Chris Ford’s Enterprise C part 1
Destruction of the USS Enterprise NCC 1701 – C ( as she was meant to be… )
The account of the building of the Enterprise-C model from AMT/Ertl. by Chris Ford
I’m certain I was no different to all of the other Star Trek fans at the arrival of the USS Enterprise – C to the shelves of our local hobby shops. At last theEnterprise model collection could be completed. And what a model it is! I couldn’t wait – so I bought it on my lunch hour and brought it back to work and inspected it then and there. I liked what I saw – but I had to get back to work. Later that same evening I finally got to close-inspect it. This has to be the best “Trek” model for parts fitting that Ertl has ever produced. I was amazed. Each part fit tight, with no alteration needed. Even the warp nacelles are “coded” in a way so as to identify port from starboard. I just had to see it completed. But then I encountered my dilemma. It appears in only 1 episode of “Star Trek – The Next Generation” – that being “Yesterday’s Enterprise”, where it appears from within a tear in the fabric of time. It has been on the loosing end of a rather nasty dogfight and encounters the Enterprise-D in another time period. It is shown, albeit darkly, very beat up indeed. But I had intended to build the model as if it had just come out of spacedock, “all brand new and shiny”. So what should I do ? I decided that most people would probably build it “as new”, and also that to destroy it would be more of a challenge, so I opted for destruction rather than construction. Besides, I could always get another model to build later on.
In The Beginning
I started by examining the pieces and “dry-fitting” them. I was pleased with the ease in which they fit. I broke down the assembly of the model into various sub sections: saucer (top & bottom), body & engine struts (mounts) and finally the engines themselves. I started with the saucer as it contained the most detailing. I figured if I did a good job on this, I would apply the same techniques to the rest of the ship.
The next thing to do was to watch the Next Generation episode in which the Enterprise -C first appears. However, there are very few close-up, well lit, detailed shots of its damage – only a few clues as to where to place some smoke damage. All other book sources showed it in one way or another as “brand new”, without any damage. When I’m at a loss for anything, I search the internet. It’s a great place to get a wealth of model making tips, photos, paint colours, etc., etc.. I accidentally found Greg Jein’s (the guy who built the miniature for the episode) web page. Before building this model you must check his site out. Superb images!!! (He even has a Yamaguchi site). And it shows in pretty good detail where the damage occurs. It doesn’t show the underside of the saucer very well though, so I guessed at this damage. So while looking at the image up on the screen, I took a pencil and marked on the model, where I felt the damage should be. I must admit, I then took quite a bit of “artistic license” and added some more of my own. I decided that if I was going to show this starship as damaged, it was going to look REALLY damaged. Where on the web pages the body isn’t, I blew gaping holes in mine. Where the warp nacelles show minimal damage, I maximised mine. “Hey, I’m on a roll here”. But I didn’t go into overkill.
Damage
I felt the best way to depict the damage was to make irregular-sized (explosion) holes in the upper and lower saucer halves, in the ship’s body and engine nacelles. I put a pointed soldering tip on my soldering iron and, once heated, traced it around the pencil marks I had drawn earlier. This wasn’t difficult, as by now I was quite used to “cutting up” models. This left me with numerous holes conforming exactly to the shape and location as I had planned
There was some melted plastic residue on the outside of the model around each of the holes I had opened. I trimmed this away with a scalpel as I felt it interfered with the overall look of the effect. I had previously painted the model insides flat black, as not only was my Enterprise going to be battle-damaged, it would be lit as well. After priming the sections, the inside edge of each hole was painted silver (which would be painted/smudged with some black later on) – this was to represent the starship hull being made of metal.
I took some brass sheet ( .015 ” thick) and “splatter painted” it – aerosol flat black paint not quite evenly sprayed onto the surface – this showed a partial brass surface with what looked like could be smoke damage, or explosion damage, or whatever . I think it worked quite well.
I cut the brass sheet into sizes just large enough to cover the holes (from the inside of the model) and secured them in place with glue from a hot glue gun
I kept 3 holes on the upper saucer and 2 on the lower saucer open. Over these 3 holes, I “splatter-painted” a piece of no.10 ( the thinnest type) plasticard. This gave it the appearance of matching the brass pieces from the outside, but would allow light to pass through it from the inside.
On the model, the running/collision lights and beacon are represented by small, raised nodules. I cut these off with a scalpel, drilled them out and fitted 1.8mm LED’s instead. I did this to both saucer halves. Close to but not directly beneath the “splatter-painted”thin plasticard covered holes, I secured 2 self-flashing 3mm LED’s, one amber plus one red. These normally run on 9 – 12 volts dc but they’ll also work on 6 volts dc, which was the chosen voltage for my model lighting. With the power on and the room lights turned off, viewingthe saucer from above gives an appearance as if some explosions or fires are happening within the exploded area. Cool !!
