# My Kelvin inspired ship, the USS Tesla (PIC HEAVY)



## Grumpy Popeye (Apr 5, 2002)

What can I say? I got tired of waiting for the big model companies to come out with a kit of the Kelvin, so I bashed my own!

I used parts from an AMT enterprise and a PL 1:1000 Enterprise. Some mods were pretty straight forward (cutting and rotating the shuttle bay) some were more artistic license (the nacelle is a half and half hack -up front are the outer nacelle halves, and the aft half is the inner halves) 

You will see a lot of Aves filling in the blanks and making up 90% of the spine structure. All I have left to do is some final weathering and she's done!

Enjoy!

Construction:



























Ah, primer, the great concealer!









A little closer to finished,










PL Spike, AMT dish!


















I thought it would be... poetic(?) to use Tesla's birthday as the registry, July 10,









Looking at this ship, if kept at 1:1000 scale, I think the saucer and nacelle would be roughly equivalent in size to those on the Excelsior!


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## Griffworks (Jun 24, 2002)

I like how she turned out. Excellent example of thinking outside the box. 

Thanks for sharing the pics. :thumbsup:


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## Marco Scheloske (May 16, 2000)

That ship looks really good!


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## Robert Hargrave (Dec 4, 2003)

Great kitbash and scratch building project, a few more photos of the process wouldn’t hurt. Beginners wanting to tackle a project like yours would like to see more of the process you used to build the saucer, and splice the pods. Again a great looking kit.


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Great ideas, particularly the stepping of the primary hull and bussard, as well as the scale difference between the primary and secondary hulls. :thumbsup:


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## publiusr (Jul 27, 2006)

Now that is just perfect. I have been waiting to see folks expand 1/1000 saucers into larger disks.


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## Grumpy Popeye (Apr 5, 2002)

Here's a couple more in progress pics,









This pic tells a lot. First of, you can see where I cut the secondary hull and flipped the shuttlebay. You will also notice that I cut a second section to lenghten the hull. (admittedly an afterthought, I could have done both at the same time if I planned ahead!) You can also see the work I did on the nacelle.

nice profile view,








You can see the overall layout to full effect. The AMT pylon is about 2/3 the full lenght, the nacelle pylon on the Kelvin seemed short, so I tried to follow along with my build.

saucer back detail;








Ah, Aves, is there nothing you can't do? I used a section of the PL base to make a spine to build off of and just loaded on the Aves to build up the aft saucer hull. You can also see that I used Aves to fill in material when I stretched the secondary hull.

another primer shop,








Here's another fine use of a googly eye, plus you can see the strip styrene I added to the perimeter of the saucer


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## NCC1701 (Mar 31, 2013)

Amazing job. Very impressive.


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## Grumpy Popeye (Apr 5, 2002)

I'd be happier with it if the decals didn't go wonky on me as I applied the clearcoat. I guess there will be a couple phaser hits!


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## Jafo (Apr 22, 2005)

love the back of the warp engine!


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## MLCrisis32 (Oct 11, 2011)

Really nice stuff there. I love the grid lines that extend down both saucer pieces.


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## Grumpy Popeye (Apr 5, 2002)

Shhh, gridlines are a naughty word!


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## Jastor (Nov 8, 2003)

*Nice!*

Really nice work! love the stepped saucer, proportions are good. Nice inspiring build.


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## onigiri (May 27, 2009)

Id like to do the same thing with a 22" and 18" for the sake of lighting but Im wondering what the best way to do the stand is for that


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## Grumpy Popeye (Apr 5, 2002)

Hm, good question. A brass tube is obvious but the connection to the hull is the trick. Maybe using a phono jack? I myself have had great success using 6 pin stereo connectors, if you peruse my galactica build you can see exactly what I mean.


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## Gerry1of1 (Jun 15, 2013)

Beautiful! I'm a TOS fan and love seeing new tos-style designs.
Well done!


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## harristotle (Aug 7, 2008)

That's really cool, I loved the Kelvin!


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