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This is the Starcraft's 1/1400 scale Excelsior. The kit is comprised of only 4 pieces: Saucer, secondary hull,and 2 nacelle/pylon parts. Castings were decent for the scale, but many tiny bubbles lurked just below the surface of the pieces. I had to use filler putty, Mr. Surfacer, and super glue to take care of a few of the more obvious flaws. I was impressed at the clean casting of the neck and nacelle details where there are numerous thin ridges. Some of the details are a bit off or are coated in resin overflow. Easy enough to clean up. Other details, however, required a bit more work.
The kit, which I purchased from Federation Models, came packaged as the "Excelsior class starship" and included decals for either the NCC or NX versions. Unfortunately, the NCC and NX have a few structural differences which needed addressing. Firstly, the NCC has a trapezoidal structure on the fantail beneath the aft cowling- on the NX, this is a hemispherical structure with large observation windows facing forward. I had to grind out the incorrect structure and replace it with a replacement plug of the correct tear-drop shape. This was tricky, since the forward most edges of the cowling were exceedingly thin and prone to cracking.
The second issue is in regards to the impulse deck. The NCC has two small impluse crystals, while the NX has only one larger crystal. Again, I ground out the kit deck and scratchbuilt a replacement from sheet styrene of varying thickness. For the crystal itself, I used an acrylic sphere by Plastruct. Since any attempt at cutting the sphere in half would have resulted in dangerous projectile modelling, I chose to grind out a hollow in the saucer section of the kit just below the area where the sphere would sit. This allowed the full sphere to be seated inside the kit, yet keep the replacement deck flush with the top of the saucer.
The final area of innacuracy is the impulse engine housing. For some reason, the housing, which begins just behind the halfway point of the saucer and flanks either side of the impulse deck, angles upwards as it progresses aft. This creates a wedge shape which interrupts the otherwise linear flow of the ship's design. I had to saw off the engine housing behind the impulse deck, chop about .5cm from the bottom, then re-attatch the piece at the proper angle to the saucer. I filled the resulting V-shaped notch with bits of styrene and super glue. I then sawed the remaining housing parts so that they were parallel with the bottom of the saucer. Filler putty was then used to cover over the various gouges and seams.
Once assembly was complete, I primed the model with Mr. Surfacer in order to try to cover up the last of the remaining pinholes in the resin. Over that primer went several coats of Tamiya white primer, and then a final top coat of gloss white. Nacelle details were painted dark gray (almost black), as was the neck. Impulse deck and secondary hull aztecking was painted with gray and light blue. Again, JT Graphics provided the decals for registry numbers, pin-striping, and other details.
