of things do turn into "labors of love" and I was and still am thrilled to have these parts! Sure, it's a bit of a challenge, but one I'm having fun with. I chopped up some small curved plastic pieces to fill in the void areas at the rear of the secondary hull and I think it's turned out pretty good.

I originally got the saucer and secondary hull that were included in a parts trade. I obtained engines (and its assorted bits) separately. After I obtained another 18" kit (at a great price) that ended up missing all of it's external engine bits.... I decided that in order to make the resin kit more of a "looker", I purchased the Accurate Parts engine pieces, etc, and put the kit parts I was going to use with the kit that had the missing parts. So, no kit that I have was raided for parts except maybe for the warp engines that I obtained from someone online.

One kit will have its saucer replaced when I get the AP corrected saucer, but that's about it. I expect to have the saucer cleaned up this weekend and with any luck, I should have the various sections together as well. I'll take pics once that's done! I've never seen side-by-side comparisions myself. I'm looking forward to seeing how that turns out!


----------



## spacecraft guy (Aug 16, 2003)

I've seen the Estes Flying Enterprise upper saucer section with its command superstructure used to cast replacement bridge parts.


----------



## WarpCore Breach (Apr 27, 2005)

This is taking a little longer than I anticipated (I was out all day yesterday) but here's the latest with the resin secondary hull, following the repairs to what I've been calling the shuttlebay "shroud". These pictures show the filled-in gaps that made this piece an unsaleable piece. I think I've got it all right; I'm taking the pieces outside for a shot of primer to see if I nailed it! 

For the saucer, I added the bridge dome, lower saucer ring and dome and lastly the impulse engines. The next round of pictures will show the primered pieces. I have some engine pieces to add to the nacelles before I can consider attaching those units to the secondary hull and by extension, the saucer to the secondary hull. I have a jig I made to help align these 18" ships better than I could "by eye". Enjoy!


----------

