Return of the Big-E
Well, it’s only been a month since my last post…that’s better than two months, isn’t it? Since I’ve been talking about the Big-E in a couple of posts, I figured I give a breakdown of what I’m actually doing here.
This is actually a slightly modified rerelease of the original Polar Lights kit; the whole Polar Lights/Round2 mess is a tale best left to the interwebs. I actually have two of the original kits, as I royally screwed up a major assembly on the first one. Luckily, a kind soul on the HobbyTalk message boards sold me his spare kit, still in the shrink wrap, for 40 bucks. As eBay prices for these little buggers have gone as high as 250 bucks, I counted myself VERY lucky.
This kit is designed to add extra detail to the stock kit. You can get much finer detail with a brass photo-etch part than you can with injection-molded styrene. You need a very sharp Xacto knife and a very delicate touch to get some of these pieces off the frame, or sprue.
Replacement parts and enhancements
While one of the, if not the, best Enterprise kit, there are some pieces that are woefully inaccurate. Scroll down until you see the PL Refit Detail Parts. I’ll be working those into the build. Scroll up a little, and you ‘ll see the Travel Pods, Work Bees & Cargo Containers. These pieces are used to detail out the shuttle/cargo bay on the main model…and most modelers consider it to be a model in itself!
I got the DIY kit, in order to save a little cash. I had no idea the undertaking this was going to be! It looks as if I’m going to be drilling holes all through the model, in addition to LOTS of soldering resistors to LEDs. I might look in to some wire-wrapping tools to make this a little easier.
I’ve also got a ton of paints, brushes, tools, and model railroading supplies (?). Oh yeah, an airbrush and a home-made painting booth to capture and exhaust the paint fumes. But more on that later!
RMW
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