Steven Vasko’s 1:350 Classic Enterprise and Botany Bay

This is the much-anticipated Polar Lights 1/350 TOS USS Enterprise, to which I added the Deluxe Accessory Set made for the kit. The kit itself held few surprises, except for the fit problems that occurred when one tried to fit the two halves of the secondary hull around the shuttle-bay. Fit problems also occurred when sliding the engine pylon tabs into the slots in the secondary hull (too tight!). Problems also occurred in fishing the wiring from the engine pylons and the interconnecting dorsal to where they were attached to the circuit board included in the accessory set.

The lighting effect for the bussard scoops is spectacular, but the LED lighting strips and their sliding lock-supplied attachment clips, were a pain to work with, as they often wiggled loose and broke the circuit of the lighting layouts they were supposed to create. I used advice gleaned from YouTube video tutorials concerning this kit and used a ultra-low temperature hot glue gun to glue down and secure the LED strips, clips, their sliding locks and their attached wiring, which I tested again and again. I almost got away with it, but during testing of the electronics during final assembly I found that the lights on the rim of the primary hull malfunctioned, with the hull totally sealed up! I ended up having to take a sanding/cutting disc and attach it to my Dremel tool and, using the circular grid on top as a cutting guide, remove a section of the upper saucer to expose the first clip and LED strip in the suspect chain of lights. After readjusting the fit of the strip and further gluing-down with hot glue, I re-tested the lights to find that my repair was successful (Yes!). I then reattached the removed portion of hull, puttied, sanded, and rescribed grid lines on the area and after spot-repainting applied colored pastel dust to make up for the portion of weathering decal lost in the process. Whew!

The “SS Botany Bay”  is the Fantastic Plastic 1/359 models, which I built as a companion piece to my Polar Lights 1/350 TOS Enterprise. The kit was painted and weathered with pastels to match photos of the shooting miniature seen on Phil Broad’s “Modelbuilders Reference Vault.” The base is a generic Round 2 Dome Base spray painted black and decorated to look like a typical TOS starfield.

Steven Vasko