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Star Trek Model Kits: Enterprise B Improvements
Hi all. I know I’ve already announced the U.S.S. Enterprise 1701B is due out towards the end of the year. What I haven’t been able to announce until now was our plans for the kit.
Unlike many of our other reissues, this one will not include Aztec decals but we will be expanding the markings a little bit and will probably add Lakota markings. The more significant changes will be made to the kit parts themselves. We are reworking the surface detail of the secondary hull deck, add the recessed rectangles on each side of the front of the deflector trench and removing the recessed windows on the lower hull. The ones present weren’t accurate so we’ll add them back into the decal sheet. The rear of the neck will be bent appropriately. Lastly, we’ll be replacing the lower saucer with an all- new part. We’ve had Angelo Bastianelli of Gizmotron models work up the digital file for the part and it looks much better than the old one. It features a more accurate neck attachment and better lower sensor dome. The next step is having the factory do a mockup of the part for me to check out. I’ll keep you updated on these and other Star Trek model kit developments…
UPDATE: Since writing this blog post, I’ve gotten a nice surprise. (Actually this project has been a nice surprise overall in that it is moving at a nice pace with no serious problems… yet.) The mockup from the factory arrived just yesterday. It looked great. I took a couple quick shots and sent it back. So here are a couple shots of the mockup which was cut from the digital file.
Well, there goes all that work I did to accurize my old Enterprise B kit. It looks absolutely great, a vast improvement. Nice work, all involved!
Too bad, I was really looking forward to the aztec decals. They look great on the 1/1000 refit and would have looked awesome on this model as well.
This looks great, Jamie! Thanks for all the hard work you’re putting in on this reissue. I look forward to getting it! 🙂
Nice work guys , looking forward to this and more in the 1/1000 line.
Lakota Markings as well as Enterprise-B would be a nice touch too.
will the updated version still have the pannels lines on
the secondary hull as the old kit did? I believe they
don’t exsist on the shooting effects model and kinda
take away from the overal beauty of the ship.
fortress
Will Aztec decals be available separately for purchase, like your doing with the Reliant?
I’m really depressed that you won’t be including the aztek decals with this kit. I’ve absolutely loved the ones you’ve included in the most recent releases. Is there any chance you will offer them separately as you are doing with the reliant? The ones in the preview image look amazing.. it would be a shame to lose them altogether.
fortress- Yes, the raised lines will still be on the ship. Removing this kind of thing is difficult and expensive. It requires adding steel to an existing tool instead of removing it as is the case for removing the windows. The lines are very fine and I would think they would be relatively easy to remove by modelers.
Others- We hope to offer a separate decal set. We need to see how our other decal sets perform before we make this decision. Unfortunately we have discovered that large decals like we have been offering are a large percentage of the cost of a kit. On something like the 1:350 Refit, the higher price of the overall kit lessens the impact on the overall cost. On lower price kits, the cost gets too high for us. We are trying to find the right balance.
So, the decals on the 3 piece enterprise set have similar issues to the Enterprise C… are you going to issue replacement decals for these too? (enterprise b registry numbers are NCC-701-B and one is of the hull markings that says “starship enterprise” is a mirror immage)
By the way I got my replacement decal for the enterprise c graphic and it looks great!
This is absolutely excellent! I was just thinking today about making a Lakota with Round2’s re-release, so this is fantastic news. I am not disappointed about the decals as I can procure them elsewhere. That being said, I’d get ’em from you if you offered them.
Thanks a lot for the update!
We are currently looking into the 1:2500 Enterprise B decal problem and will make an announcement soon.
Would love to see those aztec decals for the 1/1000 Enterprise-B (the preview looks awesome) and the Enterprise-E is just begging for them as well.
Completed my 1/1000 Enterprise D today and wanted to say how impressed I am by this kit! It went together like a dream, and the decals are beyond top notch. The lifeboats are even numbered! (AWESOME LITTLE DETAIL!) I can’t recommend this kit enough.
Compared to these how are the ones for the larger clear kit looking?
I have the 3pk Enterprise set sitting right here and my Ent B decals are right, NCC-1701 B, don’t know about the other supposed mistake, but mine all look right.
I do still need to get a set of the Enterprise C decals sent to me….any way to get them without having to send the card in? I can take a picture of the kit and decals with my cell phone in front of it or something.
Since I am a Hobby Shop, and still have an Enterprise C on the shelf…would be nice to get a 2nd set for it so the customer has it when they buy it.
Elm City-
We’ll be replacing the AMT660 sheet #1 upon request. I’m not sure when the replacement sheets will be here though.
The postcard from any of our kits will work or send in a request through the part replacement link at the bottom of the round2models.com website.
We have determined the best approach is to send replacements to consumers as requested rather than sending to retailers or distributors as we felt delivery through those channels would be spotty.
decals on all future production runs will be corrected.
So what should we put on the card this time? Enterprise Set?
and is there any chance the replacement sheets will include a “-A” for the refit nacelles?
Yes.
and
No.
Jamie, I’ve been cranking out alot of builds of the latest release of the Batboat and 1/32nd Batmobile kits. Unfortunately the decals for these kits are having the same problem as the white stripes on the Petty charger kit. They desintigrate in the water.
I urge you to check with the printer doing these decals and get them to use a slightly heavier carrier coat.
In the meantime, anyone with these kits who intends to build them, use a decal bondr or non yellowing clearcoat on the decals before using them. This will strengthen them for the application.
On the plus side, the pinstripes for the Batmobile look great when applied! I thought originally they might be too orange but look really good on the car. Conversely the red stripes on the Batboat kit should be neon red, or the same color as those on the car.
Finally…since it recieves mention on the boat’s instruction sheet…dare we to hope for a 1/25th scale Batcopter? I’m thinking 1/25th scale copter with re-sized to 1/25th scale Batcycle. 😀
Okay, I just saw the ad for the re-release of the Batcycle…has it been re-sized to true 1/25th scale? Or is it the same size it was before?
Bats- We’ve heard some complaints about that and we are looking into it. If you have the remainder of a bad decal sheet, please send it to us so we can see the problem firsthand. We sometimes get complaints but we do not see the same problem when we investigate it.
We’d love to do a Batcopter. It is something we are looking into but no solid plans currently.
The Batcycle is a reissue of the old one. We’ve tweaked it just a little bit. The licensor made us change up the figures a little bit and we eliminated all of the recessed scallop lines on the bike. Then we expanded the decal sheets to include accurately shaped white scallop parts with a fine red pinstripe around them.
Okay, so no actual scale change for the cycle but I love the new decal sheet…with one exception, I don’t see the bat that goes atop the tank.
Here’s hoping the copter happens!
As for a ruined decal or parts thereof, should I send them care of you? Or directly to quality control? I will send a set in for evaluation, or one of your people could just try using a set and you’ll see them come apart. They don’t always come apart in the water, and they sometimes come apart on the car itself. I’m just saying I can send them in, but I think you would learn more by experiencing whats happening. Let me know, i’m always happy to help.
Bats-
You can put my name on the envelope. Our quality control is in China with me cracking the whip from here. I’ll definitely be trying them myself. I tried some here and found that one batch does seem brittle in that they break when trying to apply them, not breaking apart in the water, though. If you can, please write down the date code for us to track the batch yours came from. The date code can be found printed in white on the inside of the body or it is near the UPC on the flyer that would have been on the box bottom.
Jamie, how close are you to having the corrected decals for the 1/2500 Enterprise B done? I sent out the included post card about 2 weeks ago and was wondering when I could expect the decals. Thanks.
They haven’t come in yet. Due to the size, we had to have a small production run done. We couldn’t just have the names run separately like we did for the C. We are pretty good about sending stuff out as soon as we get it in. So if we have your card, you’ll be one of the first to receive a replacement.
Hey Jamie,
I’d imagine at this point – mid October with a December release looming – you know (and hopefully can reveal) if the E-B will come with the half-dozen necessary parts to back-date it to the Excelsior? Is there any chance this will be a 2-in-1 kit?
Ziz- Nope. You can read past blog entries to see why this was never a possibility.
I was looking over past blogs and my Enterprise B and Excelsior models, I still have one unbuilt. If there is a demand to release an Excelsior model you might be able to do it. Based on what I can see only four parts need to be made. 1. The top of the primary hull.
2. The bottom part of the secondary hull
3&4. The end caps on the upper front of the warp engine.
I could be missing something else. These four parts could be sold as an extra kit to anyone wanting to make the Excelsior. Maybe a survey card with the new Enterprise B kit would give you an ideal of the demand or lack of. Just something to think of, unless you already have.
We hope to retool the missing parts to bring back the Excelsior one day. I know there are a lot of modelers out there that would like to see that one come back.