Here's my build of Legal01's USS Kelvin , available in the Downloads section.
When I first saw the Kelvin in the 2009 J.J. Abrams "Star Trek" movie, I wasn't sold on the design. In fact, I thought it was butt-ugly. But after time, the ship grew on me and I've come around -- so much so that it is now one of my favorite ST ship designs. (Small bit of ST trivia: Early in the film's production, the ship was named USS Iowa , but the producers decided it would be too much to have the ship named that AND for Kirk to be from Iowa. The name was changed to Kelvin , after Lord Kelvin, the British scientist, and Harry Kelvin, J.J. Abrams' grandfather. The ship breaks from ST tradition having by having a registry number that begins with a 0.)
Legal01's model builds into a nice replica. Not sure of the scale. There are no instructions, but with a few photos (and Rapidtox's fine build thread earlier this year) it is fairly easy to figure out where the parts are supposed to go. One note: It appears the part for the impulse engine housing at the rear of the saucer isn't included on the three pages of parts. I scratchbuilt one out of light gray cardstock.
I always feel the saucer-based ST models rise or fall with how good the saucer build is. To that end, I backed up the upper and lower saucer pieces with cereal-box cardboard to make sure they were flat and wouldn't flex. I cut the cardboard a fraction of a millimeter smaller than the kit piece and then centered it on the kit piece. This left a small ridge around the perimeter, perfect for the circular edging piece to glue to. I also cut circular formers to beef up the engineering section and the warp engine. The formers also help keep the pieces circular.
The build was straightforward, although I had trouble getting the pylon for the engineering section to match the contours of the upper saucer properly. I wound up actually cutting a small wedge out of the inner ring of the upper hull to get it to fit; the pylons slid into the open wedge.
I'm not sure I got the forward dome on the warp engine properly, either. I couldn't get the petals to meet in the center, so I glued a disk punched from gold paper and glued it to the center. It looks good, but I'm not sure how accurate it is.
All in all, it was a fun build and I like the look of the Kelvin even more now. It is one of those ships that look good from every angle. I once read an interview -- I think it was with Rick Sternbach -- in which he said they had to be careful how they filmed some of the ships, particularly the Enterprise-D , because from some angles, it looked ugly. I really need to build a stand for it, since it unwieldy and is impossible to pose for photos. (And since I'm posting this on my iPad, I can only upload one photo per post....)
When I first saw the Kelvin in the 2009 J.J. Abrams "Star Trek" movie, I wasn't sold on the design. In fact, I thought it was butt-ugly. But after time, the ship grew on me and I've come around -- so much so that it is now one of my favorite ST ship designs. (Small bit of ST trivia: Early in the film's production, the ship was named USS Iowa , but the producers decided it would be too much to have the ship named that AND for Kirk to be from Iowa. The name was changed to Kelvin , after Lord Kelvin, the British scientist, and Harry Kelvin, J.J. Abrams' grandfather. The ship breaks from ST tradition having by having a registry number that begins with a 0.)
Legal01's model builds into a nice replica. Not sure of the scale. There are no instructions, but with a few photos (and Rapidtox's fine build thread earlier this year) it is fairly easy to figure out where the parts are supposed to go. One note: It appears the part for the impulse engine housing at the rear of the saucer isn't included on the three pages of parts. I scratchbuilt one out of light gray cardstock.
I always feel the saucer-based ST models rise or fall with how good the saucer build is. To that end, I backed up the upper and lower saucer pieces with cereal-box cardboard to make sure they were flat and wouldn't flex. I cut the cardboard a fraction of a millimeter smaller than the kit piece and then centered it on the kit piece. This left a small ridge around the perimeter, perfect for the circular edging piece to glue to. I also cut circular formers to beef up the engineering section and the warp engine. The formers also help keep the pieces circular.
The build was straightforward, although I had trouble getting the pylon for the engineering section to match the contours of the upper saucer properly. I wound up actually cutting a small wedge out of the inner ring of the upper hull to get it to fit; the pylons slid into the open wedge.
I'm not sure I got the forward dome on the warp engine properly, either. I couldn't get the petals to meet in the center, so I glued a disk punched from gold paper and glued it to the center. It looks good, but I'm not sure how accurate it is.
All in all, it was a fun build and I like the look of the Kelvin even more now. It is one of those ships that look good from every angle. I once read an interview -- I think it was with Rick Sternbach -- in which he said they had to be careful how they filmed some of the ships, particularly the Enterprise-D , because from some angles, it looked ugly. I really need to build a stand for it, since it unwieldy and is impossible to pose for photos. (And since I'm posting this on my iPad, I can only upload one photo per post....)
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